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Controlled Fires

July 24, 2012

Forest fires have recently been scorching the United States with unusual reach and rage.  Infernos in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as well as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, have made news in our state.

Behind the headlines of the lightning-ignited 150-square-mile devastation near Fort Collins, Colorado is the analysis of forestry and conservation experts that it has been the absence of small fires that has helped to fuel the large fire.  Turns out that Smokey the Bear’s campaign to prevent forest fires may be partly at fault.

In most of life, little problems here and there help to avoid larger problems later.  The little fires consume the fuel that would feed a catastrophic conflagration exploding out of pent-up fears or frustrations or long-festering problems.

Even those who work in the “prevention business” – whether that’s the US Forest Service or a statewide athletic association – must tolerate a few fires.  They can have positive, productive effects, one of which is to keep small problems from growing large and more destructive.

The Imperative of Institutional Control

March 13, 2018

Of the various criticisms about the MHSAA’s handling of transfers, these three have the ring of some validity:

  • The Transfer Rule is too complicated.

  • The Transfer Rule is poorly understood at the local level, and thus unevenly administered.

  • The MHSAA office is ill-equipped to police the transfer scene.

The language of the Transfer Rule has expanded from a few sentences to many pages over its 90-year lifetime. This is the result of changes in schools, sports and society, as well as people operating at the edges of the rule, which has led to a rule that has attempted to cover more circumstances with more specificity year after year.

This increasingly nuanced rule takes both training and time. The MHSAA does an excellent job of providing training online and in person, but local administrators are not putting in the time – they can’t! They are usually less experienced but given more non-sports duties than athletic directors of 10, 15 and 20 years ago; and they are leaving the profession after shorter careers. They often lack the training and time to do the complicated and potentially contentious tasks, including Transfer Rule administration.

Overwhelmed local athletic directors are not shy about contacting the MHSAA office for assistance in interpreting and applying the Transfer Rule. These incoming questions dominate the time of MHSAA staff who have many other duties, including the administration of MHSAA tournaments in 14 sports for each gender.

Lacking sufficient staff time and subpoena power, the MHSAA must depend on local school administrators to police their own programs, communicate with their neighbors, and report what they believe might be violations within their own and nearby programs.

While we keep working on the language of the Transfer Rule, we harbor no illusions that it will become simpler to understand and enforce. That’s just not how the modern world works ... everything becomes more complicated. Which may only make it more unlikely that schools will dedicate the time and talent necessary to assure that the principle of “institutional control” is practiced by MHSAA member schools.

However, if we give up on that principle, no amount of oversight by the MHSAA office will ever be enough to police school sports in Michigan ... not just to monitor transfers, but also to attend to the dozens of other elements that distinguish educational athletics.