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We Need A Picture

December 18, 2012

One of our family traditions is to start and complete a new puzzle each Thanksgiving Day.  This past year’s 1,000-piece project tested our guests’ perseverance and, technically, it wasn’t completed on Thanksgiving, but just after 1 a.m. on the next day with only two of the original 16 guests still on task.

As is customary, the cover of the box in which the puzzle came provided a picture of the finished work.  Those working the puzzle kept passing the box top around to get closer looks at the specific portions of the puzzle that had their attention.

At one point my son mentioned how incredibly difficult it would be to complete a complicated puzzle without any picture.

Which caused me to consider that trying to solve any puzzle – any problem – is made almost impossibly difficult without a clear picture of what the solution should look like.  To put together the pieces of the solution to a problem requires at least some vision of the solution.

The Character Network

March 6, 2015

“You can go other places to try to become a better athlete, but there’s no better place to become a better person than high school sports.”

There’s a hint of hyperbole in that statement, but it’s the sincere sentiments of one with an important dual perspective.

These are the words I heard spoken last month by Robert Rothberg, father of a high school senior who just completed her high school volleyball career. He is also chief executive officer of the NFHS Network that is producing thousands of high school events so family, friends and fans can follow their favorite local athletes, just like his daughter.

Like high school sports, the NFHS Network is for the masses, not merely the elite. Interscholastic athletics provides competition and character building opportunities for students of diverse sizes, shapes and skill levels; and the NFHS Network provides coverage that is just as diverse – from the local subvarsity and varsity level sponsored by schools of all types in all parts of almost all states, to many of the culminating state championship events.

To peek in on the network that focuses on character more than characters, go to MHSAA.tv.