Safety First
August 16, 2012
In the final chapter of A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway writes: “Skiing was not the way it is now, the spiral fracture had not become common then, and no one could afford a broken leg. There were no ski patrols. Anything you ran down from, you had to climb up. That gave you legs that were fit to run down with.”
As motorized lifts carried less prepared people faster and with greater ease and comfort to higher and longer slopes, alpine skiing injuries became more frequent and serious. Similar patterns can be found in many other sports as technological advancements have taken participants to extremes their physical bodies were unprepared or unsuited for.
The classic but far from unique example is football. Improvements in helmets, mouth guards and face masks and the requirement of all three for head and face protection, encouraged coaches to teach and players to use blocking and tackling techniques that threatened their unprotected necks. Catastrophic spinal cord injuries spiked in the early 1970s. High school football rule makers countered with the prohibition of spearing in 1975, and then barring both butt-blocking and face tackling in 1976. Certification of helmets was required in 1980.
New technologies created poles that catapulted pole vaulters to unexpected heights in the late 1960s; and high school rule makers responded with new requirements for poles and landing pits in 1975. Risks of injuries and lawsuits were largely responsible for the pole vault being dropped at least temporarily from the schedule of events in some states.
The pursuit of profits by manufacturers and personal bests by athletes and their coaches will continue to push bodies to the extreme limits of what is safe; and rule makers will push back, often being labeled as out of date or out of step by those they are trying to protect.
Every four years the Olympics shine a spotlight on amazing dedication by athletes and alarming developments in equipment across the full spectrum of sports. We are watching the 2012 Summer Games in awe of the participants, but on alert that some of the products they are utilizing will help, but others will harm, our high school programs.
We need to be certain that those who arrive at the top of our mountains have the legs to run down safely.
Bottom Lines
May 19, 2017
The cost of everything in everyday life seems to rise every year. Everything, that is, except the bread and butter revenue source of the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
Next school year – 2017-18 – is the 14th straight year that ticket prices for the District level of MHSAA basketball and football tournaments have remained unchanged; and it’s the 15th consecutive year without increase at the Regional level of those tournaments. Five bucks.
Meanwhile, the cost of venues hosting some MHSAA championships is rising rapidly. Even if calendar conflicts were not evicting the MHSAA from Michigan State University’s Breslin Center, steeply increased expenses could have the same effect.
There was a time when universities across the U.S. wanted state high school association tournaments using their on-campus facilities. This was a public service as well as a marketing tool for those institutions.
Today these universities derive much more revenue from higher international student tuition than is paid by the in-state students who first come to the campus to play in or watch state high school championships. Even more important than tuition dollars are research grants, royalties and donations to what is now the big business of higher education.
Where campus athletic facilities are operated outside the athletic department it is even more evident that money trumps the mission of public service, at least as it relates to facility usage and secondary school athletic programs which, to be sure, are less important than the search for world peace and cancer cures by our universities.
People might believe it’s more appropriate for MHSAA events to be on college campuses than in commercial arenas; but frankly, it’s getting hard for us to see a difference. The bottom line drives them both.