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Our Job

January 29, 2013

When I’m asked to describe the MHSAA’s job in a three-second sound bite, I say:  “Our job is to protect and promote educational athletics.”

Give me three seconds longer and I’ll say: “Our job is to protect and promote the values and value of student-centered, school-sponsored sports.”

Give me three seconds longer and I’ll add “. . . by raising standards for, and increasing participation in, educational athletics.”

And give me time to complete the thought and I’ll add that we do this through:

    • training for coaches, officials and athletic directors;
    • tournaments that keep sportsmanship levels high and both expenses and health risks low; and
    • telling the story to these groups: students and parents, school personnel, and the media and public.

We provide training and tournaments, and we tell the story of school-based sports.

That’s the job.  And it’s how we judge the “good idea du jour” that bombards our office.  We can’t do everything.  To do so would not be doing our job well.

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.)