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Our Tools

March 11, 2014

MHSAA staff does very many things, including these two tasks: (1) we use the tools we have; and (2) we strive to develop more effective tools.

The tools we have are limited. We don’t have a huge staff to conduct investigations. We don’t have subpoena power to coerce disclosure of testimony and documents. We don’t have rules to cover every situation.

Thus, it feels like some people get away with things; and sometimes they do. We don’t have the tools to catch them or convict them. That is the inescapable condition of every voluntary statewide athletic association in the US.

But the other thing we do is keep working on better tools. Rules with broader reach and/or fewer holes. Penalties that are a greater deterrent to some people, and more punitive to others when deterrence doesn’t work.

Developing new rules is a tough process. Sometimes it takes months or years to get membership buy-in. Sometimes the “no-brainers,” so-called “easy solutions,” get shot down by lawyers who demand the most narrow remedy to each and every excruciatingly detailed problem.

We work today with the tools we’ve been given through the democratic processes of our voluntary association. And we keep working on ways to sharpen and strengthen those tools in ways that are reasonable in breadth and depth, rationally related to the basic tenets of a voluntary association, one of which is local control. Obviously, these are two of the more difficult things we do.

The National Anthem

November 1, 2016

The National Anthem has been in the news this fall ... across the nation when players have demonstrated discontent during its playing at sporting events ... in Michigan over administrators' decisions about how frequently it was played when multiple sporting events were at the same venue on the same day or night.

Frankly, my biggest complaint is not about peaceful demonstrations of deeply felt feelings. And my complaint is not about game management determinations to have the National Anthem played or performed just once when there is a JV and varsity double-header at a site.

In fact, I welcome those debates, because at least it causes people to think. For my biggest complaint for many years has been the lack of thought that goes into most occasions when the National Anthem is a part of sporting events. How casual we often are. The National Anthem is so frequent and routine at most high school events that, sometimes, spectators barely notice.

I don't mind that most spectators don't sing the National Anthem – it's an almost un-singable song. And the words – glorifying war – are hardly what I'd like recited at sporting events, which too often are stupidly equated with war.

What I do mind is forgetfulness, both of the sacrifices that have secured this free country and of the toleration for freedom of expression that our secured freedom protects.