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Do The Opposite

July 15, 2013

During the summer weeks, "From the Director" will bring to you some of our favorite entries from previous years. Today's blog first appeared Aug. 12, 2011.

In Borrowing Brilliance, author David Kord Murray suggests that some of the brightest, most creative ideas emerge by doing the opposite of what your closest competition is doing.

So when I see school sports in some ways adopting over-hyped and commercialized traits of major college and professional sports or in more ways drifting toward behaviors of non-school youth sports, I sense an absence of creative thinking and doing by the folks in charge.

This wouldn’t worry me if I didn’t foresee that when school sports become too much like non-school sports, folks will begin to earnestly question why schools are spending severely limited time and money duplicating non-school programs.

Which will cause schools to drop those programs – first at subvarsity levels, as is already occurring, and then at all levels.

Which will cause schools to lose what has been well documented to be a great motivator for improving student attendance and grade-point averages and reducing student discipline problems and dropout rates.

It is almost to the point where if I see non-school sports do one thing, I recommend school programs do the opposite.

  • Make athletes pay to play?
    • Schools should do the opposite!
  • Make athletes transport themselves to events?
    • Schools should do the opposite!
  • Schedule lots of games and little practice?
    • Schools should do the opposite!
  • Schedule long-distance travel and national-scope events?
    • Schools should do the opposite!
  • Focus on individuals more than teams?
    • Schools should do the opposite!

In anything and almost everything, in large matters or small, schools should tend toward the opposite of what they observe in much of non-school sports. It will likely be better for the student-athletes and tend to preserve the niche school sports has long enjoyed in the world of sports.

Transfer Rule Rationale

March 6, 2018

It is certain that the Michigan High School Athletic Association transfer rule is imperfect. However, whatever imperfections exist are effectively remedied through a process by which member school administrators may make application to the MHSAA Executive Committee to waive the rule if, in the committee’s opinion, the rule fails to serve any purpose for which it is intended or, in its sole discretion, the Executive Committee determines that application of the rule creates an undue hardship on the student. 

In a typical year, the Executive Committee will receive approximately 290 requests to waive the transfer regulation, approving approximately 60 percent of those requests.

The committee brings to its considerations the following rationale, most recently reviewed and reaffirmed on Aug. 2, 2017:

  1. The rule tends to insure equality of competition in that each school plays students who have been in that school and established their eligibility in that school.

  2. The rule tends to prevent students from "jumping" from one school to another.

  3. The rule prevents the "bumping" of students who have previously gained eligibility in a school system by persons coming from outside the school system.

  4. The rule tends to prevent interscholastic athletic recruiting.

  5. The rule tends to prevent or discourage dominance of one sport at one school with a successful program, i.e., the concentration of excellent baseball players at one school to the detriment of surrounding schools through transfers and to the detriment of the natural school population and ability mix.

  6. The rule tends to create and maintain stability in that age group, i.e., it promotes team stability and teamwork expectation fulfillment.

  7. The rule is designed to discourage parents from "school shopping" for athletic purposes.

  8. The rule is consistent with educational philosophy of going to school for academics first and athletics second.

  9. It eliminates family financial status from becoming a factor on eligibility, thus making a uniform rule for all students across the state of Michigan (i.e., tuition and millage considerations).

  10. It tends to encourage competition between nonpublic and public schools, rather than discourage that competition.

  11. It tends to reduce friction or threat of students changing schools because of problems they may have created or because of their misconduct, etc.