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Help Wanted

November 22, 2011

You probably wouldn’t be much attracted to a “Help Wanted” posting in the classified ads of your local newspaper that read:

Help Wanted!
Long hours. Late nights.  Low pay.
Frequent criticism.

Almost every paid or volunteer position associated with local school sports would fit that description.

And yet, legions of people enlist in service to school sports each and every year.

Many do so because their own kids are involved as participants. Many others do it “to give back” to a program that provided them so many benefits as a participant years before.

I commend to your reading the Winter 2011-12 issue of benchmarks now online which features a very few of the very many people who have answered this “Help Wanted” call.  We are thankful for them all.

Don’t Mention It

October 27, 2017

It has taken every ounce of personal and professional discipline during the past month to keep me from writing what I’ve been thinking since the world became aware of arrests and suspensions in and around major college athletic programs.

  • I won’t repeat that we have been outspokenly suspicious of the influence of apparel companies on amateur athletics in America.

  • I won’t repeat that we have been continuously critical of the travel team environment infecting sports for youth and adolescents.

  • I won’t repeat for the umpteenth time that the “arms race” in major college basketball and football is ultimately unsustainable, or at least indefensible under the banner of higher education.

  • I won’t repeat that, in an era of ubiquitous high-definition video, it is ridiculous to think college coaches must be onsite for the cesspool of spring and summer tournaments funded by apparel companies, and that it would save colleges huge sums of money if NCAA rules did not permit onsite evaluations at such times and places.

  • I won’t repeat that nationwide travel and national tournaments are bad for student-centered, school-sponsored sports.

  • I won’t repeat that the Michigan High School Athletic Association limitation on travel and prohibition of payments to high school coaches from any source but the school are good for school sports.

I won’t mention any of this.