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.
Striking A Balance
January 23, 2018
This past fall, the feature topic of the seven Update Meetings of the Michigan High School Athletic Association was the Transfer Rule ... its history, rationale and reasons why it should and shouldn’t be altered to counter the transfer epidemic that school of choice laws and the youth sports travel team culture have infected upon school-sponsored sports in this and other states.
The Update Meeting presentation included cautions that, while the vast majority of school administrators and coaches want a tougher and tighter transfer rule with longer periods of ineligibility and fewer exceptions that permit immediate eligibility, many people outside of school sports believe such changes would infringe upon their individual choices; and even some people involved in school sports at the local level lose interest in supporting the rules already in place when they are applied to their own situation.
The Update Meeting concerns have been legitimized during more recent months in both high and low profile situations.
There are suggestions that the MHSAA should have an investigations department to search for and penalize athletic-oriented transfers and unscrupulous acts by coaches, parents and others. Which is a foolish notion. The MHSAA does not have subpoena power, can’t perform wiretaps, and cannot devote the personnel and other resources that an investigations department would require. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars in resources, the NCAA has not been able to execute that function for intercollegiate sports, and recently the FBI stepped in to do the difficult work.
As has been its long-standing and generally effective practice, the MHSAA relies heavily on its member schools to help enforce its rules, which schools agree to do as a condition of their voluntary membership.
At the other extreme are suggestions to do away altogether with transfer eligibility rules. Let anything and everything go. Which is what we call the AAU, an incompatible approach to student-centered, school-sponsored sports.
Striking a balance is a difficult, but worthwhile endeavor. To that end, the MHSAA Representative Council works tirelessly on behalf of member schools to establish the proper set of rules to create competitive equity.