The Limitation of Rules – Part 1
September 2, 2016
From the age of 10 to 20, my position as a baseball player was catcher. Sometime during that decade I was taught to return the ball to the pitcher with authority, with a snap throw from my ear, targeting the glove-side shoulder of the pitcher.
I caught every inning of every game, including doubleheaders. In those years, there was less concern than today for protecting the arms of pitchers, and there was no thought given to the throwing arms of catchers.
Today, the shoulder of my throwing arm is shot; I cannot throw a ball overhand with any force.
But here’s the thing. I didn’t ruin my throwing arm in youth and school baseball; I wrecked it as an adult doing silly things with a tennis ball on the beach with my teenage son. We had a blast for a summer afternoon, and I’ve paid for it the rest of my life.
The point of this brief baseball bio is to demonstrate an example of the limitations of rules.
We can identify dozens of risks to student-athletes and we can promulgate an equal number of rules to help them avoid injuries in our programs; but we cannot protect them against a lack of common sense in our programs or accidents in other aspects of their lives.
Even if we implement new rules to limit the number of pitches by a player, what good is that if, after reaching the limit, the pitcher and catcher switch positions? Do we need a rule to address that coaching decision too?
Do we need rules that prohibit large students from practicing against small, or experienced players from competing against inexperienced? How would we ever monitor or enforce such rules? Where do rules leave off and common sense take over?
Even if we put players in bubble wrap for sports, what do we do about their decisions away from sports, perhaps in vehicles, with their friends and their cell phones? Where do laws and rules stop, and personal responsibility start?
Diversionary Tactics Backfire
September 24, 2013
Placing a stone in your left shoe will take your mind off a blister on your right foot; but it does not solve the problem.
Faced with domestic starvation and civil unrest, many dictators have created external enemies in hopes of distracting their countrymen and women and rallying their support. Think of North Korea as just one of dozens of examples, recent to ancient. It has even ocurred in the US, recently and throughout our nation’s history: strawmen vilified to distract us from other more pressing problems.
Closer to home, it is something like this strategy that may be at work in many school districts as they restructure and rename schools, or resort to closings and charters. And something like this is behind the state and federal emphases on standardized testing and schools of choice.
And really close to home, it was something like this at work in football. Faced with thousands of former players with alleged concussion-related illnesses filing suit against the National Football League, and bad publicity mounting, the NFL focused instead on youth football. We told them this strategy would backfire; but a professional league with more money than many nations was not inclined to listen to little guys like us.
The NFL went state by state to advance concussion legislation which was long on symbolism and low on substance, and totally lacking any enforcement capabilities. In state after state, the NFL paraded young people with sad stories in front of state legislators looking for good headlines.
So today, 49 states have new “concussion” laws; and participation rates in youth football are plummeting. Big surprise. But ironically, it’s plummeting at a time when school-sponsored football is the safest it has been since it was introduced to schools 100 years ago. The equipment is the best ever, the rules the most protective ever, the coaches and officials the best trained and most safety conscious ever.
Take a look at this quick video that tells the true story about school-sponsored football.