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Attitude Adjustment

January 12, 2016

As an everyday, every hour observer of what’s happening to school sports and within school sports, I can get into a negative rut.

But if I step back, and then step out to a local school event – especially at the subvarsity level – my attitude changes. This is where I get a “fix.” This is where I discover the antidote for creeping cynicism.

Here I see coaches teaching, more than screaming. Here is where I watch an official not only make a call but explain it to the participant. Here is where I see athletes smile. And I do too.

Many years ago my son told me how much more he liked coaching at the middle school level than at the high school level. At the younger level, appreciative parents saw him as the one tapping into new talents. At the higher level, overbearing parents said he was missing or misusing their child’s talent.

The subvarsity level – the arena of discovery and development – is underappreciated. In fact, it is often where the best of what we call “educational athletics” occurs.

Planning Period

June 27, 2017

When I was a teacher, I cherished my planning period – that nearly 60 minutes of quiet time every day when, while most other teachers in our school were in class, I could pause to plan for the classroom duties ahead of me.

In a somewhat similar way, I have come to count on and enjoy three times of the year which serve as the major planning periods for my work at the Michigan High School Athletic Association. These three periods are the several weeks late each fall, winter and spring when other MHSAA staff are consumed with the administration of MHSAA tournaments.

I hate to distract these busy tournament directors as they handle countless communications with coaches, athletic directors, officials and local tournament managers. Instead, I look ahead to what is next for the MHSAA and how to frame subjects to help facilitate some progress.

During the recent planning period (aka, the MHSAA’s spring season tournaments in baseball, softball, golf, lacrosse, soccer, tennis and track & field), I was looking down the road and around the corner regarding these topics especially:

  • Basketball tournament scheduling, Finals sites and District seeding.

  • Alternative approaches to regulating transfers.

  • Tangible outcomes from the Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.

  • Re-energized efforts to promote good sportsmanship.

  • Strategies to turn around declining football participation.

  • Continued expansion of services for junior high/middle school programs.

  • Next steps needed to improve participant health and safety.

  • Innovations for recruiting and retaining contest officials.

  • Guiding and governing participation by “special” student populations.

  • And always ... how next (and every day) to better define and defend educational athletics.

These are the topics I hope to study, survey and discuss with my MHSAA colleagues and others during the next 10 months.