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The Best Coach Ever

February 5, 2013

In the fall of 2004, another of the inductees with my father to the first-ever Hall of Fame Class of Stevens Point (WI) Area Senior High School was Rick Reichardt, arguably the best male athlete the community ever produced. Rick played four sports in high school, both football and baseball at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and on two Major League Baseball teams.

In his own acceptance speech that evening in 2004, Rick said that my dad was the best coach he ever had.  Well, Dad was merely Rick’s Little League baseball coach.

That’s remarkable in and of itself.  What’s more remarkable is that Dad never played organized baseball.  He never developed the skills of the game. Yet Rick said Dad was his best coach ever.

Eventually, I’ve figured out Dad’s “secret of success.”  Dad didn’t coach a sport.  He coached people.

Our just-published winter issue of benchmarks is devoted to coaches like this and to the coaching profession. Read it here.

Committee Work

January 6, 2015

The winter months are the busiest for MHSAA committees, especially for those that must review or prepare recommendations for changes for the following school year.

Each year, up to 20 MHSAA committees consider proposals for Representative Council action relative to MHSAA tournament policies or procedures or Handbook regulations or interpretations.

During school year 2014-15, wherever applicable, the committees are being asked to address health and safety issues as well as policies and procedures relative to subvarsity and junior high/middle school students; and as a result of positive 2014 Update Meeting Opinion Poll responses, each sport committee is being asked to respond during calendar year 2015 and beyond to several concepts for MHSAA tournament seeding.

MHSAA committees are dominated by coaches, but they are not a rubber stamp for proposals that proceed from that sport’s high school coaches association. The difference of opinion often results from the committee seeing things differently than a coaches association leadership that the committee believes is not representative of schools of diverse size, location and demographics.

It is appropriate for committees to ask: Who was not in the room when this recommendation was drafted? Who will not be served well by this change?

When committees go through this process, they tend to reduce the quantity but improve the quality of recommendations to the Representative Council, which increases the percentage of recommendations the Council adopts.