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Making an Impact

September 11, 2012

Here’s a provocative statement by David Gergen, professor of public policy and director of the Center for Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a frequent political analyst for CNN:  “The nonprofits making the greatest impacts these days are entrepreneurial, adaptive, outward-looking, and sometimes a little messy.”

I like that, and I think using these four features or criteria to evaluate the MHSAA now and in the mid-range future would be good for those we serve.

  • Are we entrepreneurial?  How could we be more so?

  • Are we adaptive?  Are we flexible in how we do things?

  • Are we outward-looking?  Are we impacting school sports broadly and deeply?  Does the impact have staying power?  Are schools better because of what we do?  Are communities stronger for our doing it?

  • Are we sometimes a little messy?

I suspect that if we are the first three – entrepreneurial, adaptive and outward-looking – then messiness is a natural byproduct.  There will be starts and stops, failures before successes, changes.  There will be disagreements and compromises.

I suspect that we will have to tolerate a little more messiness if we are to move forward, even faster than we have, and if we are to have impact, even greater than we have.

Bowl Games Are Bad

October 6, 2014

The idea to conduct one or more high school football bowl games in Florida in late December is a bad idea on every possible level of consideration. The idea will triumph only if greed trumps good sense.

A misguided marketing firm is trying again, this time attempting to bribe schools and state high school associations to bend or break their rules. A national media chain is trumpeting the plan to give some legs to its foolish national rankings. So there is some buzz about the plan, but no brains.

At a time when concerns rage for excessive head contact and concussions in football, no responsible party would for a single second think seriously about adding more football practices or games for school-age players.

Well before late December, high school football has ended, and winter sports are well underway with practices and competition that are far more important than several more weeks of practice and another game of football.

How could we ever allow one team to have an extra month more of football practice than all others? How is that fair to all the other football teams?

The answer is that it’s not fair to the football programs of other schools; it’s not fair to the other sports at the school involved; and it’s not healthy for the football players involved.