![](/sites/default/files/imported/DirectorSig2H.jpg)
Crisis Coaching
June 14, 2013
On the highway outside my office window last week, there was a traffic accident that involved two 2012 graduates of a mid-Michigan high school. One was killed, the other appears to be recovering from serious injuries. The young men had been on their way to work.
The next morning’s newspaper coverage – in the news section, not the sports pages – revolved around the boys’ high school football coach. He told the reporter about his former players’ character and their dreams, and what a difficult day he had spent with their families. Later, local television stations made this coach their go-to person for updates.
This plays out so often: a family faces a crisis, and a coach is quickly on the scene. The best part of coaching – close and even lifelong relationships with players – becomes the toughest – being physically present when those players or their families need support.
It has played out so often in my experience that I can’t imagine what is lost in our schools as interscholastic coaching positions are farmed out to volunteers, or programs are eliminated altogether. I can’t imagine what is lost in the lives of students, and many of their families.
The richest part of coaching is relationships, which are often most revealed during the worst circumstances.
![](/sites/default/files/imported/DirectorSig2H.jpg)
Cheering for Sportsmanship
July 31, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on January 8, 2013.)
I try to start each new school year at the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association summer camp at Michigan State University. I talk briefly about who the MHSAA is and what it does; and then two or three dozen high school newspaper editors and writers ask me questions; and in doing so, they give me clues to what’s going on in our schools and what’s important to our students.
Several years ago, when I opened the session to questions, one young man asked: “Mr. Roberts, what’s your job?” I paused, and then said, “I guess I’m the head cheerleader for high school sports in Michigan.”
So then this precocious student asked: “Okay, what do you cheer for?” With a briefer pause, this is some of what I said:
-
I cheer for sportsmanship that’s not merely good, but great.
-
I cheer for sportsmanship, not gamesmanship.
-
I cheer for playing by the rules, both the letter and the spirit.
-
I cheer for maximum effort to try to win each and every contest.
-
I don’t cheer for winning at any cost; I do cheer for learning at every opportunity.
-
I cheer for losing with grace and for winning with even greater grace, with humility and modesty.
-
I cheer for the lessons of victory and the even greater lessons of defeat.