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No Guns in Schools

April 29, 2015

It seemed crazy to me when I first learned that “gun-free zones” really were not free of guns.

Apparently, while many school sports administrators and officials hustled to replace blank-shooting starter pistols with different kinds of devices for signaling the start of races at cross country, swimming and track events, state laws were carving out exceptions to allow other people to carry guns into those very same events.

Now there’s an effort by some to trade a ban on “open carry” in exchange for permission to carry concealed weapons onto school grounds.

We’re proud to know our colleagues at the Michigan Association of School Boards and the Michigan Association of School Administrators and the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals are all saying “No” to any such deal.

I suspect that many of those very same school board members, superintendents and principals are gun owners. But they also seem to appreciate that “gun-free” should mean what it says; that except for law enforcement personnel in the exercise of their official duties, guns have no place in our schools or at school events.

Balancing Football Playoffs

April 18, 2017

Every time the Michigan High School Athletic Association Football Playoffs have been expanded, two voices have been heard – one complaining that too many teams or divisions have watered down the tournament; the other advocating that every school should qualify for the tournament regardless of its regular-season performance.

The playoffs have expanded from 32 to 64 to 128 to 256 to 272 teams; and for 2017, with the addition of 16 more 8-player teams, to 288 of the 626 MHSAA member schools’ football teams in Michigan.

We have reached the point where 46 percent of the schools which sponsor football qualify for the Football Playoffs, and we are approaching closely the point of qualifying every team with winning records during the regular season.

Those stats sound about right for a collision sport conducted mostly outdoors in a cold climate for teenagers. A longer tournament is unwise; a larger tournament is unneeded.

What is needed and wise is more attention to the regular season, and especially to practices which occur at least five times more frequently than games. That’s where the teaching and learning of football skills and life lessons can be everyday occurrences for every team in Michigan.