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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.

Making an Impact

September 11, 2012

Here’s a provocative statement by David Gergen, professor of public policy and director of the Center for Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a frequent political analyst for CNN:  “The nonprofits making the greatest impacts these days are entrepreneurial, adaptive, outward-looking, and sometimes a little messy.”

I like that, and I think using these four features or criteria to evaluate the MHSAA now and in the mid-range future would be good for those we serve.

  • Are we entrepreneurial?  How could we be more so?

  • Are we adaptive?  Are we flexible in how we do things?

  • Are we outward-looking?  Are we impacting school sports broadly and deeply?  Does the impact have staying power?  Are schools better because of what we do?  Are communities stronger for our doing it?

  • Are we sometimes a little messy?

I suspect that if we are the first three – entrepreneurial, adaptive and outward-looking – then messiness is a natural byproduct.  There will be starts and stops, failures before successes, changes.  There will be disagreements and compromises.

I suspect that we will have to tolerate a little more messiness if we are to move forward, even faster than we have, and if we are to have impact, even greater than we have.