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Out-Punting Our Coverage

March 19, 2013

Any traveler to the Atlantic coast of any Central American country will witness firsthand the arrogance of the human race.

Strewn along almost every shore is the waste of nations outliving their means.  Plastic in all shapes and colors, from products of all types – bottles, toys, sandals, tools.

Island nations to the east, unable to cope with the volume of their waste, cast it off covertly under cover of night.  Oceangoing vessels large and small heave it overboard.

My wife puts it this way:  “We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves.”  Humans have fantastic abilities to create, but we do so without conscience, without caring enough about consequences.

This clearly applies to the world’s waste problem – from cast-off containers to used cars to computers made obsolete in a matter of months.  We keep producing more and more, without plans for the waste of producing new products or the waste created by making existing things obsolete.

In the Pacific Ocean, a mass of trash the size of Texas is circulating as if there were a drain.  But there isn’t one.  No easy answer to flush human waste – the excrement of our greed – to some other place where it will do no harm.

In Chinese cities today the air, water and land are toxic – much as it was in developing US cities around 1900 – as China takes its turn to poison its people in the name of progress.

That we can do something doesn’t mean we should do it.  In sports terms, the human race has out-punted its coverage, and the consequences are far more dire than a punt return for a touchdown.

Supporting Sports Officials

February 20, 2015

There recently has been some criticism that the MHSAA hasn’t “had the backs” of sports officials regarding a proposal for a new state law.

To make a difference of opinion about legislative strategy the litmus test of MHSAA support for officials is misguided at best and manipulative at worst.

Moreover, from the standpoint of coaches and spectators, the MHSAA is much too ready to support officials, even when officials misapply a game rule or misjudge a contest situation. That we always back officials, even when they are wrong, is a criticism that resonates with the public far more than the recent, rare criticism that we don’t have officials’ backs on a piece of legislation that we believe lacks merit.

Despite the hype and hope, there are two things the proposed legislation will not do: 

First, additional legal sanctions will not dissuade someone who has momentarily lost his or her mind to pause and think, “Oh yeah, If I slug this person, there’s an extra penalty.” There is no evidence that such legislation works as a deterrent to emotional outbursts.

Second, putting such legislation on the books will not improve sportsmanship on the front lines. Such laws are empty words; improving sportsmanship is year-round, grassroots work of real substance.

Because our energies are invested in the ongoing work of improving sportsmanship in interscholastic athletics’ special niche in the world of sports, the MHSAA has been known nationwide for several decades as a high school association with great passion for good sportsmanship and innovative programs to improve sportsmanship.

This week alone we have thousands of students and others voluntarily watching videos promoting school spirit and good sportsmanship as the fourth annual “Battle of the Fans” concludes. This program, born in Michigan, is now spreading to our counterpart organizations across the U.S.

This week, and almost every week, we have staff traveling “anytime, anywhere” to deliver face-to-face education to groups of high school coaches who, more than anyone else, influence the behaviors of both players and spectators.

Through the years, we have promoted sportsmanship with audio and video and print promotions. We’ve conducted statewide, league and local sportsmanship summits as well as team captain and student leadership workshops. We have rewarded good sportsmanship, and penalized bad.

The MHSAA’s Constitution requires every member school to adopt a code of good sportsmanship for its athletes, coaches and spectators, an educational program to promote good sportsmanship, and a system of progressive discipline for failure to behave according to the code of good sportsmanship. A condition of MHSAA membership is to demonstrate that those requirements are being met.

Time and money spent on real solutions, not symbolism, is the MHSAA’s approach to creating and maintaining a higher level of sportsmanship. And it’s the best way for the MHSAA to demonstrate its ongoing support for contest officials.