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A Solutions Approach

July 13, 2015

I had not been to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and I expected to see much change since my several visits before the flooding. What I discovered when I attended national meetings there recently was little change ... including most of the same sights, sounds and smells of years before. I expected the same of the national meetings ... “same-ol’ same-ol’.”

It has become tradition that the executive directors of the 50 statewide high school athletic associations meet twice during the annual summer meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations in sessions separate from all other delegates to that large convention. It has also been customary for me to leave those sessions depressed as problem was heaped upon problem by the directors, with little attention to solutions.

However, between the two sessions this year, a small group of the executive directors talked about strategies to redirect the conversation; and the result of the second session in New Orleans was to develop a strategy for identifying and prioritizing the most significant problems of school-based sports, and then identifying and prioritizing the resources and alliances currently available, as well as those that could be developed through cooperative effort and strategic partnerships, to attack the most pressing problems.

The expertise to solve such problems has been in our room for years. What has been lacking is the commitment to a process that could move us from a group accomplished in citing problems and suggesting reasons for them to a group accomplished in working together to solve the most significant problems.

So, the “Big Easy” is and may remain pretty much as it always has been. But maybe future meetings of the National Federation, wherever they may be, will be undergoing substantive change.

Tournament Talk

December 30, 2013

As educators reconsider the grade level that school sports will begin to serve younger students and tweak the contest limitations for junior high/middle school students, they will not be able to avoid tournament talk.

Although middle school and even elementary school tournaments exist in many states, only a very small number of our constituents in Michigan promote the idea of statewide tournaments for junior high/middle school students.

A larger group of our constituents sees a place for MHSAA sponsored and conducted tournaments confined to smaller geographic areas. Something special – different than a regular-season event – but nothing spectacular. Modest travel and trophies.

A still larger group opposes this idea. Some people are opposed on a philosophical or educational basis – e.g., that it’s too early an age to promote competition to this extent and likely to interfere with the educational mission of schools. Other people oppose these regional tournaments for financial reasons – lacking adequate funds to fully fund high school programs, they cannot fathom how more funds can be spent on an expanded junior high/middle school sports program.

It is hard to see any increased expenditure on junior high/middle school sports – on programs for students before the 7th and 8th grades or for more contests for 7th- and 8th-graders – as an investment in the future of high school sports; but it is. The earlier we grab the attention of students and their parents and the more we expose them to the pure purposes and educational philosophies of school sports, the healthier our high school programs will be.

It is in the broad, deep roots of junior high/middle school programs that the branches of high school sports will flourish.