Standards Promote Value
October 29, 2012
I can’t speak for every state, but it is probably true for most states, that (1) no school is required to provide a program of interscholastic activities – such are not curricular activities; and (2) participation in voluntary interscholastic competitive activities is a privilege offered to those who meet standards of eligibility and conduct of the school and standards of ability for the activity involved.
It is not a liability but an asset of competitive interscholastic activities that they are not co-curricular, but extracurricular – voluntary programs with extra standards, extra requirements, extra expectations.
We don’t need to sell the public on the value of participation; they desperately want their children to participate, and they will even sue us for the opportunity. What we have to do is sell the public on the value of the standards we maintain for participation.
Much of the value of school activities results from the standards of school activities. Many of the benefits of school activities accrue from the requirements of school activities. Raise the bar, raise the value. Lower the bar, lower the value.
Activities are much less capable of doing good things for kids and good things for schools and their communities where there are lower standards of eligibility and conduct. It’s the difference between interscholastic and intramural, between tough and easy. It is because schools have raised the bar for interscholastic activities that these programs have value to students, schools and communities.
It’s Not Where, But How
April 28, 2017
As happens from time to time, but too often, the urgent has crowded out the important for the Michigan High School Athletic Association this spring. For example ...
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A flooded soccer field at Michigan State University has forced relocation of the MHSAA Girls Soccer Finals in June.
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The extravagant demise of The Palace of Auburn Hills following the relocation of the Detroit Pistons to the new Little Caesars Arena in Detroit is forcing relocation of the 2018 MHSAA Individual Wrestling Finals.
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Lack of availability at MSU‘s Breslin Student Events Center on the dates of the three-day MHSAA Girls Basketball Semifinals and Finals in 2018 and boys championships in 2019 is forcing changes for those tournaments.
When, after countless hours of study and discussion, these and other venue changes are announced, they generate many media reports and considerable constituent comment – in fact, much more attention than two years ago when the MHSAA announced three actions that were unprecedented nationally to promote participant health and safety: mandated concussion reporting, free concussion care gap insurance, and two sideline concussion detection pilot programs.
Where MHSAA championships are staged is not inconsequential, but it is infinitely less important than how interscholastic athletic programs are conducted during practices and contests at the local level all season long.
When we are consumed with where we play, we divert valuable time and energy away from necessary attention to what we should be doing and how we should be doing it.