Preserving A Place
July 27, 2013
During the summer weeks, "From the Director" will bring to you some of our favorite entries from previous years. Today's blog first appeared Sept. 18, 2012.
Nearly 20 years ago I spoke with a parents group at an elementary school. Most in attendance were parents of elementary students. Most were moms.
During our discussion, the mothers pleaded with me – that’s not too strong a word – to help develop policies that would preserve a place on high school teams for their children. “Just a jersey,” one mom said. “Just a spot on the team.”
These parents were almost sick with worry that if their sons and daughters did not play one sport year-round, starting now, they wouldn’t make the team in high school. And they believed that not making the team would doom their children to absenteeism, drug use, pregnancy, and every evil known to youth.
They saw the high school program becoming a program for only elite athletes, only the specialists, with no room for their kids who would meet the standards of eligibility but lack the necessary athletic experience to make the team because they didn’t belong to a private club, go to all the right camps, or make a certain travel team in the third grade.
Did these parents overstate the problem? Yes. But there’s some validity in their worries.
>Those moms gave me a goal, and later my own sons personalized that goal: to work for that generation of high school students and the next to preserve a place in our programs for all students, regardless of athletic ability, who meet all the essential standards of eligibility, want to participate in more than one school sport and activity and embody the spirit of being a student first in educational athletics.
Four Thrusts for Four Years
February 12, 2013
“Four thrusts for four years.” That’s the phrase we’re using to keep us focused and, we hope, effective in addressing some of the most pressing health and safety issues of school sports. The four emphases are:
- Require more initial and ongoing sports safety training for more coaches.
- Implement heat and humidity management policies at all schools for all sports.
- Revise practice policies generally, but especially for early in the fall season.
- Modify game rules to reduce the frequency of the most dangerous play situations, and to reduce head trauma.
Each of these thrusts will be briefly addressed in my next four postings, and we will use the breadth and depth of our constituency to search for best practices and earn their approval throughout our rank and file. There will be many requests for the MHSAA to do other health and safety related things; but we believe if we keep the focus on these four thrusts for four years, we can do the most good most quickly for the most students
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