Common Good
November 23, 2011
During the first week of July in 1995, I read an editorial by Judith A. Ramaley, president of Portland State University in Oregon, that seems as appropriate for today’s events and public policy environment as it was then. Perhaps even more so. Ms. Ramaley wrote:
“I used to think that character is how you behave when no one is looking. For most of us that may still be true. For public figures, however, character is how you behave when everybody is looking . . .
“. . . Nearly a century ago when President Woodrow Wilson was still a college professor, he said: ‘A great nation is not led by a man who simply repeats the talk of the street corners or the opinions of the newspaper. A nation is led by a man who, rather, hearing those things, understands them better, unites them, puts them into common meaning; speaks not the rumors of the street but a new principle for a new age; a man for whom the voices of the nation . . . unite in a single meaning and reveal to him a single vision, so that he can speak what no man else knows, the common meaning of the common voice.’”
As our “modern” nation heads into the heart of yet another election season, with earlier and earlier primaries leaving little separation from the last acrimonious campaigns, it is this quality above all others that I’m seeking to find in the candidates for public office: the uncommon heart and mind to unite us for the common good.
Not So Great
February 7, 2017
The Michigan High School Athletic Association leadership can sometimes be like the leadership of the United States of America. We can boast a bit too boldly about how great we are.
That's why a trip to Europe, most recently for me to the country of Spain, can be a humbling reminder that no matter how good we may seem to be regarding some things, there is very much room for improvement on others.
The USA is a leader in many ways, but a distant laggard when it comes to community place-making and the quality of our roads and bridges and mass transportation systems. The USA is embarrassingly behind the needs and times in these important ways of improving life for millions of its citizens.
This obvious observation begs for consideration of ways and means the MHSAA may lag behind its counterpart organizations in serving and supporting school-sponsored sports. And these are the two most obvious observations:
We trail the nation's most progressive states with respect to requirements to coach and a few other most progressive states with respect to requirements to officiate.
It was no huge surprise that the 2016 MHSAA Update Meeting Opinion Poll demonstrated that attendees were more supportive of proposals to change those rules than any other policies or procedures of the organization.
The most popular proposal surveyed was a requirement that high school coaches who are disqualified from a contest more than once in a season must complete a free online sportsmanship course before they may return to coaching ... 94 percent of 602 respondents favored that policy.
The second most popular proposal surveyed would require all head coaches at the junior high/middle school level to have a valid (current) certification in CPR (same as the rule for high schools) ... 80 percent of 593 respondents favored that.
And the third most popular proposal surveyed would require an MHSAA registered official to attend an MHSAA-conducted or approved camp or clinic (three-hour minimum duration) during the first three years before that official may renew registration for a fourth year ... 75 percent of 601 respondents were in favor.
There are some obvious flaws in these requirements as stated on the Opinion Poll, and the respondents tend to come from larger schools and under-represent the opinion of small school administrators; but the responses of constituents are valuable nevertheless because they indicate a general direction that respondents believe is necessary to improve school sports, or at least to keep pace with the changing needs.