Tending a Small Garden
June 12, 2015
I offer this posting as an important qualifier to my previous posting.
Year after year I expanded the borders of my garden. And year after year the overall quality of the garden declined.
I didn't notice at first. I failed to see as I introduced new plants that some of the older plants were struggling, or that other plants were growing without shape or direction. I didn't see that some weeds were taking hold in the original space that was receiving less of my attention than the newer space.
I am unable to miss this metaphor for school sports.
When we try to grow interscholastic athletics too large, we risk becoming incapable of maintaining the essential beauty and purity of educational athletics. Certain programs grow out of control, other programs weaken. Influences are introduced, some of which can be aggressive enough to take over the whole enterprise.
Let international, professional, major college and even youth sports grow out of control. Ours is and must continue to be a small garden, tended closely and carefully.
Thinking of Don Quixote
October 10, 2017
The athletic transfer problem is not confined to high schools alone. Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has had a work group studying the NCAA transfer rule for Division I institutions.
The problem has been of particular concern in Division I men’s basketball where more than 20 percent of scholarship players changed schools between last season and this.
The work group appeared to have narrowed its study to two options: Make every transfer student ineligible for one year; OR, Allow every transfer student immediate eligibility. And the second option seemed to have had the early momentum.
But last Wednesday, the work group announced that the proposal to grant immediate eligibility to transfer students who meet certain academic standards will not advance during the current NCAA legislative cycle. Two days later the report was corrected: there's still a chance for change by 2018-19.
Major college conference commissioners and NCAA leadership have surveyed the landscape. They see athletes arriving on their college campuses from an environment where, if they weren’t happy with a team, they changed teams.
Apparently, the non-school, travel team attitude is bigger than the NCAA may want to battle.
Yet here we are, thinking of how to wage war on athletic transfers in high schools.