Coach Connection
April 21, 2017
It has been a record-setting year for the Coaches Advancement Program (CAP) of the Michigan High School Athletic Association, the interactive and face-to-face, eight-level coaches education program which the MHSAA delivers “anytime, anywhere” across the state and in conjunction with several Michigan colleges and universities.
With 20 more sessions still to occur, attendance has already exceeded the previous high of 2,055 course completions in 2013-14. By the end of this school year, individuals will have completed more than 25,000 CAP units since the 2004-05 school year.
MHSAA Assistant Director Kathy Westdorp is the energy behind this program. She’s an educator at heart and she lights up when welcoming coaches to CAP sessions. A growing cadre of presenters deliver CAP under her watchful eye.
It could have been easier had the MHSAA outsourced coaches education to an online provider; but too much would have been missed. Newer coaches would not have benefited from connecting with more seasoned coaches during group discussions; and the MHSAA would have missed this week-after-week connection with coaches of all sports in all parts of Michigan.
The thousands of dollars and hours that the MHSAA devotes to CAP demonstrates this organization’s belief that nothing – absolutely nothing – is more important in the process of educational athletics than the quality of the coach-athlete connection.
Yogi
October 27, 2015
We lost a treasure when Yogi Berra died last month at the age of 90.
I hope a lot of people attended his funeral. After all, it was Yogi who said, “Always go to other peoples’ funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
Yogi had an intriguing mind for math. It was he who told us to “Pair up in threes.” He informed us that “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” He said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.” And, “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
Yogi was a sage observer of everyday life. In fact, he told us “You can observe a lot just by watching.” He observed that “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” And, “It gets late early.”
Of course, Yogi ought to have known a lot about baseball, a sport in which he excelled and enjoyed unprecedented and unduplicated success as catcher for 10 World Series championship teams. He was an 18-time All-Star; but with characteristic humility, Yogi confessed, “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.”
While wise about many things, Yogi wasn’t correct about everything. When he said, “It ain’t over til it’s over,” he was wrong. It ain’t ever going to be over for Yogi.
And yet, without Yogi, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”