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Second Half by MHSAA

Skepticism

October 4, 2011

One of the greatest catalysts of the environmental movement in Michigan was the rise of the middle class working family as our state industrialized in the early 1900s.  Forty-hour-a-week workers with good pay and benefits sought out clean rivers, streams, lakes and parks for recreation and relaxation during their weekends and vacations.  Many industries that created the jobs soon realized they had to provide their employees a clean environment as well.

Now as we struggle through a prolonged period of economic malaise in America, economists and politicians focus on what is needed to stimulate growth in the U.S. and world economies.  They appear to worship at the altar of economic expansion, few seeming to question if our planet can sustain the growth rates they pursue.  What price to our environment does a robust economy extract?

Of course, it is easier for a person with a job, insured benefits and a retirement program to question the obsession with economic growth; but a job without clean air to breathe and water to drink will not be satisfying for long.  So a healthy dose of skepticism about economic growth is needed.

As I read the scathing indictment of corruption in college sports in the October issue of The Atlantic Magazine, I kept thinking that a healthier dose of skepticism about ever-increasing hype might have avoided the crass commercialism and exploitation of what once was but may no longer be justifiably connected to institutions of higher learning.

And of course, a healthy dose of skepticism must be maintained by those in charge of school sports as we trend during difficult economic times in directions more commercial than our founding principles may have envisioned.

Change of Pace

January 30, 2015

Michael Schwimer is little known to us in Michigan. He was a 6-8, 240-pound relief pitcher out of the University of Virginia who was drafted in the 10th round by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008.

In his minor league career, Schwimer earned 20 wins against 10 losses with a respectable 2.51 ERA. He struck out an eye-popping 12 batters per nine innings.

When Schwimer made his Major League Baseball debut for the Phillies in August of 2011, he served up a game-tying home run to the first batter he faced. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in February of 2013, and was released by the Blue Jays the following August. You might say Schwimer majored in the minors. That’s where he peaked as a professional baseball player.

As a player, Schwimer made few waves. He wasn’t a “game changer.” And yet, he may still be known as one who helped to change the game itself.

Schwimer is widely reported to be the first MLB player to use a glove that was made of synthetics, not leather (which weighs twice as much), and was made using a plaster cast of his hand. It was a custom-made, form-fitting glove.

The result looks almost like a toy glove, fit for T-ball; but MLB gave it a “thumbs up” in December of 2011. MLB players have been warming to the glove, although very slowly.

To which Schwimer responds: “It takes forever for any change to occur. But when change happens, it happens really fast.”

That almost sounds like something Yogi Berra would have said – like, “it takes forever for change to occur, and then it doesn’t.” But experience very often teaches us the truth of this sentiment.

As the MHSAA reprocesses two of its toughest topics ever – out-of-season coaching rules and 6th-graders’ roles in school sports and the MHSAA – it seems like there is no progress toward change. And no change is the possible outcome of both long journeys.

But it’s also possible that, for one or both topics, the time will come when wisdom and will combine to create constructive change, which then seems to be occurring almost overnight.

My hope is that we find that formula before a rash of problems causes a tipping point that results in a rush toward solutions that are poorly conceived and/or politically imposed by outside entities.