Logo

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.

Family Focus

September 2, 2014

The year I graduated from college (1970), 40 percent of U.S. households consisted of a married couple and their children. According to research summarized in AARP The Magazine’s June-July issue, the percentage was only 19 percent in 2013.
Even more startling is this: In 1960, five percent of U.S. births were to unmarried women. In 2012, it was 41 percent.
Very far from the most important impact these trends have on life in America today is the slice of American society we serve: competitive school sports.
In the 1960s and 1970s, schools would expect two parents in attendance for each child’s games or meets. In 2014, it is not unusual that one or infrequent that both parents are absent when their son or daughter competes.
Of course, school programs today have more boys sports and an almost entirely new slate of girls sports for parents to observe than two generations ago; and many times multiple events are scheduled simultaneously and force attentive parents to miss one child’s game while another child competes elsewhere.
It’s not my purpose here to point to specific strategies needed to keep parents constructively engaged in school sports. The limit of my commentary now is to offer a reminder, even to myself, that the manner in which we did things when the family unit looked one way is very likely in need of an overhaul, or at least a tweak, when the family unit looks very different.
The challenge, of course, is finding new avenues for old messages – fresh ways to deliver lasting core values. If we continue to proclaim that our brand is family friendly, we will meet this challenge.