Robust Benefits
February 6, 2015
Here are some research-based opinions that track with the personal experiences of most of us who have given our careers to educational athletics. The words are those of Kevin Kniffen, who teaches leadership and management at Cornell University (from NYTimes.com [Oct. 22, 2014]):
“Research shows that people who play high school sports get better jobs, with better pay. Benefits that last a lifetime.
“Those lessons presumably help to account for the findings that people who played for a varsity high school team tend to earn relatively higher salaries later in life. Research to which I contributed, complementing previous studies, showed that people who played high school sports tend to get better jobs, with better pay, and that those benefits last a lifetime.
“Hiring managers expect former student-athletes (compared with people who participate in other popular extracurriculars) to have more self-confidence, self-respect and leadership; actual measures of behavior in a sample of people who had graduated from high school more than five decades earlier showed those expectations proved accurate.
“We also found that former student-athletes tend to donate time and money more frequently than people who weren't part of teams.
“In other words, there are clear and robust individual and societal benefits that appear to be generated through the current system of school support for participation in competitive youth athletics.
“With respect to whether youth athletics should be part of educational institutions, it’s certainly true that there’s no necessary relationship between the two; but, what would happen if schools were to drop all of their interscholastic sports programs?
“Any policymakers who took such action would effectively be privatizing – and, in turn, limiting – an important set of opportunities that schools presently provide in a significantly more democratic and open fashion than likely alternatives would. Beyond raising a basic barrier for anyone to gain the kinds of experiences that appear to be rewarded in the workplace, the privatization of competitive youth sports would also create the largest barriers – and cause the greatest long-term losses – for those whose families are not able to bear the costs of participation outside of the public school system.”
Membership Growth
September 19, 2014
My last posting addressed the need for the Michigan High School Athletic Association to act like a member-based organization even though MHSAA membership is free and member-based revenue does not contribute to the MHSAA’s fiscal well-being. I cited the need to apply membership recruitment and retention principles as we work to attract and hold registered contest officials.
I might also have cited our need to attract and hold junior high/middle school members. While the MHSAA’s membership includes most of Michigan’s public and nonpublic high schools, fewer than half the state’s junior high/middle schools are MHSAA members.
We know the reason that most of the non-member schools at this level do not join the MHSAA is that they want to do their own thing – make their own rules – and they do not see enough benefit in MHSAA membership to overcome the advantages of their local autonomy.
They want to schedule more contests and/or sponsor longer seasons than is permitted by MHSAA rules. They are not much concerned with consistent application of playing rules, eligibility rules and limits of competition, which MHSAA membership requires. They are not much concerned with providing MHSAA-registered officials for their contests or MHSAA-purchased catastrophic accident medical insurance for their student-athletes.
There is no revenue incentive for the MHSAA to try to change these attitudes; but actually, the reasons for the MHSAA to do so are more important than money. In fact, the future of high school athletics depends more on what is happening today at the junior high/middle school level than at the high school level.
The less connected that junior high/middle school level programs are to high school programs today, the more problems the high school programs will have tomorrow – including controversies over conduct, confusion over eligibility and problems related to disconnected policies, procedures, philosophies and perspectives.
The MHSAA will serve school sports in Michigan best if it makes recruitment and retention of junior high/middle schools one of its highest priorities, and serves those schools with what the students and parents at that level want – which is, in fact, more school-sponsored competition, some even resulting in MHSAA-sponsored regional tournaments. Of course, both membership and tournament entry would be free of charge.
Just like most member organizations which need to look constantly for new, younger members, the enterprise of high school sports needs to be recruiting new schools which serve younger grades. It may not just be a matter of growth; it may be a matter of survival.