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High-Performing Programs

July 10, 2018

(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com June 28, 2011, and was printed in the September/October 2006 MHSAA Bulletin, and in Lasting Impressions, which appears in the MHSAA's online Library.)

A study of 10 academically-oriented after-school programs in New York City funded by the After-School Corporation may provide some unintended guidance for interscholastic athletic programs.

Prepared in November 2005 by Policy Studies Associates, Inc. for the After-School Corporation and Southwest Educational Development Laboratory with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the report “Shared Features of High Performing After-School Programs” identifies the following characteristics of high performing after-school programs:

  • A broad array of enrichment opportunities. 
  • Opportunities for skill building and mastery. 
  • Intentional relationship building. 
  • A strong, experienced leader/manager supported by a trained and supervised staff. 
  • The administrative, fiscal and professional development support of the sponsoring organization.

While competitive junior high/middle school and high school sports were not the subject of this study, here’s what I think these findings could mean for school sports:

  • Interscholastic athletic programs should provide a wide variety of opportunities appealing to a diverse group of students.

  • Interscholastic athletic programs should provide competitive opportunities for the highly skilled as well as learning opportunities for the less skilled so they too might progress to higher levels of competency, or just enjoy the fun, friends and fitness of school sports.

  • Teamwork, sportsmanship and leadership should be outcomes as intentional as development of skills of the sport and strategies of contests.

  • A full-time athletic administrator is essential, and it is imperative this person have authority to train and supervise staff and hold them accountable for performance consistent with the best practices of educational athletics.

  • School boards and their administrators must provide sound policies and procedures, adequate financial support and opportunities for continuing education for the athletic director and every coach.

All in all, a pretty good blueprint for school sports in Michigan.

NFL Misdirection

September 26, 2014

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did something I really respect; and then he didn’t.
On Aug. 28, the commissioner sent a letter to the NFL’s 32 owners in which he admitted that he “didn’t get it right” when he assessed a mere two-game suspension for a player who was seen on videotape to be involved in domestic abuse. I admire his admission. (The player later would be suspended indefinitely from the league following additional evidence in the incident)
Unfortunately, the commissioner accompanied his mea culpa by describing a series of initiatives the league will undertake, one of which – once again – attempts to deflect a public relations disaster upon high schools.
When the NFL was under attack for the head trauma its players were experiencing, the league responded with a state-by-state campaign to impose youth concussion laws which, in most places, were mostly unfunded mandates that are more about symbolism than substance.
Now, again under attack for malfeasance by a workforce with more money than maturity, the league’s leadership is deflecting the blame to college, high school and youth football programs by planning educational efforts aimed at those levels.
Commissioner! Clean up your mess, but leave us alone. You are gutting public support of school sports with one televised game Thursday, three on Sunday and another on Monday, and adding Saturday games in December. Don’t have this out-of-control league lecture our level about restraint and responsibility.
Ours is the level that prohibits sack dances and end zone prances. We insist that our interscholastic players demonstrate maturity that the NFL’s players do not.