Opportunity Lost
October 25, 2013
This fall as I conducted Update meetings around our state, I met one-on-one with potential candidates for an administrative position the MHSAA has posted in anticipation of Assistant Director Randy Allen’s retirement in early 2014.
This is a part of the slow, personal process we have cultivated during the past 20 years that I credit for gathering our current collection of committed administrators that are excellent in so many ways and a pleasure to work with day-in and day-out.
We last used this process a decade ago in leading us to hire Assistant Directors Mark Uyl and Kathy Westdorp; and realizing that I had not conducted a series of one-on-one discussions in ten years, I have been lamenting great opportunities lost; for these conversations are beneficial in two important ways:
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First, we learn about the lives of many terrific men and women; and I’m forever closer to them as human beings, whether or not they get the job the MHSAA has open.
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Second, we learn of the hopes and fears these experienced people have for educational athletics; and I’m constantly putting their ideas into action at the MHSAA, whether or not they are ever employed at the MHSAA.
But I now lament a huge opportunity lost. Had I taken the time to visit with a colleague after every Update meeting I’ve conducted over the past 28 years, that would have provided more than 200 opportunities to learn about the lives and ideas of these people – the MHSAA’s richest resource.
I read recently that a vibrant organization is one that is always hiring, whether or not there is a job opening. That is, the organization is always interviewing its best people – always learning about them and from them, and is able to tap this resource promptly when opportunities arise.
Urgency
November 8, 2011
I still have in my files and in my mind Joe Klein’s Newsweek editorial of Sept. 21, 1992, that took Bill Clinton to task for his “small themes” during the closing months of his campaign for the U.S. presidency.
Never one to be shy in his bully pulpit at Newsweek (or in his then anonymously published novel Primary Colors based on the 1992 Democratic presidential primary), Klein wrote that Clinton’s late campaign efforts were “rhetorically flaccid, intellectually unadventurous, morally undemanding.”
In response, Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, resorted to a sports metaphor: “The way to the goal line is to keep running off tackle. Four yards and a cloud of dust.”
This “take no chances, do no harm, run out the clock” spirit and strategy that so infuriated Klein will not be seen at the MHSAA. Expectations and efforts will be in continuous crescendo no matter how close the goal line gets. In fact, as it is with any good football team in the “red zone,” the closer the goal line looms, the greater the sense of urgency there will be.
There is no greater proof at this moment to our most inner circle of constituents – high school athletics directors – than the MHSAA’s work with ArbiterSports to become the first state high school association in America to develop, and to deliver at least initially at no cost to all member high schools, a comprehensive suite of electronic tools for athletic department administration. This is a responsibility, and risk, that could have been left to others; but we’re being motivated by undertaking the task here and now – first in the nation – so that the product is tailor-made for high school sports, Michigan’s way.