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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.

A Different Language

January 16, 2015

Every other year my wife and I are able to spend the December holidays with our son and his wife who are international school educators, but we must journey to the other side of the world to make that happen. In crossing both the international dateline and the equator to see them in Australia last month, I learned a helpful lesson for those of us who try to communicate about school sports.
For two weeks I attempted to be a follower of Australia's "national pastime" -- cricket -- but try as I might, I could not grasp a passable understanding of the sport. On the surface, cricket seems a lot like baseball; but there are far more differences than similarities to the sport many North, Central and Latin Americans grew up with and know so well. I watched cricket on television and read the extensive newspaper coverage every day; but even after studying the rules and listening to and questioning a local expert, even the most basic rules, strategies and language of cricket remain mysteries to me.  
For a while at least, my struggle with cricket may make me more understanding of some parents and others who are so quick to criticize high school sports. Possibly I’ll be more purposeful and patient to explain our policies and the philosophies behind them.
Many of today's parents and spectators have never played the sports their children now play. They don't really know the rules and strategies of the games that were not a part of their upbringing, and they tend to be more unreasonably critical of decisions by coaches and officials in those sports.
Competitive cheer, gymnastics, lacrosse, ice hockey, soccer and other sports seem "foreign" to those who never played those sports. But it's true that in all sports we are likely to experience the most criticism, and the most unjustifiable complaints, where there is the least understanding or appreciation. That's true of a particular sport’s playing rules, and it's also true of the policies and procedures that govern all school sports. And in both cases, this demands extra effort on the part of coaches and administrators to communicate the rules and the reason for those rules.