No Returns or Refunds
January 18, 2013
The “Boxing Day” tradition of New Zealand, like most of the current or former British Empire, is to return to stores on the day after Christmas the unwanted or ill-fitting gifts of Christmas. My wife and I exchanged no gifts this year, except for the gift of time with each other and our China-based son and his wife in New Zealand. So we had nothing to return, and we’ve had moments to savor.
Outside our window on Christmas Day was an extinct volcano rising 758 feet above New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty coast. Its peak was hidden in clouds sent by the remnants of Cyclone Evan. We couldn’t see the top of Mt. Maunganui; but our fragment of the Roberts family who had gathered for this holiday, below the equator and on the other side of the International Dateline, decided on a “Christmas climb” anyway.
Attempting a challenge whose goal is shrouded in uncertainty is an every-season experience of coaches, which may be the opiate that draws so many men and women to that vocation for so long, and consumes coaches so far beyond what are reasonable hours for most other occupations.
Even in the more mundane existence of a state high school association administrator, it is the unknown of each year, week and day that energizes the grind. How boring it would be to know what’s at the end of each climb. How exciting it can be to come to a problem-solving table with good ideas and also with the expectation that the best ideas will come out of collaboration with others’ good ideas.
I count myself among the fortunate folks who, at the end of most days and weeks and years, do not feel inclined to want to return the gifts that each has brought. And I’m still attracted to the discovery of what the next cloud-shrouded climb may reveal.
Seal of Approval
February 12, 2016
“Sanction” is an interesting word. Sometimes it is used in a negative way, as in penalties, like the U.S. trade embargoes recently lifted on Iran and Cuba. Other times, to sanction something is to endorse it or at least approve its existence.
It is in this second, more positive sense that school sports uses the word “sanction” with respect to athletic events. And with respect to interstate meets and contests, the MHSAA adheres to the Sanctioning Bylaws of the national organization to which it belongs, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
Without getting into the policies and procedures, here is what the NFHS says about the philosophy of sanctioning interstate athletic events:
Interscholastic programs should serve educational goals. To this end, schools have an obligation to conduct certain threshold inquiries about events in which their students may participate. On occasion, additional inquiries and oversight may be appropriate at the conference, district, state or national levels. In order to perform their “inquiry and oversight” functions fairly and efficiently, decision-makers at various levels have developed sanctioning procedures. The specific purposes served by event-sanctioning procedures include the following:
1) Sanctioning enhances the likelihood that events will adhere to sound and detailed criteria which meet the specific requirements of a school or a group of schools based upon experience and tradition.
2) Sanctioning serves to promote sound regulation of the conditions under which students and teams may compete.
3) Sanctioning is a means of encouraging well-managed competition.
4) Sanctioning adds an element of “due diligence” that encourages compliance with state association rules and regulations.
5) Sanctioning protects the welfare of student-athletes.
6) Sanctioning protects the existing programs sponsored by member schools and thereby promotes the opportunity for larger numbers of student-athletes to gain the benefits of interscholastic competition.
7) Sanctioning helps reduce the abuses of excessive competition.
8) Sanctioning promotes uniformity in obtaining approval for events.
9) Sanctioning helps protect students from exploitation.
Interstate event sanctioning at the NFHS level promotes financial transparency and equivalency of treatment of participating high schools. NFHS sanctioning forms are available on the NFHS website (www.nfhs.org).