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Second Half by MHSAA

Our Times

November 11, 2011

It is in fashion to say that schools (and also school sports) are operating in a time of unprecedented austerity.  This is not true.  Not even close.

While it may be true that recent times in Michigan have seen a deeper and longer recession than most people have lived through before, it is not true that these are the worst times ever for school sports.

Imagine the austerity, and imagine yourself administering school sports during the Great Depression when unemployment was three times today’s rate.  Or during World War II when gasoline was rationed and MHSAA tournaments were cancelled.  Now those were tough times!

What may make us think at this moment that these current times are the worst times or are unique times is that these are our times, and we don’t yet see light shining at the end of the tunnel through which we’re traveling.

Because it affects us now and isn’t something we’re reading about in history, we tend to believe these times are somehow much worse and that today’s problems are somehow of such a different type that our programs are at greater risk than ever before.

It is possible, of course, that our reaction to these times will be unique and will make these times the worst ever.  In other words, it’s not the troubled times per se, but our reaction to them that might set these times apart from all others.

It is possible that we will chop and change school sports so much that we never get the program back on the course of truly school-sponsored, student-centered educational athletics – a brand of sports unique in the world.

More Than A Myth

September 5, 2014

Without a sure sense of what the outcome should be, we are engaging school administrators and others in a year-long discussion of possible revisions in out-of-season coaching rules.

We know that we would like the outcome to be simpler rules that are easier to understand and enforce; and that we would like to permit coaches to spend more time with student-athletes out of season; and that we want none of this to make coaches feel like they must coach one sport year-round to be successful or make student-athletes feel like they must play a single sport year-round just to make the team.

If there is a policy that can accomplish the good that we hope for and avoid the bad that we fear, we haven’t yet found it or developed it.

There is a temptation to characterize the multi-sport athlete as an anachronism or myth of modern school sports. However, the multi-sport athlete remains the backbone of interscholastic athletic programs in Class C and D schools.

And the multi-sport athlete still appears to be the ideal athlete, regardless of school size. It is an instructive reminder, I think, that the Lansing State Journal named a three-sport star from Ithaca as its high school male athlete of the year for 2013-14, and it was a four-sport athlete from Eaton Rapids who was named the high school female athlete of the year.

Following my presentation to coaches, student-athletes and parents at Jonesville High School last month, a student approached me to offer thanks for our sponsoring bowling. Jonesville won the MHSAA’s 2014 Division 4 Boys Bowling championship; and the young man who thanked me participates in football, bowling and baseball for his school, representing in my mind the kind of student we should strive the hardest to serve as we develop, revisit and revise policies and programs.