Sportsmanship is a Way of Life
January 4, 2013
Twenty years ago the MHSAA received a plaque from a member school that I continue to prize above all other awards our organization has received. The plaque reads: “In recognition of outstanding contributions to interscholastic athletics, and for promotion of sportsmanship as a way of life for all young athletes.”
There are no words I would more prefer to describe the work of the MHSAA then and now than those highlighted words. No work we do is any more important than promoting sportsmanship as a way of life. Reduced to a phrase, that’s our most essential purpose; that’s our product.
Not victories, titles or championships, but sportsmanship. Not awards or records, but sportsmanship.
It’s teaching and learning sportsmanship more than speed and strength; sportsmanship more than coordination and conditioning; sportsmanship more than skills and strategies. Even more than teamwork, hard work, discipline and dedication, it’s sportsmanship we teach and learn.
In Discovery of Morals, the sociologist author (not a sportsman) writes, “Sportsmanship is probably the clearest and most popular expression of morals. Sportsmanship is a thing of the spirit. It is timeless and endless; and we should strive to make it universal to all races, creeds and walks in life.”
Sportsmanship is more than a list of do’s and don’ts; more than grace in victory and defeat; more than how we play the game and watch the games. It’s how we live our lives.
Sportsmanship begins in our homes. We work on it in practice. It extends to games. It reaches up to the crowd. It permeates the school halls and shopping malls. And it begins to affect society for good, or for bad.
Attending to Football
November 29, 2013
The interscholastic football season comes to an end this weekend with the MHSAA Finals at Ford Field, but the most talked about sport in high schools today will continue to make headlines for many months into the future.
Some of the headlines will introduce topics that are merely footnotes compared to what is really most important, that being the efforts to keep school-sponsored football the safest and sanest brand of football in America.
At the center of these efforts has been a task force appointed by the MHSAA to work throughout 2013 to advance these two objectives: “To promote the value of interscholastic football and to probe for ways to make the sport safer in Michigan.”
The tangible results of the task force’s four meetings are these:
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- A proposal to the MHSAA Representative Council to revise football practice policies to improve acclimatization of players and to reduce head trauma. The proposal goes to the Representative Council Dec. 6 for discussion, then to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association and MHSAA Football Committee in January and to the MHSAA League/Conference meeting in February, before returning to the Representative Council for action on March 22.
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Three proposals to the NFHS Football Rules Committee to modify playing rules to promote player safety.
- A variety of print, online and broadcast promotions on behalf of the value of interscholastic football and its safety record and to encourage healthier out-of-season activities by students in all sports.
MHSAA research informs us that participation in 11- or 8-player football in member high schools this fall was down 3.0 percent compared to 2012, and down 7.63 percent since the 2008 season. The biggest reasons cited by those surveyed are, in declining order, safety issues, declining enrollment, athletes playing other school or non-school sports, cultural changes and pay-to-participate.
It is important to note that participation is not declining everywhere, not even everywhere where enrollments are down and participation fees are up. It is important to note also that some other sports are in much greater decline than football in terms of high school participation.
It is difficult for me to imagine my life without football as a part of it. It’s difficult to imagine schools and communities without football. I very much doubt that the absence of football would have improved my life or the schools and communities I’ve been a part of. It’s a sport that needs our attention, not its extinction.