My Best Man
January 15, 2013
Upon the death of my father last month, a sports writer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who was preparing a story on my father’s career as athlete, coach and Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association executive director, asked for my insights about Dad and his impact on me. I could have written a book, but here’s what I had space to say . . . just the right length for a blog:
“Dad served at a time before electronic media and online meetings when state high school association executive directors traveled their states doing rules meetings, thus building stronger relationships with coaches and officials than is common in our work today. And in Dad's case, because he was THE expert in high school wrestling rules in the United States, Dad traveled the country presenting wrestling rules meetings in states where wrestling was an emerging high school sport. It is not an exaggeration to say Dad was the ‘father of high school wrestling in America.’
“Dad and I worked together when he headed the WIAA and I was an assistant director at the National Federation of State High School Associations in the 1970s, allowing us to form an even closer bond in both our personal and professional lives than most fathers and sons enjoy. In those days, when there was a particularly difficult speaking assignment at a national meeting on school sports, Dad would be one of the first people whose name came to mind to address that topic. He was a forceful speaker; and I expect that my nationwide speaking trail owes a great debt to the many times as a youngster that I traveled with Dad when he gave sports banquet speeches.
“I'm told I idolized Dad when he coached, and know I admired him as a state association executive, and he was my closest male friend ever -- even ‘Best Man’ at my wedding. He was a great model as a father, husband and leader.
“At his retirement dinner in December of 1985, a spokesperson on behalf of the state's coaches said: ‘John, we didn't always agree with your decisions, but we never once doubted your motives.’ I can't think of a greater compliment for any man who worked so long in such a controversial line of work, which Dad loved so much.”
A Rite of Spring
March 21, 2015
It is inevitable in March, as predictable as May flowers after April showers, that the weeks of District Basketball Tournaments will bring criticism, and calls to seed those tournaments so top ranked teams don’t face one another in early round games.
The MHSAA’s tournament has been unseeded for 90 years; and while we should never be slaves to the past, we should always be respectful and appreciate that smart people of previous generations had many of the same discussions we are having today; and they determined that the blind draw was best.
While the preference for the blind draw has prevailed in recent years, the almost addictive attention of the media and public to the “bracketology” of NCAA basketball tournaments appears to have improved the chances that some form of seeding will eventually be applied to the MHSAA Basketball Tournament and, in doing so, join a half dozen other sports for which the MHSAA employs at least a limited seeding plan for at least one level of those tournaments.
The challenge before us is not intellectual – seeding tournaments is not rocket science. No, the challenge is political – forming consensus for a plan that does not lead to extra travel and expense for participating schools, and that can be easily understood and simply administered at multiple sites. We are talking about 256 District tournament sites – 128 each in the Girls and Boys Basketball Tournaments. The problems and pitfalls of seeding tournaments of this magnitude are nothing the colleges have tried to tackle.
And no one should be deluded that seeding is a “no-brainer” that “everyone supports.” That is not accurate. There are many people who enjoy the fact that there are top-notch matchups every night of the District tournament weeks, and not all delayed to the nights of District finals. And there will be little enthusiasm from poorly seeded teams which are forced to drive past a closer opponent to get clobbered by a more distant opponent.
While postseason tournaments are the MHSAA’s “bread and butter” program, tournament seeding is not a defining or fundamental issue of educational athletics that requires our urgent or concentrated attention. Promoting participant health and safety, for example, demands much more attention. I’m not opposed to seeding; I just don’t give it the same importance as so much else we are challenged to do.