What Sport Looks Like
April 9, 2013
The decision of the International Olympic Committee to eliminate wrestling from its schedule of events is deplorable for more reasons than I have room to describe here. Many others have expressed their outrage, which I share; and it looks like there will be a concerted effort to have the IOC reverse itself.
Notwithstanding all the angst it created and has yet to endure, the IOC’s policies and procedures are intriguing, and possibly useful. They go something like this.
Periodically, the IOC requires each of the designated Olympic sports to defend its status, to state their case why the sport should remain a part of the Olympic program. Then, after a series of votes that retain one sport at a time, the IOC drops the sport that makes the weakest case. It does so to make room for one of the previously unlisted sports that makes the best case for inclusion.
This would appear to keep the existing Olympic sports on their toes, and to keep the Olympic movement fresh and reflective of modern trends in sports.
While I would not enjoy the controversy, I can see the potential for some positive results if the MHSAA were to invoke the same policy for determining the 14 tournaments it will provide for girls and the 14 for boys.
This might cause us to consider more deeply what a high school sport should look like, or at least what an MHSAA tournament sport should stand for.
On the one hand, we might be inclined to delete those sports that involve mostly non-faculty coaches and non-school venues, or require cooperative programs to generate enough participants to support a team, or resort almost entirely to non-school funding, or cater to individuals more than teams.
Or perhaps this process would cause policymakers to forget traditional thinking and ask: “In this day and age, should we shake off traditional notions of sport and consider more where modern kids are coming from?” That might mean fewer team sports and more individual sports, more “extreme” sports like snowboarding and skateboarding, and more lifetime sports, meaning not just golf and tennis and running sports, but also fishing and shooting sports.
Is the only question how many schools sponsor a sport, or must an activity also have certain qualities and/or avoid certain “defects?” What should an MHSAA tournament sport look like and stand for?
Football Participation
June 13, 2017
Each summer, the Michigan High School Athletic Association issues several news releases that, together, help to inform us about the health of high school sports in Michigan. These include reports regarding participation and attendance.
The first of these releases will occur later this month when we report on participation and make comparisons to previous years. Later, there will be a report of how participation in Michigan compares to other states.
Without going into detail now, I’ll preempt the first release to provide its biggest news – football participation was down about five percent in grades 9-12 in 2016 compared to 2015.
The decline in number of schools sponsoring 11-player football is matched by the increase in schools sponsoring the 8-player game. So overall, the number of football schools is stable; but squad size is smaller.
Among other things, this predicts continuing growth in 8-player football, which expects approximately 60 schools this fall when the MHSAA 8-player tournament expands from one to two 16-team divisions.
The latest participation data also requires that those of us who love the game of football have much work to do; and that work has little to do with how either the 8- or 11-player tournament is conducted.
The focus needs to be on practice – including how early in August it begins and how much contact is allowed; the focus must be on personnel – including the importance of hiring on-staff teachers as coaches; and the focus must be on perceptions – including our narrative that our game has never been healthier for junior high/middle school and high school students and never more important for the unity and identity of schools and communities.
Like other sports, football is challenged by declining high school age enrollment, expansion in the number of sports offered by schools and increased single-sport specialization, as well as a largely misplaced concern for injuries.
On June 28, the leadership of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association is convening a focus group to help identify the themes that resonate best with parents and who the most trusted people are to deliver those messages. This is an important effort.