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Balance

May 12, 2015

Recently, there has been a lot of sports talk banter, as well as texting, tweeting and blogging, about the preferred value that major college football coaches place on the multi-sport high school athletes during the recruiting process.
Ohio State’s Urban Meyer tweeted that 42 of his first 47 signed recruits at OSU were multi-sport high school athletes. Utah’s football coaching staff followed with a report that 37 of 47 players on their two-deep roster last season played at least two sports in high school. Other programs have produced similar statistics.
College coaches from coast to coast report a preference for high school athletes who have competed in multiple seasons and who have developed, for example, greater quickness and agility during wrestling or basketball season, or better speed during track season.
Against these preferences are the pressures of youth sports organizations which program year-round as well as the misguided impressions of parents who believe single-sport focus is essential to obtaining a college athletic scholarship. Escalating college costs add fuel. And sometimes nonfaculty high school coaches who are hired for a single sport overemphasize the single-sport experience in students’ lives.
Those who lead school sports know the score – the foolishness of chasing college financial aid on the playing field. The chances of getting any financial aid based on participation in a single sport – much less a full “scholarship” – are extremely low. It’s closer to a gamble than a good investment.
As is the case with so much in life, good balance is best.

Living With Change

December 1, 2017

One of the odd and irksome scenes I observe occurs when a relative newcomer to an enterprise lectures more seasoned veterans about change. About how change is all around us, and inevitable. About how we must embrace it and keep pace with it.

All that is true, of course; and no one knows more about that than the veteran being subjected to the newcomer’s condescension.

No one “gets it” better than those who have lived and worked through it. Short-timers can’t claim superiority on a subject they’ve only read or heard about.

Who has the deeper appreciation of change in our enterprise? The person who started working before the Internet, or after? Before social media, or after?

Who has keener knowledge of change in youth sports? The person in this work before, or after, the Amateur Athletic Union changed its focus from international competition and the Olympics to youth sports?

Who sees change more profoundly? The one who launched a career before the advent of commercially-driven sports specialization, or the one who has only seen the youth sports landscape as it exists today?

Who can better evaluate the shifting sands: newcomers or the ones who labored before colleges televised on any other day but Saturday and the pros televised on any other day but Sunday (and Thanksgiving)?

Where newcomers see things as they are, veterans can see things that have changed. They can be more aware of change, and more appreciative of its pros and cons. They didn’t merely inherit change, they lived it.