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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.

Spitting in the Ocean

February 27, 2015

I laughed out loud when I read recently that the municipal government in Beijing, China was blaming outdoor grilling for the city’s increasingly dense smog and was banning cooking over outdoor fires.

Here is the earth’s most prolific polluter – China, and its state-run, Hell-bent-on-growth economy – telling the nice people of its capital city to stop spitting in the ocean of poison the Chinese government itself has created and still promotes.

The National Football League – whose GDP may be growing as rapidly as China’s – has acted in similar ways. Facing epidemic criticism for its handling of current and former players’ head injuries, the NFL pointed at youth football. Facing criticism for the brutality of its players toward women, the NFL prepared programs for adolescents and teens. It seems the fault is always someplace other than the NFL juggernaut. 

But most times that I laugh at or criticize the blind eyes or bad faith of others, I pause to consider if we might sometimes act in similar ways. Might we be asking others to stop doing harm where we ourselves are doing more harm?

An extreme example could be that we criticize people for losing their minds at events when it is the MHSAA itself that sponsors and conducts the events of highest profile and importance ... although I will always argue that the most important events of educational athletics are the first ones – the first practices and games that introduce 7th, 8th and 9th graders to school-sponsored sports and shape their attitudes for years to come.

In any event, when any of us sees others act in ways we think are ridiculous, it would be good for all of us to then think about the ways we look ridiculous to others. And then consider if there are ways to change those perceptions.