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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continue to push bodies to the extreme limits of what is safe; and rule makers will push back, often being labeled as out of date or out of step by those they are trying to protect.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.

No Easy Fix

February 13, 2015

“If we don’t fix this problem, even our friends and allies may turn against us.”

That was the dire warning one of the MHSAA staff members gave to the rest of us at a weekly staff meeting recently, during which this staff member was receiving emails from people appalled over the mid-season transfer of a basketball player from one school to another.

The “fix” that some people want is a rule that makes every transfer student ineligible for a full year, regardless of the reason for the change of schools or the circumstances of the student. Of course, that rule would never survive judicial scrutiny, and legislators in every corner of the state would be advocating change for the sake of one child or another.

A more moderate remedy is to utilize a rule that applies the full-year period of ineligibility to those students whose circumstances do not fit one of the already established 15 exceptions that make a student eligible without delay following a transfer. That half-measure would not stop many transfers that would still frustrate people, and it would snag many transfers that would continue to anger people.

The rules we already have in place are tools for schools to use to stop many of the transfers that frustrate without snaring those transfers that anger: the athletic-motivated transfer rule and especially the athletic-related transfer rule (or links law).

Before our friends and allies turn their backs on us, they need to turn in the transfer situations where the rules already apply, and the undue influence (recruiting) they can document. They need to give the system a chance to work to the full extent of its potential. We should not make tougher rules if schools fail to utilize the rules they already have.

Adopting rules is usually easy for the organization. Applying rules is often much harder for the schools.