The Limits of Planning
July 27, 2015
Like many Michiganders, I took a summer vacation. And as I always do, I planned the trip thoroughly ... from flights to sights to accommodations to restaurants, but still leaving a few details to spontaneity and serendipity.
This summer's trip was to Newfoundland, where winter was very grudgingly giving up its grip. Everything about summer was slow in coming, and the thousands-of-years-in-the-making icebergs that had drifted down from Greenland were several weeks later than usual to disappear off Newfoundland's coast.
It was a trip that once again reminded me of the limits of planning.
Understand, I am an ardent advocate of planning. First, I am my mother's son who would often say that "Happiness is having a plan." Second, I'm so obsessed with planning that I committed to writing two decades ago what should happen when I die, which actuarial tables inform me should be even longer than two decades in the future.
But once again, all my planning for this vacation failed to provide its best moments. The best accommodation was the one I did not book in advance; the best restaurant was the one I had not heard of before we departed from Michigan; the best iceberg adventure was the one we had on our own after taking a wrong turn, not the commercial tours we took in groups.
Planning is a necessary part of leadership and it is essential for the success of any enterprise. But so is staying open to hunches, going with your gut and learning from mistakes. This often makes for the most memorable vacations as well as the most meaningful vocations.
Football’s Future
March 20, 2012
Many folks, including me, will too often focus on the destination more than the trip. More on results than process. The end more than the means.
This is epidemic in sports, on all levels. There’s so much focus on the postseason that it overshadows the regular season.
In contrast, in educational athletics, we are supposed to hold to the principle that opportunities for teaching and learning are as plentiful, maybe more so, in regular season as in tournaments, at subvarsity levels as at varsity, during practices as during games.
This disease affects football as much as any high school sport. There’s been too much focus on the end of the season – playoffs. Postseason tournaments have been the demise of many great Thanksgiving Day high school football classics across the country. Playoffs continue to ruin rivalries and collapse conferences nationwide.
And, disturbingly, the focus on the end of the season misses what is most wrong with football, and may be most threatening to its future. It’s practice. Specifically, what’s allowed during preseason practice and then at practice throughout the season.
We can predict that, in high school football’s future, two-a-day practices will be fewer, practice hours will be shorter and activities will be different. Among proposals we will be presented (and should seriously consider) will be:
If this all sounds silly or radical, remember that the NCAA and NFL are already making such changes. NFL players face contact in practice on only 14 days during a 17-week regular season. Meanwhile, many high school coaches have kids knocking heads and bruising bodies two to four days a week, all season long. Giving critics the impression that interscholastic football for teens is more brutal than the higher levels of football for grown men. Inviting interference from people who think they know better.
Actually, we know better; and we need to do better. Soon.