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Predictable Problems

April 9, 2012

A completely predictable theme of this year is that as schools continue to cut support for school sports, they bring more controversy to school sports.

It is impossible to avoid serious problems running a comprehensive interscholastic athletic program involving many participants, lots of spectators, great emotion and some risk of injury, without dedicating competent full-time staff to its supervision.

Two emerging trends since schools have trimmed support for interscholastic athletics are . . .

  1. more mistakes are being made (not because of more deception but because of more distractions – too little time on task); and

  2. more of the oversights are being discovered later in the season.  So late, in fact, that MHSAA tournament brackets are left empty. We had a team claim a Boys District Basketball Tournament trophy one week without playing the District championship game.  The next week another team received a Boys Regional Basketball Tournament trophy without playing the title game. In each case, the opposing team had advanced with an ineligible player, and had to withdraw.

If we reduce time on task, if we minimize training and support, we invite mistakes and oversights, which invites forfeits and injuries, which incites controversy in the school and community.

Fracking in School Sports

May 1, 2015

First there were rumors, then there were reports, and now there are beginning to be results from geological surveys warning that the process of fracking in oil and gas exploration and deep ground extraction is increasing the frequency of earthquakes in several parts of the United States.

I want to say, “Duh! How could it not?” Why would it surprise any rational human being that the delicate blue marble we inhabit would not get off kilter when we bore deep into the surface with drills and explosive charges and then pump water at high pressure into the tunnels we create and the crevices we exploit? When I put that picture in my mind, I shudder.

Often I picture the world of school sports like this marble we inhabit. Sometimes I see exploiters drilling deep into our core, dropping explosives, applying pressure, and extracting what they believe are valuable resources while laying waste to everything else, including very much that is very precious to very many other people – in fact, to most athletes, coaches, administrators, officials, parents and spectators.

We should pay attention to the times when we feel our foundation shaking, even just a little. We should make it difficult for the exploiters to extract our elite, especially when they disregard and lay waste to everything else that holds our world – educational athletics – together.