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Marriage Reflections

October 18, 2013

Recently, and for the first time, I drew parallels between marriage and the hiring of staff. It occurred when a gray-haired, ponytailed officiant in the Phoenix foothills exhorted the wedding couple to be “the mirror of their partner’s best values.”

Hearing this, I measured myself against the best values of my own wife of 41 ½ years, thinking how much stronger it could make our marriage and my character if, in fact, I actually did reflect the best of my bride.
 
And then my mind wandered to one of my current preoccupations - completing the selection of the MHSAA’s newest administrative staff member.

We want our newest staff person to be everything we need and want, immediately filling every hole and completing our wish list. Frankly, that’s impossible.

But, the one thing I am sure we must have and can have is a person who mirrors the MHSAA’s best values – an individual who reflects the core values of school-sponsored, student-centered sports and of the MHSAA on its best days as it serves and supports educational athletics.

And just as it’s not lethally late for a husband in his fifth decade of marriage to work harder to reflect his wife’s best values, neither is it too tardy for veterans of the MHSAA staff to focus on our reflection of the best values of school sports and the organization that has served educational athletics for ten decades.

Double Win Practice Policies

February 22, 2013

The MHSAA’s third health and safety thrust for the next four years focuses on practice rules, especially early in the fall season.

Here we will be especially interested in finding “double wins,” that is, policies that simultaneously enhance acclimatization and reduce head contact.

In football, for example, this could mean increasing the number of days without protective pads before the first practice in full pads.  Michigan requires three days, but there’s a trend toward four or five days in other states.

Football might also limit any day to a single practice in pads, following the lead of colleges and a growing number of state high school associations that are restricting two-a-day practices in pads on the same day or on consecutive days.

Both of these changes could make acclimatization more gradual and healthy, and reduce the occurrences for contact to the head:  two priorities as practice policies are reviewed and revised.

The MHSAA’s sport committees, sometimes with their work augmented by that of special task forces, are being charged with these responsibilities.