Shared Responsibility
March 26, 2013
My counterpart in Georgia has a nice way with words, and recently used that talent to add his perspective to topics like those we’ve been addressing here in Michigan. In the March 2013 Georgia High School Association newsletter, under the title “All of Us Must ‘Pay the Price’ for Student-Athlete Wellness,” GHSA Executive Director Ralph Swearingin writes:
“In ‘History and Philosophy of Education’ courses many of us learned that an early concept in the American educational system involved the school operating ‘in loco parentis’ – in the place of the parent. During those early days, that concept was applied to the authority of school personnel to regulate the behavior of students. Over time, however, the application of that concept to school discipline has diminished.
“It is interesting to note that school personnel are called upon to fulfill parental roles in ways that were not prevalent in the past. Over time there has been an evolution of responsibilities placed on the educational system to provide services that used to be provided by the family. One such area involves the responsibility to be the ‘health and safety guardians’ of our students. Debates about whether it is the school’s responsibility are non-productive. This responsibility has been thrust upon member schools and state association staff members, and it is doubtful that this trend is reversible . . .
“The very nature of athletics makes it impossible to guarantee the safety of every student in every sport. The goal is to minimize the risk to these students with prudent preparation and vigilant supervision. While the American culture may be thrusting this responsibility on the school personnel, there are productive ways to send some of that responsibility back to the students and their families.
“. . . Students and their families need to be informed about all of these issues. Preseason meetings with players and parents or guardians should involve the dissemination of information about relevant health and safety considerations . . .
“But education of players and their families is not enough. Coaches must be certain to teach techniques that minimize risks, and to be certain that all equipment used in the sport are in good repair and are being used properly. School personnel need to be certain that published guidelines and protocols are being followed. Doing these things involves the expenditure of time and money, but the well-being of our students dictates that we ‘pay the price.’ ”
Fit to Fly
February 3, 2017
I suppose I’ve flown more than a half million miles on commercial or chartered aircraft. Nevertheless, it still amazes me to witness a large passenger jet lift off the earth and take to the sky.
Sometimes it has occurred to me that, with enough thrust, almost anything can be made to fly. Of course, the more aerodynamic the object, the less power is needed to send the object into the sky and keep it there.
The metaphor is obvious.
If there is enough force behind it, almost any idea can take flight. However, the best ideas take flight with little effort ... they have been fitted for the intended purpose and the environment ... while bad initiatives require extraordinary effort to get up and keep going.
This doesn't suggest that leaders should always take the path of least resistance. But it does mean leadership should count the costs. Is the amount of effort required to launch an initiative worth the collateral damage? Is the amount of energy required to maintain an initiative worth the results?
The image some people have of the current proposal to seed Boys and Girls District and Regional Basketball Tournaments is of an ungainly object being thrust into the air. It can be done, but should it be done? Will the result be worth it?
The proponents want the Michigan High School Athletic Association to adopt and modify a system used to seed the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. That's a tournament limited to just 68 of 350 universities that sponsor Division I men's basketball programs. One person collects the scores of all the games involving those teams and enters the data to compute the strength of each team’s record and schedule.
But the MHSAA tournament involves 750 varsity teams for boys and nearly the same number of varsity teams for girls which together play approximately 27,500 games in a single season. There are often more than 350 high school varsity basketball games on a single evening. One person is NOT going to be physically able to collect all those scores and enter all that data. And the MHSAA would be foolish to think that it could be accomplished, and irresponsible to have the basketball tournament experience depend on such a scheme.
Well-intentioned people have unrealistic expectations about this. They don't appreciate the amount of resources the MHSAA would have to put into making this thing fly. We could do it by mandating that every school use the same schedule and score software and conditioning a school’s tournament participation on 100 percent compliance with score reporting.
But even if we launch it and apply even more force to keep it in the air, we have to wonder about the fairness and outcome of easing the path in the MHSAA Basketball Tournaments for teams which had the best regular-season records, at least up to some point before the end of that season when the number crunching would have to stop and pairings and sites would need to be announced.
Three of the four state high school associations that border Michigan have seeding for their high school basketball tournaments (basketball crazy Indiana does not). But those three state associations seed only the first round of the tournament, and those three use no fancy formula ... they have the coaches of the teams assigned by geography to the tournament site meet to separate the better teams in the earliest games.
If there is to be seeding in MHSAA Basketball Tournaments – and that’s a big if – our neighboring states’ approach is more practical and better fitted for an all-comers tournament at the high school level. That might fly, and stay in the air without excessive force.