Show of Hands
July 12, 2017
Four dozen years ago, my boss, the executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations, expressed to me his disappointment that one of the characteristics of NFHS national meetings was the much too frequent “show of hands.” That is, someone from one state would rise to ask for a show of hands on a topic: “How many states do this? ... How many states don’t? ... How many do that?”
My mentor’s point was that the time would be much better spent on a qualitative analysis of the topic, rather than a quantitative one ... a discussion of the merits of a particular policy or procedure, rather than a head count.
His message to me is recalled every time a proposal comes to the Michigan High School Athletic Association to change this or that policy and is accompanied by the meager rationale that it’s what 25 or 35 or 45 other states might do. That stat holds only mild interest for me.
Before we do anything here to be like anybody elsewhere, we need to measure the pros and cons in our place and time ... how it fits our culture or our climate, for example.
When we consider change in the start or end of seasons; or the number of interscholastic scrimmages or contests in a day, week or season; or the number of exceptions to the transfer rule or the length of ineligibility when no exception applies; or the number of classes or divisions for tournaments; or the existence or extent of seeding for a tournament; when we consider any of these things in Michigan, we need much better rationale than a show of hands.
Seeding Questions
April 6, 2015
The more I hear people speak with absolute certainty that seeding MHSAA tournaments would be a good thing for more sports to implement, the less I’m certain that adequate wisdom accompanies those words. And I’m particularly concerned with the condescending attitude of the advocates toward those who question if seeding is practical or fair for MHSAA tournaments.
Before seeding is adopted for additional MHSAA tournaments (and it appears ice hockey is on the fastest track), there are many practical questions to address for each sport, including who decides, how they decide and when they decide. Seeding in school sports is a much more difficult task than it is at higher levels where there are many fewer teams operating in much less diverse settings.
Any successful proposal for seeding in school sports must be able to give an informed “No” to these questions:
- Will the plan cause the “rich to get richer,” the successful to be even more successful?
- Will the plan add fuel to the public vs. nonpublic school discord?
- Will the plan create additional travel expenses for schools and loss of classroom instructional time for students?
Furthermore, any successful seeding plan must also provide an informed “Yes” to these questions:
- Will the plan promote the tournament among schools, media and the public?
- Will the plan increase tournament attendance?
And it is of most importance that every advocate of seeding acknowledge that opponents of seeding pose the right questions when they ask:
- Is it fair and is it right to ease the tournament trail for teams based on their regular season performance?
- Is a brand new start in the postseason bad, and if so, by what educational criteria?
When people boast that “the seeds held” in the NCAA basketball tournament or in our own MHSAA Tennis Tournament, we have to admit that this is exactly what ought to have happened when we gave the top seeds the easiest road to the trophy.
It is not wrong to question if that’s the right thing to do.