Full Decade Price Freeze
September 15, 2011
The 2011-12 school year marks the 10th consecutive year of no increase in MHSAA Regional tournament tickets for football and boys and girls basketball; and it’s the ninth consecutive year without increase at the District level of those tournaments. This is noteworthy on at least three levels.
First, it means parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends on fixed incomes or struggling through a fickle economy have experienced no new costs to support their local school teams over the past decade.
Second, it means that what were the MHSAA’s largest revenue sources – gate receipts from District and Regional tournaments of football, boys basketball and girls basketball – have not been used to support the MHSAA’s expanding services.
Finally, when the freeze on ticket prices is combined with the freefall of girls and boys basketball attendance since the change of girls basketball season to the winter (the four-year average total attendance is down 9.3 percent for the girls tournament and down 21.1 percent for the boys tournament), the overall effect on the MHSAA’s operational budget is dramatic.
To compensate, the MHSAA has cut expenses and created new revenue sources. For years, MHSAA tournaments produced more than 90 percent of the MHSAA’s revenue. In 2010-11, it was less than 80 percent. The 2011-12 target is less than 75 percent.
Reluctant Leadership
March 15, 2016
Years ago I was asked my opinion about who should become the president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. My response was that it should be no person who is seeking the job. It was and remains my belief that, in ministry, the person should not seek the job; the job should seek the person.
I think this should also apply to the presidency of the United States.
It’s only mid-March, and I’m already sick and tired of campaign rhetoric and the ridiculously low behavior of candidates for what’s supposed to be our nation’s highest office.
I am looking for humility; and I think, perhaps, that any person who seeks the presidency probably lacks the humility to be the person we need in that office.
I want both a freer and fairer society, led by humble servants within public and private institutions. I want servant-leaders with character more than charisma.
I want a society where individuals with drive and discipline take responsibility for making things better at home and in their neighborhoods, communities and states. And where one of these unsuspecting persons, with lots of grit but little guile, gets drafted to lead our country, and very reluctantly accepts.