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Risky Business

May 19, 2015

At a time when efforts to promote student-athlete health and safety are more obviously than ever at the top of our daily to-do list, it may seem ill-advised to suggest that kids need more danger in their lives. But they do! And that’s the point of 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) by Penguin Books.

From mastering the perfect somersault (#3) to melting glass (#47), and from climbing a tree (#28) to walking home from school (#18), authors Gever Tulley and Julie Spiegler demonstrate two obvious but often overlooked points: (1) that most of us learn by doing; and (2) that a sterile, bubble-wrapped world teaches us less than one in which we are allowed to play with fire (#45).

After-school sports and activities provide safe and supervised danger. A place to learn new skills, meet different people, perform under pressure and test one’s limits. A supervised place to engage in life before going out in the less supervised real world.

Help Wanted

November 22, 2011

You probably wouldn’t be much attracted to a “Help Wanted” posting in the classified ads of your local newspaper that read:

Help Wanted!
Long hours. Late nights.  Low pay.
Frequent criticism.

Almost every paid or volunteer position associated with local school sports would fit that description.

And yet, legions of people enlist in service to school sports each and every year.

Many do so because their own kids are involved as participants. Many others do it “to give back” to a program that provided them so many benefits as a participant years before.

I commend to your reading the Winter 2011-12 issue of benchmarks now online which features a very few of the very many people who have answered this “Help Wanted” call.  We are thankful for them all.