Taking Our Half in the Middle
September 22, 2015
When there is a rule that is as frequently criticized for being too weak as for being too harsh, it’s likely the rule is just about right.
For every administrator and coach who complains that the transfer rule misses a situation where there is no question the student transferred for sports participation, there are as many administrators and coaches – and many times more parents – who plead for leniency under the transfer rule.
For every congested community in Michigan that offers students multiple school options, and some of those who participate in interscholastic athletics shop for the situation that best fits their needs or desires, there are many more communities in Michigan where few options exist, and transfers by student-athletes are both low in number and logical in nature.
For every call for a mandatory year-long, no-exceptions period of ineligibility to penalize athletic-motivated transfers, there are dozens of transfers by low-level, low-profile student athletes who do not deserve such draconian consequences.
For every statewide high school association in the U.S. that has a tougher transfer rule than Michigan, there are as many that have a weaker transfer rule; or, they have no rule at all because the state’s legislature intervened, usurped the association’s authority and overturned its over-reaching regulation.
The MHSAA transfer rule is not perfect and likely never will be, which is why it is among the two most reviewed and revised rules of the MHSAA Handbook. But the MHSAA transfer rule is on the right path. A dramatic detour will serve school sports badly.
What most negatively affects the administration of the existing transfer rule is the reluctance of administrators and coaches to report directly the violations they observe personally. If these people won’t do their part, they have no right to critique the rule or to criticize the rule makers.
My Best Man
January 15, 2013
Upon the death of my father last month, a sports writer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who was preparing a story on my father’s career as athlete, coach and Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association executive director, asked for my insights about Dad and his impact on me. I could have written a book, but here’s what I had space to say . . . just the right length for a blog:
“Dad served at a time before electronic media and online meetings when state high school association executive directors traveled their states doing rules meetings, thus building stronger relationships with coaches and officials than is common in our work today. And in Dad's case, because he was THE expert in high school wrestling rules in the United States, Dad traveled the country presenting wrestling rules meetings in states where wrestling was an emerging high school sport. It is not an exaggeration to say Dad was the ‘father of high school wrestling in America.’
“Dad and I worked together when he headed the WIAA and I was an assistant director at the National Federation of State High School Associations in the 1970s, allowing us to form an even closer bond in both our personal and professional lives than most fathers and sons enjoy. In those days, when there was a particularly difficult speaking assignment at a national meeting on school sports, Dad would be one of the first people whose name came to mind to address that topic. He was a forceful speaker; and I expect that my nationwide speaking trail owes a great debt to the many times as a youngster that I traveled with Dad when he gave sports banquet speeches.
“I'm told I idolized Dad when he coached, and know I admired him as a state association executive, and he was my closest male friend ever -- even ‘Best Man’ at my wedding. He was a great model as a father, husband and leader.
“At his retirement dinner in December of 1985, a spokesperson on behalf of the state's coaches said: ‘John, we didn't always agree with your decisions, but we never once doubted your motives.’ I can't think of a greater compliment for any man who worked so long in such a controversial line of work, which Dad loved so much.”