Hard Fun
June 22, 2018
One of the features that attracts students to school sports is that competitive athletics is “hard fun.” Most students want to have fun, and most students ascribe greater value to that which doesn’t come too easily.
I don’t think we change much as we mature. We continue to value most the things that require effort ... the activities which, when completed, feel like an accomplishment.
It’s why I cherish my recent high altitude hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu ... the hardest physical challenge I’ve had since double-session football practices in high school and college.
It’s why coaches often will say their favorite season was the .500 record with over-achievers, not the conference championship with under-achievers.
It’s why students will return to class reunions this summer, 10 and 20 years after their graduation, and compliment especially the teachers and coaches who required the most of them as students and athletes.
What the very best classrooms and competitive athletic and activity programs do is challenge students. They push students to discover that they can move beyond where they thought their limits might be. They encourage students to explore their capabilities and to experience the joy of exceeding their expectations.
Representative Governance
November 11, 2014
A man in a hot air balloon, realizing he was lost, lowered the balloon to shout to a fellow on the ground: “The wind’s blown me off course. Can you tell me where I am?”
The man on the ground replied, “Sure. You’re hovering about 90 feet over this wheat field.”
The balloonist yelled, “You must be an engineer.”
“I am,” the man replied. “How did you know?”
“Well, everything you told me is technically correct but of absolutely no use.”
The engineer retorted, “You’re an executive, right?”
“How did you know?” the balloonist responded.
“Well, you were drifting in no particular direction before you asked for my help, and you’re still lost; but now it’s my fault.”
In addition to making me chuckle, that story reminds me that the world is very likely a much richer place when it has both bird’s-eye and on-the-ground perspectives. It is certainly true that our understanding of issues and answers in school sport is better when both views are voiced.
This reasoning is the basis for inviting any representative of a member school to serve on the MHSAA’s governing body, the Representative Council. Unlike many other states, seats at the MHSAA’s table are not limited to superintendents or to principals.
Throughout most of the MHSAA’s history, there has been a nearly equal balance of superintendents, principals, athletic directors and others on the 19-member Representative Council. However, in recent years the balance has shifted decidedly toward athletic directors, as superintendents have become increasingly occupied with keeping school districts afloat financially and principals are increasingly consumed with demonstrating improving student test scores.
The MHSAA’s Constitution provides for an election system that assures good diversity of school size and location on the Representative Council. The Constitution also provides for an appointment process that is intended to improve gender and minority membership on the Council. That provision is also being used to recruit superintendents and principals back to our table. We need policymakers who see things with a wide angle view as much as we need policymakers who see the daily details of school sports up close.