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Seeing the Whole Field

September 20, 2013

I spent almost all of my days as a competitive athlete in a position where all the other players were in my field of vision.

From the age of 10 until I gave up baseball at 20, I was a catcher. I spent my entire career in foul territory, observing the other players in fair, the entire diamond before me.

In basketball I was what we now call a “point guard.” As I brought the ball up court, the other nine players were in front of me.

As a high school and college football player, I was a defensive safety. No one was to get behind me; and at every snap, 21 other players were in my field of vision.

I’ve always known that participation in sports shaped very much of my character; but only recently – nearer the end of my professional career than to the start – am I seeing the whole field and appreciating the fullness of that influence. For example:

  • To be the one who asks for the fast ball or curve. Or the change-up when it’s needed.
  • To be the one who sets up each play and delivers the pass to get it started. And watching others score.
  • To be the one who makes the tackle when no one else is left to do so.
  • And most of all, to see the whole field; to see all of one’s teammates and observe how they all are indispensable to a winning performance.

More Than A Myth

September 5, 2014

Without a sure sense of what the outcome should be, we are engaging school administrators and others in a year-long discussion of possible revisions in out-of-season coaching rules.

We know that we would like the outcome to be simpler rules that are easier to understand and enforce; and that we would like to permit coaches to spend more time with student-athletes out of season; and that we want none of this to make coaches feel like they must coach one sport year-round to be successful or make student-athletes feel like they must play a single sport year-round just to make the team.

If there is a policy that can accomplish the good that we hope for and avoid the bad that we fear, we haven’t yet found it or developed it.

There is a temptation to characterize the multi-sport athlete as an anachronism or myth of modern school sports. However, the multi-sport athlete remains the backbone of interscholastic athletic programs in Class C and D schools.

And the multi-sport athlete still appears to be the ideal athlete, regardless of school size. It is an instructive reminder, I think, that the Lansing State Journal named a three-sport star from Ithaca as its high school male athlete of the year for 2013-14, and it was a four-sport athlete from Eaton Rapids who was named the high school female athlete of the year.

Following my presentation to coaches, student-athletes and parents at Jonesville High School last month, a student approached me to offer thanks for our sponsoring bowling. Jonesville won the MHSAA’s 2014 Division 4 Boys Bowling championship; and the young man who thanked me participates in football, bowling and baseball for his school, representing in my mind the kind of student we should strive the hardest to serve as we develop, revisit and revise policies and programs.