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A Bright Spot

April 22, 2014

One of the most foolish moves school districts have made as funding for their schools has been reduced, or redirected to various mandates, is to eliminate the position of full-time athletic administrator.
Some districts have combined the job with classroom instruction; other districts have hyphenated the position with other administrative responsibilities. Many districts have reduced clerical support and event management assistance. Hours have been cut and professional training has become an afterthought or luxury.
And still the districts send out their student-athletes to compete and collide in front of crowds of emotional onlookers. These districts are risking problems far more expensive than whatever was saved by this shortsighted approach to staffing.
One of the few bright spots in this bleak picture is the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, which has made initial and ongoing training for athletic directors one of its highest strategic objectives.
Last month, over three days at its annual mid-winter conference, the MIAAA provided 138 leadership training courses of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association to 88 of our state’s athletic directors.
A team of 20 leadership training instructors, coordinated by Mike Garvey (Kalamazoo Hackett), delivers this national training program year-round to Michigan’s athletic directors. As a result of their efforts and the hunger of our athletic directors, Michigan leads the nation in the number of persons who have received the NIAAA’s Certified Athletic Administrator (CAA) designation.
The MIAAA also is establishing a mentoring program to help the CAAs take the next step, to Certified Master Athletic Administrator (CMAA). Michigan has 47 CMAAs.
Again this August, the MIAAA will conduct a Leadership Academy focusing on newer administrators. Meg Seng (Ann Arbor Greenhills) and Fred Smith (Buchanan) co-chair the academy, and the MHSAA co-sponsors it.
The MIAAA, and its commitment to deliver an athletic program worthy of the label “educational,” is one of our state’s greatest resources.

Reality Check

July 29, 2016

In Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, “all the children are above average.” The greater fiction is that most parents believe their children are way above average, especially when it comes to sports. On that topic most parents are badly in need of a reality check.

A colleague at the MHSAA showed me a letter from the CEO of the Amateur Athletic Union to my colleague’s eight-year-old daughter announcing that she had been selected for a national publication that would identify the brightest future stars of women’s basketball, for a fee of course. A scam certainly; but how many other people might be taken in by this, or contribute to it “just in case” because they wouldn’t want to do anything to discourage their child’s ascension to stardom?

The MHSAA’s Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation has identified delusional parents as one of the greatest contributors to athletic specialization that is too early and intense, forcing some children out of sports too soon and leading them toward a life of inactivity and obesity, while leading the chosen youth toward overuse injuries that can be equally damaging to adult fitness.

This task force is developing strategies to help inform parents of elementary children that their children will almost certainly not participate in either college or professional sports but, with adequate attention to physical fitness, nutrition and sports sampling, most children can be involved in interscholastic athletics and remain active and fit for life after high school.

Among several task force strategies are a “Reality Check” video for parent meetings and printed pieces on “What Parents Should Know” with units by medical personnel, physical educators and coaches.

These efforts won’t change the world. They are, however, a small part of what we can do, have an obligation to do and will do to promote the health and safety of this and the next generation of young people.