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Health & Safety Journey

September 30, 2014

The Michigan High school Athletic Association is a bit more than halfway through an eight-year effort to shine the light on, and provide leadership for, four health and safety issues for school sports.
Four and five years ago our health and safety focus was adding more health history to the preparticipation physical examination process and printed forms. With the essential assistance of the Michigan Department of Community Health, this was done, and it earned widespread, positive reaction from Michigan’s diverse medical community.
Two and three years ago our focus was the head; and our early adoption of an all-sports return-to-play protocol after concussion symptoms became a national model.
Last year and this, heat and hydration has been the focus. The MHSAA imposed on its own tournaments, and recommended for member schools’ practices and contests, policies to manage heat and humidity that include a reduction or modification of activities when the heat index reaches a certain level and cessation of all activities when the heat index reaches an even higher level.
Next school year and in 2016-17 the focus will be the fourth “H”: hearts. Tests for heart defects are expensive and results are often misleading, and the triggers of sudden cardiac arrest are unpredictable. Therefore, we will be pointing to the two actions medical authorities appear to agree upon most: (1) the need for planned and practiced emergency procedures, and (2) the need to have AEDs nearby, in good working order.
We urge MHSAA member schools not to wait for the MHSAA focus to make this a local school focus, and we recommend the MI HEARTSafe Schools initiative. See the HeartSafe Action Plan or the HeartSafe School information for details.

No. 1 Worries

December 27, 2017

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted Sept. 21, 2012, and the theme rings true today.

Fueled by the “No. 1” syndrome, people often worry about and value the wrong things when it comes to interscholastic athletics.

For example, they worry about the eligibility of athletes more than the education of students.  They worry about athletic scholarships to college more than genuine scholarship in high school.  Faced with financial shortfalls, they use middle school athletics as the whipping boy because the No. 1 syndrome causes people to value varsity programs more than junior varsity, and high school programs more than middle school.

It is possible in the subvarsity programs of our high schools (far more than in varsity programs where crowds and media bring pressure to win) and it should be and usually is pervasive in our middle school programs, that participation is more important than specialization, trying more important than winning, teamwork more important than individual honors, and teaching more important than titles and trophies.

At the middle school level, coaches have an opportunity to look down the bench for substitutes without first looking up at the scoreboard.  The scorebook should be kept to see how many students played in the game, not how many points any one player scored.

Here is where education prevails over entertainment in interscholastic athletics.  Here is where philosophy of athletics is more in tune with the mission of the school.  Here is where the taxpayer’s dollar is spent best.

To the degree we introduce large tournaments and trophies into middle level programs, we damage the purity of educational athletics and the purpose of middle school programs.  To the degree we cut middle level programs in the face of budget crises, we succumb to the No. 1 syndrome.

We must expose the No. 1 syndrome for the sickness it is:  a cancerous growth that must be cut out of educational athletics before it leads to cutting out what is arguably the most educational parts of interscholastic athletics:  middle school programs.