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The First Time
April 3, 2018
I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday the first time I had to determine a student was not eligible under rules of the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
At that singular moment, it did not matter that I had been able to advise a dozen previous callers that the students they were inquiring about were eligible under the rules. All I could see in my mind’s eye was this one student who would not be able to participate as a full-fledged member of a team in a sport he enjoyed.
I assumed, as I have in almost every case since, that this was a “good kid,” and one who needed sports more than sports needed him.
But the facts made him ineligible and there were no compelling reasons to look beyond the facts. I knew it would be hard on the student to miss a season, but I also knew this was not in any sense an “undue hardship.” I could see that if the rule was not enforced in this case, I would be undermining its enforcement in other cases, and effectively changing the rule.
And I recognized that I did not have the authority to change a rule which the MHSAA Representative Council and each member school’s board of education had adopted to bring consistency and control to competitive athletics.
Many years have passed, and I’ve had to consider the eligibility of countless students to represent their schools on athletic teams. But I still see each situation as an individual student, balancing his or her individual needs and desires against the need to protect the integrity of the rules and the desire to promote competitive equity within the program.
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Long Days
September 20, 2016
When I read, I prefer three types of literature:
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Fun, fast fiction – so I can read more than one page before I fall asleep at night.
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Well written, lively biographies of historical figures, especially in American history.
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Articles and essays about space.
The pieces about space almost always have the effect of putting my world in humble perspective.
For example, this summer astronomers in Chile discovered Planet HD 131399Ab. It’s 320 light years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus.
This planet is unlike any other in the known world. It has three suns. And the planet takes 600 of our Earth years to orbit its main sun once.
One day on Planet HD 131399Ab is like 600 years on Earth.
So, if you think you’ve had some long days recently, think again. Ponder Planet HD 131399Ab and its nearly 5 million-hour day.