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No Super-Sizing Needed

March 23, 2013

Airline travel today presents a confusing array of frequent flyer and credit card loyalty programs:  Premier Access; Silver, Gold or Platinum Elite; etc.  They allow a traveler to check bags without cost, visit airline club rooms free of charge, and board planes ahead of the rest of the herd.

The problem is that the airlines have established so many levels of elitism that the result is a confusing, meaningless mess.  Which reminds me of other efforts to distinguish good, better and best, especially in youth sports.

In basketball, ice hockey, soccer, volleyball and other youth sports there are now so many programs that promote themselves as more elite than others, and so many tournaments that advertise themselves to be above others in terms of status or the presence of college recruiters, that the efforts to distinguish themselves are not at all meaningful, and almost laughable if they were not fooling and fleecing so many children and parents.

In contrast, school sports is not engaged in the never-ending addiction to add layers of competitions and levels of championships.  We are just fine with league, district, regional and statewide tournaments and trophies.  We do not need national-scope tournaments and all-star events.

In school sports, the titles don’t need super-sizing, and the trophies don’t need to be taller than the participants.

Reality Check

July 7, 2015

The organization I worked for immediately prior to this 29-year run with the MHSAA utilized “harnessed hero worship” as its principal strategy for evangelism. It was generally effective; but because of human frailties, some of the heroes would disappoint us and disrupt the important work.

This experience and others over the years have caused me to, at most, only feign excitement when someone suggests we get this or that “Big Name” to keynote a conference or endorse an initiative. I prefer substance over style, and staying power over shooting stars.

All of this likely made me susceptible to shouting “Right On” when I read the May 14, 2015 blog post of Matt Amaral, a teacher in California. The title: “Dear Steph Curry, Now That You Are MVP, Please Don’t Come Visit My High School.”

Regarding celebrity worship, Mr. Amaral writes that we need less of it.

“Coming to poor high schools like mine isn’t going to help any of these kids out; in fact, it might make things worse.”

Amaral explains that unlike Curry (who is an example and not a target), the students he teaches are not genetic giants and do not have the resources and support that separate the less than one percent from the rest of us. “What you won’t see,” Amaral writes in his “open letter” to Curry, “is the fact that most of these kids don’t have a back-up plan for their dream of being you.”

“They are already very good at dreaming about being rich and famous; what we need them to do is get a little more realistic about what is in their control. We need less of an emphasis on sports and celebrity in high school, because it is hurting these kids too much as it is.”

(You can find more of Mr. Amaral’s provocative thoughts at teach4real.com.)