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Family Focus

September 2, 2014

The year I graduated from college (1970), 40 percent of U.S. households consisted of a married couple and their children. According to research summarized in AARP The Magazine’s June-July issue, the percentage was only 19 percent in 2013.
Even more startling is this: In 1960, five percent of U.S. births were to unmarried women. In 2012, it was 41 percent.
Very far from the most important impact these trends have on life in America today is the slice of American society we serve: competitive school sports.
In the 1960s and 1970s, schools would expect two parents in attendance for each child’s games or meets. In 2014, it is not unusual that one or infrequent that both parents are absent when their son or daughter competes.
Of course, school programs today have more boys sports and an almost entirely new slate of girls sports for parents to observe than two generations ago; and many times multiple events are scheduled simultaneously and force attentive parents to miss one child’s game while another child competes elsewhere.
It’s not my purpose here to point to specific strategies needed to keep parents constructively engaged in school sports. The limit of my commentary now is to offer a reminder, even to myself, that the manner in which we did things when the family unit looked one way is very likely in need of an overhaul, or at least a tweak, when the family unit looks very different.
The challenge, of course, is finding new avenues for old messages – fresh ways to deliver lasting core values. If we continue to proclaim that our brand is family friendly, we will meet this challenge.

Money, Money Everywhere, But ...

June 23, 2016

Weather-watchers will often complain that there is too little rain where it’s needed, and too much rain where it is not.

I feel the same way about money and sports – too little money where it’s needed, and too much money where it is not.

While physical education is being eliminated in elementary schools and interscholastic athletics are being gutted in junior high/middle schools and high schools, college sports are awash in extravagant new revenue from broadcasting and merchandising rights. For example ...

The athletic departments of UCLA, Ohio State, California, Notre Dame and Wisconsin will receive more than $1 billion combined from Under Armour over the next 15 years. The University of Michigan has announced a 15-year, $169 million deal with Nike. Michigan State University has a multimedia rights deal pending with Fox Sports worth $150 million over 15 years. Both Michigan and MSU will benefit richly from what is likely to be a new $440 million per year package with the Big Ten Network.

Meanwhile, for lack of funds, schools reduce or eliminate physical activity from the school and after-school curricula. Inactivity rates soar, as do childhood obesity rates, as do medical expenses to treat obesity-related illnesses in adults.

In sports as in most other aspects of American society, ours is a free-market system that allows the rich to get richer, with little regard for the consequences. It’s a system that invites misplaced priorities. Of celebrity more than substance. Of immediate gratification over investing in the long-term health of a nation and its people.