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Different Treatment

February 25, 2014

In a perfect world we would treat every transfer student in the exact same way. We would declare every transfer student from anywhere to anywhere eligible immediately. Or we would declare every transfer student from anywhere to anywhere ineligible for a period of time that applied identically to everyone; there would be no exceptions for any student.

But educators who have been conducting interscholastic programs in every state across the country have determined that “one size doesn’t fit all.” One single rule, with no exceptions, doesn’t work. It’s either too lenient in some cases or it’s too limiting in others.

So every state high school association has developed a general policy – that students who are new to a school are not immediately eligible for interscholastic athletics; and every state high school association in the country has made exceptions to that general rule for certain students and modified the period of ineligibility for other students.

Different treatment for different students is inherent in every state association’s transfer rule. Different treatment is not only reasonable; it’s inescapable.

It is not unfair to treat some students differently than others. Very often it’s the only way to promote and protect fairness in school-sponsored sports.

Seeding Questions

April 6, 2015

The more I hear people speak with absolute certainty that seeding MHSAA tournaments would be a good thing for more sports to implement, the less I’m certain that adequate wisdom accompanies those words. And I’m particularly concerned with the condescending attitude of the advocates toward those who question if seeding is practical or fair for MHSAA tournaments.

Before seeding is adopted for additional MHSAA tournaments (and it appears ice hockey is on the fastest track), there are many practical questions to address for each sport, including who decides, how they decide and when they decide. Seeding in school sports is a much more difficult task than it is at higher levels where there are many fewer teams operating in much less diverse settings.

Any successful proposal for seeding in school sports must be able to give an informed “No” to these questions:

  • Will the plan cause the “rich to get richer,” the successful to be even more successful?
  • Will the plan add fuel to the public vs. nonpublic school discord?
  • Will the plan create additional travel expenses for schools and loss of classroom instructional time for students?

Furthermore, any successful seeding plan must also provide an informed “Yes” to these questions:

  • Will the plan promote the tournament among schools, media and the public?
  • Will the plan increase tournament attendance?

And it is of most importance that every advocate of seeding acknowledge that opponents of seeding pose the right questions when they ask:

  • Is it fair and is it right to ease the tournament trail for teams based on their regular season performance?
  • Is a brand new start in the postseason bad, and if so, by what educational criteria?

When people boast that “the seeds held” in the NCAA basketball tournament or in our own MHSAA Tennis Tournament, we have to admit that this is exactly what ought to have happened when we gave the top seeds the easiest road to the trophy.

It is not wrong to question if that’s the right thing to do.