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If Not Now, When?

October 2, 2012

The greatest disappointments I experience in the administration of educational athletics are when I observe the program miss the opportunity to educate students in ways that will instill positive character traits.  It happens in little ways every day; and sometimes it happens in really big ways when we fail to require people to accept the consequences of their actions.

During and immediately following a Regional Tennis match several years ago, a student displayed the kind of sportsmanship that offended everyone’s sense of appropriate behavior.  There was no question he behaved badly, although the student and parents had many excuses for the behavior.

While the player was not disqualified at the time, his coach, athletic director and principal agreed the player should be withheld from the Final tournament, consistent with suspensions applied to other students in other sports at other times.  The parents appealed the decision and the central office overturned the building level decision because “missing the Final tournament was too severe a penalty.”  If it had been a regular-season contest, not the MHSAA Finals, the student would have been suspended.

So, what’s the lesson here?  There are consequences for inappropriate behavior so long as it’s not an important event for the student and school.  What kind of lesson is that?

And what a problem!  For this lesson teaches that exceptions will be made for better players and bigger events, that standards of acceptable behavior are related to the persistence of the parents and the prestige of the competition.

The problem is that if people are not held accountable for their behavior in high school athletics, whenever will they?  The problem is that if people are not held accountable for their acts – i.e., fail to develop character – a world going bad is going to get there faster.

No Easy Fix

February 13, 2015

“If we don’t fix this problem, even our friends and allies may turn against us.”
That was the dire warning one of the MHSAA staff members gave to the rest of us at a weekly staff meeting recently, during which this staff member was receiving emails from people appalled over the mid-season transfer of a basketball player from one school to another.
The “fix” that some people want is a rule that makes every transfer student ineligible for a full year, regardless of the reason for the change of schools or the circumstances of the student. Of course, that rule would never survive judicial scrutiny, and legislators in every corner of the state would be advocating change for the sake of one child or another.
A more moderate remedy is to utilize a rule that applies the full-year period of ineligibility to those students whose circumstances do not fit one of the already established 15 exceptions that make a student eligible without delay following a transfer. That half-measure would not stop many transfers that would still frustrate people, and it would snag many transfers that would continue to anger people.
The rules we already have in place are tools for schools to use to stop many of the transfers that frustrate without snaring those transfers that anger: the athletic-motivated transfer rule and especially the athletic-related transfer rule (or links law).
Before our friends and allies turn their backs on us, they need to turn in the transfer situations where the rules already apply, and the undue influence (recruiting) they can document. They need to give the system a chance to work to the full extent of its potential. We should not make tougher rules if schools fail to utilize the rules they already have.
Adopting rules is usually easy for the organization. Applying rules is often much harder for the schools.