Representative Governance
November 11, 2014
A man in a hot air balloon, realizing he was lost, lowered the balloon to shout to a fellow on the ground: “The wind’s blown me off course. Can you tell me where I am?”
The man on the ground replied, “Sure. You’re hovering about 90 feet over this wheat field.”
The balloonist yelled, “You must be an engineer.”
“I am,” the man replied. “How did you know?”
“Well, everything you told me is technically correct but of absolutely no use.”
The engineer retorted, “You’re an executive, right?”
“How did you know?” the balloonist responded.
“Well, you were drifting in no particular direction before you asked for my help, and you’re still lost; but now it’s my fault.”
In addition to making me chuckle, that story reminds me that the world is very likely a much richer place when it has both bird’s-eye and on-the-ground perspectives. It is certainly true that our understanding of issues and answers in school sport is better when both views are voiced.
This reasoning is the basis for inviting any representative of a member school to serve on the MHSAA’s governing body, the Representative Council. Unlike many other states, seats at the MHSAA’s table are not limited to superintendents or to principals.
Throughout most of the MHSAA’s history, there has been a nearly equal balance of superintendents, principals, athletic directors and others on the 19-member Representative Council. However, in recent years the balance has shifted decidedly toward athletic directors, as superintendents have become increasingly occupied with keeping school districts afloat financially and principals are increasingly consumed with demonstrating improving student test scores.
The MHSAA’s Constitution provides for an election system that assures good diversity of school size and location on the Representative Council. The Constitution also provides for an appointment process that is intended to improve gender and minority membership on the Council. That provision is also being used to recruit superintendents and principals back to our table. We need policymakers who see things with a wide angle view as much as we need policymakers who see the daily details of school sports up close.
Politics and Sports
April 3, 2012
The acrimonious, winner-take-all GOP presidential primary and a premature posturing for the general election campaigns in the fall caused Portland (OR)-based author Tom Krattenmaker to write in the March 26, 2012 USA Today: “Many of us seem to engage in politics the same way we follow sports: What strategy will it take for my team to stick it to the opponent . . . ?”
It saddens me to see that analogy.
If that’s the general opinion of sports in America, sports is failing its purposes, which at higher levels is to entertain the public, at lower levels is to provide for recreation and better health, and at our level is to help educate students.
If at all these levels, we do not find willing respect for excellent efforts and execution and graceful sportsmanship in winning and losing, leaders of sports on all levels are failing their principal duty. If stick-it-to-them strategy is the prevailing theme of the enterprise of sports at any level, that enterprise is worthless, or worse.