Grateful for Guidance
November 27, 2015
I have heard, and I believe, that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. And my father certainly did, establishing a pattern for my own life that leads the list of things for which I’m most grateful during this Thanksgiving week.
Yes, Dad was the director of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association for as long as I have been the director of the MHSAA, and I’m sure there’s a pattern there as well. But it was Dad’s devotion to Mom that provided the deeper impression and more lasting impact.
I’m also grateful for the way my father supported my athletic career. He was always present, but never overbearing. While his career as a multiple hall-of-fame athlete and coach might have earned him the right to critique my performances as an athlete, he never did. He would answer the questions I had, but never offer unsolicited opinions.
I’m very grateful for Dad’s solid, silent support; and I only wish that more parents today would take the approach my father did. I believe their kids would enjoy sports more ... as much as I did ... so much that it became my career.
Cooperative Spirit
May 13, 2016
The 2016-17 school year will be the 29th since “cooperative programs” were first approved for MHSAA member high schools; and in that first year, it was but a modest step: two or more MHSAA member high schools whose combined enrollment did not exceed the maximum for a Class D school (then 297) could jointly sponsor a team. The intent, of course, was to help our very smallest member schools generate enough participants to have a viable program in one or more sports that was of interest to some of their students.
Over the years, the cooperative program concept has expanded to member schools of larger enrollment and to member junior high/middle schools. As of April 7, 2016, there were 260 cooperative programs at the high school level involving 450 teams, as well as 88 cooperative programs at the junior high/middle school level for 331 teams.
During the 2016-17 school year, there will be two new opportunities for MHSAA member schools to consider with respect to cooperative programs.
First, cooperative programs will be an explicitly stated option at the subvarsity level in any sport.
Second, maximum enrollments have been eliminated to help public multi-high-school districts start and complete competitive seasons in communities that have struggled to sustain programs in baseball, bowling, girls competitive cheer, cross country, golf, soccer, girls softball, tennis and wrestling. This is a three-year experiment.
It is declining enrollment more than a desire to save money that the MHSAA Executive Committee looks for when approving cooperative programs. Combining enrollments to create new or preserve existing programs is the intent; co-oping to reduce expenditures is not.