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Post-Event Celebrations

March 16, 2012

In my last posting I praised the high school participant as the best behaved athlete on any level of sport.  It’s ironic: based on what we see on higher levels, the older the athlete becomes, the more immature he or she is allowed to behave.

But we do have at least one conduct problem; and it’s one with potential for much bigger problems.  It’s post-event celebrations.

Post-event celebrations have led to property damage, and they will lead to personal injuries unless we give the problem more careful attention and supervision.

Post-event celebrations are largely outside of the published playing rules, and they are usually beyond the jurisdiction of contest officials.

So, they will end up being the responsibility of game administration, and injuries will become the liability of game administrators.

This spring, the Representative Council may adopt more policies and procedures to which the MHSAA will direct more attention. The initial focus, as proposed, is on MHSAA team tournaments and to hold participating schools more explicitly accountable for property damage caused by celebrating teams and spectators.

Hopefully, attention to the broader topic and tougher policies for this narrow slice of the problem will reverse what we see as an unhealthy trend in school sports – excessive post-event celebrations.

Baloney

January 27, 2015

When I was in high school and college I worked a different job each summer, usually looking for hard labor that would help prepare my body for the next football season, and each time confirming that it would not be my choice for lifetime employment. One summer I worked at a lumber yard and paper mill complex along the banks of the Wisconsin River.

Every day I ate lunch with the men who had made this their life’s work; and I grew in ways both positive and negative as I listened to their conversations and tales. We all brought our own lunch pails.

One day, one of the more veteran employees opened his lunchbox and flew into a rage. “I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “Baloney again! I hate baloney.”

Trying to calm him down, another worker said, “If you hate baloney so much, just ask your wife to make you something else.”

To which the complainer replied, “That won’t work. I make my own lunches,” which resulted in an uproar of laughter from the rest of us.

I thought of this incident recently as I was preparing to meet with constituents about the rules they most love to hate: policies relating to coach and player contact out of season. Those are our most criticized rules.

But it occurs to me, if we don’t like the sandwich we’re eating – out-of-season coaching rules – we should remember: we made them ourselves, and we can change them. In fact, no one is in a better position to do so than we are. And no one has a greater duty to do so than we have, if we really are in need of a new recipe.