Overengineering
December 4, 2012
“Overengineering” is anathema to most product manufacturers. Generally, manufacturers desire to put no more time and money into a product than is necessary. They decide upon a reasonable lifespan for a product, and then they use materials and parts that, with rare exception, have been proven to last that long. They do not care to produce a product that lasts longer than the consumer desires; they do not want to invest resources where they won’t see a return.
An exception to this general rule is invoked by those manufacturing products which, if they break, will kill or maim people. Airplanes are the classic example: they’re built with multiple redundancies and with materials and parts that have been tested to last much longer than necessary. The potential for catastrophic loss of life demands this. They will use a part that’s tested to last 20 years, and replace it after ten years just to be safe.
I suspect that some observers of the MHSAA’s recent campaign to increase sports safety training for coaches and modify playing rules that may endanger participants are critical that we’re asking too much, that we’re doing more than is necessary. But frankly, that’s exactly what we intend. When it comes to participant safety, overengineering of policies and procedures ought to be our goal.
Football’s Future
March 20, 2012
Many folks, including me, will too often focus on the destination more than the trip. More on results than process. The end more than the means.
This is epidemic in sports, on all levels. There’s so much focus on the postseason that it overshadows the regular season.
In contrast, in educational athletics, we are supposed to hold to the principle that opportunities for teaching and learning are as plentiful, maybe more so, in regular season as in tournaments, at subvarsity levels as at varsity, during practices as during games.
This disease affects football as much as any high school sport. There’s been too much focus on the end of the season – playoffs. Postseason tournaments have been the demise of many great Thanksgiving Day high school football classics across the country. Playoffs continue to ruin rivalries and collapse conferences nationwide.
And, disturbingly, the focus on the end of the season misses what is most wrong with football, and may be most threatening to its future. It’s practice. Specifically, what’s allowed during preseason practice and then at practice throughout the season.
We can predict that, in high school football’s future, two-a-day practices will be fewer, practice hours will be shorter and activities will be different. Among proposals we will be presented (and should seriously consider) will be:
If this all sounds silly or radical, remember that the NCAA and NFL are already making such changes. NFL players face contact in practice on only 14 days during a 17-week regular season. Meanwhile, many high school coaches have kids knocking heads and bruising bodies two to four days a week, all season long. Giving critics the impression that interscholastic football for teens is more brutal than the higher levels of football for grown men. Inviting interference from people who think they know better.
Actually, we know better; and we need to do better. Soon.