The Meaning of Success
December 8, 2015
All of the MHSAA’s fall season tournaments have ended. A small sliver of our hundreds of member school teams are clutching championship trophies.
Thankfully, those few trophies do not define success.
Some teams won their first ever MHSAA Regional title this fall, and a few more won their first MHSAA District championship ... and those go down in their local lore as the most successful teams in those schools’ histories. Deservedly so.
But even those situations do not define success adequately.
Some teams had their first winning record in many years. Some teams didn’t accomplish that goal but won twice as many games as the year before; and they rightfully claimed their seasons a success.
Some teams lost almost every game but kept pulling together without back-biting or complaining. And that too is success.
I once told a team of T-ballers I was coaching that they had a perfect record: six wins and six losses. Six times they had to deal with victories; six times they had to deal with losses. That’s also a good definition of success.
And finally ... singer/songwriter Sam Baker has written this lyric about his aspirations to play professional ice hockey: “I failed well; and that made all the difference.”
Failing Boys
July 9, 2012
In the autumn of 2002, I included the following statement in a longer editorial in the MHSAA Bulletin:
“Year after year I go to league and conference scholar-athlete awards banquets and see girls outnumber boys by wide margins: 54 girls to 33 boys honored at a March event in mid-Michigan is typical of what has occurred many places over many years.
“Year after year, I attend senior honors programs and see girls outnumber boys: 147 awards to girls versus 70 awards to boys honored at a May event in mid-Michigan is typical.
“Look at these figures from the National Federation of State High School Associations:
• “68.3% of vocal music participants are girls.
• 66.4% of participants in group interpretation speech activities are girls.
• 63.3% of participants in individual speech events are girls.
• 62.7% of orchestra members are girls.
• 61% of dramatics participants are girls.”
Nothing since that time has changed my opinion that schools and society at large are expecting far too little of boys. It’s as if boys get a free pass from high expectations if they do sports and don’t do drugs. Far too little is asked of far too many of our male students.
Now add this to the story: There is a growing body of research that supports the premise that while high school sports participation is great for girls, it’s actually bad for high school boys. Bad because it leads to lower participation in non-athletic activities, lower achievement in the classroom, and lower scores on measures of personal conduct and character than their female counterparts.
Males are dropping out of high schools at higher rates and enrolling in colleges at lower rates than females. They’re abusing drugs at higher rates than females, and males are committing both violent and petty crimes at much higher rates than females. Could much of this be linked to the low expectations we have for high school students? Isn’t it time for organized advocacy on behalf of boys?