Centennial Celebration
October 20, 2017
The National Federation of State High School Associations is preparing to celebrate its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. It may be unfair to boil down to a few bullet points a century of contributions to school sports, but I make the attempt here – with the credentials that there has been a John E. Roberts heading up a National Federation member state organization for more than 60 of those years (my dad in Wisconsin for nearly 30 years, followed by my more than 31 years in Michigan).
Here, in my opinion, are the four greatest gifts of the National Federation to school sports in America:
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In the late 1920s and 1930s, the National Federation’s leadership influenced the end of national high school tournaments. First four, then a dozen and then two dozen very young state high school associations, through their even younger National Federation, successfully challenged prestigious universities (like the University of Chicago) and the biggest names in college sports (like Amos Alonzo Stagg) who conducted national high school tournaments.
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During the next decades, and one sport at a time, the National Federation assumed from the colleges and non-school organizations responsibility for writing the playing rules for high school level competition, intentionally crafting rules that promoted greater participant safety and much more ease of understanding and enforcement by contest officials. The National Federation now releases about 40 publications each year, serving 16 different sports.
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At the start of the new millennium, the National Federation began its march to emerge as the nation’s most prolific provider of online education for coaches. The National Federation now has more than 50 different online courses available, including more than 20 free courses; and approximately five million courses have been delivered.
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In 2013, the NFHS Network was launched to provide a digital broadcast home for state high school association tournaments and the School Broadcast Program. With more than 3,000 events produced each month now, this is the most effective platform in National Federation history for promoting the excitement, diversity and values of school-sponsored sports.
Neighborhood Pressure
June 7, 2016
Of all the forces working to cause adolescent youth to focus on a single sport to the exclusion of others, one of the most insidious and impactful is “neighborhood pressure.” It’s “keeping up with the Joneses” applied to youth sports instead of house, car and boat.
Some parents feel like bad people if they do not only facilitate but also force their child to keep climbing the sports ladder, moving from neighborhood team to select team to elite team, and from a season experience to a year-round commitment, and from local participation to a schedule that requires out-of-town travel for both games and practices.
“If the neighbors do this for their son or daughter, what kind of parent am I if I don’t do this for my child?”
Actually, the answer is that you are the smart parent – one who has read the literature and has learned that early and intense sport specialization is not best for your child’s future in sports or in life. Sport specialization is a less healthy experience – physically, emotionally and socially – for children ages 6 to 12; and it is no more likely to result in success in high school sports or a college athletic scholarship than a balanced youth sports experience.
All the intense specialization is certain to do is cost much more money than a college scholarship is worth, assuage parents’ consciences and give them topics to talk about at neighborhood gatherings.