Making Participation Valuable
October 23, 2012
Boiled down, the role of state high school associations is to both protect and promote school sports, the second of which I comment on here.
It’s my experience that the most effective promotions speak for themselves. The most effective promotions promote the fundamentals of school sports, like scholarship and sportsmanship and safety. The most effective promotions provide tools to the membership at the grass roots level.
In Michigan we have a few initiatives whose primary purpose is to promote the value of participation, but we have many initiatives that encourage and equip those who make participation valuable.
For example, we administer the Coaches Advancement Program (CAP) all year long around the state to assist in the preparation of coaches for their important responsibilities. Across the state during August through October we conduct Athletic Director In-Service programs. Like many states, we conduct rules meetings for coaches and officials year-round, statewide.
Each spring we have a training program for local officials association trainers and for their officers and leaders and assignors. We conduct an annual Officials’ Awards and Alumni Banquet.
Every other February we conduct a Women in Sports Leadership Conference; and in the off years we provide mini-grants to support similar efforts on a more local level.
We conduct Sportsmanship Summits and provide mini-grants to leagues and local school districts to implement sportsmanship efforts at the local level where they can be most effective. We conduct Team Captains Clinics and other student leadership events, and we provide mini-grants to support similar efforts on the league or local level.
None of these initiatives promotes the value of participation per se. All of these initiatives encourage and equip those who make participation valuable. That’s where I think our promotional efforts are best made.
Changing Culture
August 21, 2012
It has made good sense that the MHSAA limit its attention to those matters of schools that are related to sports, and leave to others the problems and programs that involve all students and the entire school. But for several subjects, this general rule needs exceptions. For example . . .
Over the years we have introduced tobacco, alcohol and other drug use awareness programs through school sports programs, noting that student-athletes can be the leaders to most efficiently change the attitudes of the larger student population. This has met with modest success; but there are troubling studies that indicate male athletes are actually more likely than other students to use and abuse alcohol. So today we can justify the use of resources on tobacco, alcohol and other drug education not only because it is helpful for reaching other students, but also because the sports program itself needs this attention.
In the wake of a hazing tragedy in the marching band program of one university and the sexual abuse tragedy in the football program of another, I have been convicted to think more about programs under our watch here at the MHSAA and to think about how local school sports programs can be involved in improving the safe culture of our schools, which from time to time even here in Michigan have witnessed embarrassment and heartbreak.
Here at the MHSAA we are reviewing and plugging holes in our policies and procedures for MHSAA events where adults and students directly interact, which occurs much more now than a decade ago. This includes everything our Student Advisory Council does, our Women in Sports Leadership Conference and other student leadership events, as well as the locker room and lodging policies for MHSAA tournaments. It is likely that many local schools are years ahead of us on such policies, and we will learn and borrow from them.
Where schools might do more is to address bullying, hazing and all other forms of harassment; and it may be that – as with tobacco, alcohol and other drug education – sports not only can be used as a vehicle for changing the culture of schools, sports may also have a special need for the attention, and for a change in culture.