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A Game Changer

July 9, 2012

In the year 2000, fewer than 300,000 books were published in the United States.  In 2010, more than a million were published.

This means that electronic media didn’t kill the book publishing industry, as some experts predicted.  Quite the opposite.  But electronic media surely changed the industry in several major ways, including:

  • It democricized the industry – made it cheaper and easier for almost all of us to publish whatever we want, whenever we want, even if only our family and closest friends might read it.

  • It dumbed down the industry.  With almost everybody able to produce almost anything, the average quality of published works has plummeted.

The importance of these book industry statistics to us is that they point to what can and does happen in other aspects of life, including school sports.  They provide evidence that sometimes what we think might crush us, only changes us.  Causes us to do things differently – cheaper, faster or better and, sometimes, all three at once.

Some of us in school sports may, sometimes, curse electronic media; but many of the changes they have brought us are positive.  Like officials registering online, receiving game assignments online and filing reports online.  Like schools rating officials online; and online rules meetings for coaches and officials.  Like schools scheduling games online, and spectators submitting scores online.  Like the ArbiterGame scheduling program the MHSAA is now providing all its member high schools free of charge.

Seeking Serious Solutions

April 13, 2018

Too much time is being spent on season-ending tournaments, and too little time on the regular season, and practice, and making sports heathier, and promoting student engagement, and the role of sports in schools.

There are exceptions, of course.

  • The Michigan High School Athletic Association Soccer Committee is a rarity, expressing that there may be too much competition and not enough practice and rest in school-based soccer.

  • The MHSAA Competitive Cheer Committee is constantly looking for the right balance of athleticism and safety – a blend that will challenge the best and grow the sport among the rest.

  • The MHSAA Junior High/Middle School Committee is tackling large, tough topics and beginning to make culture-changing proposals to carry the brand of school sports to younger students.

These are examples of the conversations of which all school-based sports leaders must have much more.

Because our standing committees have often failed us and spent too much time on matters of too little consequence, the MHSAA has often resorted to special task forces or work groups to help get necessary things done.

  • This is how Michigan got ahead of the curve on the length of football practices and the amount of contact. A task force was appointed when the football coaches association and the MHSAA Football Committee were ineffective.

  • Years ago, it wasn’t a standing committee but a work group that brought us the eligibility advancement provision for overage 8th-graders.

  • That’s how cooperative programs came to our state.

  • That’s how we got coaches education started, and it’s how we extended coaches education to apply to more coaches on more topics.

  • This is how we are making progress now – a Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation, and a Work Group on the Transfer Rule.

We need more of this – small groups diving deeply into topics over multiple meetings. Educational athletics has significant problems that require serious solutions, and new strategies for seeking those solutions.