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A Can-Do Response

January 5, 2015

Michigan has a tradition of some of the nation’s most lenient out-of-season coaching rules, especially in the summer; and yet, the few rules we have are sometimes blamed for driving students to non-school programs.
Nevertheless, there is some validity to the criticism. It is observably true that non-school programs seem to fill every void in the interscholastic calendar. The day after high school seasons end, many non-school programs begin. The day a school coach can no longer work with more than three or four students, a non-school coach begins to do so.
The challenge is to balance the negative effects of an “arms war” in high school sports against driving students toward non-school programs. It’s the balance of too few vs. too many rules out of season.
The out-of-the-box compromise for this dilemma could be to not regulate the off season as much as to conduct school-sponsored off-season programs in a healthier way than they normally occur, i.e., to move schools back in control of and in the center of the non-school season. To not merely regulate what schools and coaches can’t do, but actually run the programs they can do and want to do.
Of course, this would require more of what schools have less of – resources. School administrators who may be in agreement that schools should operate off-season programs to keep kids attached to in-season programs still balk because they lack resources. At a time when resources are being cut for basic support of in-season programs, how could they justify spending more for out-of-season outreach?
Ultimately, in discovering the sweet spot for out-of-season interaction between school coaches with student-athletes, we need to give at least as much attention to providing more opportunity for what they can do together as for what they can’t do.

Visualizing Transfers

January 30, 2018

There are two visual aids to bring to the discussion of the transfer rule serving school sports in Michigan.

One visual is of a continuum, of a line drawn across a page, with 50 dots representing the transfer rules of the 50 states, with the more liberal or lenient rules to the left and the more conservative or strict rules to the right.

The dot for Michigan’s rule would be well to the left of center. The basic rule calls for an approximately one-semester wait for eligibility after a transfer, but with immediate eligibility if one of the 15 stated exceptions applies to the student’s circumstances.

The majority of states have a longer period of ineligibility and fewer built-in exceptions.

The second visual is of a playground teeter totter.

Sitting at one end are the majority of school administrators of Michigan (about two-thirds) who want a tougher and tighter transfer rule, with a longer period of ineligibility and fewer exceptions.

At the other end of the teeter totter is parents of school-age children, some unmeasured portion of which believe there should be no limitations in how or where they educate their children, whom they believe should have full and immediate access to all school programs at any school they choose for their children.

In the center, at the teeter totter’s fulcrum, is the Michigan High School Athletic Association, helping parents hear school administrators, and vice versa.