Inner Life
November 25, 2016
Good reading here from Jody Redman, Associate Director of the Minnesota State High School League:
“The goal of interscholastic and youth sports is not to prepare students for a college scholarship or some professional career. It just doesn’t happen that often.
“Seventy-eight percent of youth who play sport will quit by the age of 12 because it just isn’t fun anymore and 97 percent of the students who go on to play at the high school level will have a terminal experience when they graduate. They will no longer play organized sports as they have throughout their youth experience.
“So what’s the point? Why do we play?
“We play to develop students into people with sound moral character that will prepare them for a life that recognizes the humanity of others, that is rich with empathy and compassion and develops in them the moral courage to stand up for what is right. When we only focus on physical skills and accomplishments we don’t give them the skills that will help them over the course of their lifetime, skills that will make the world a better place. We give them very little that has any real inherent value.
“It is time to give sports back to the children who play them. To focus on the true purpose of sports in our children’s lives. For this to happen, we have to establish a clear path, one that defines purpose, promotes values that are important to students and their community and defines success beyond winning.
“When we define success by the holistic development of our children into moral adults of character and compassion, then sports will regain its proper place in our families, schools and communities and most importantly, for the children who play them.”
Adult Errors
February 26, 2016
Every month, the MHSAA Executive Committee considers requests to waive eligibility rules for students. In very many cases, the student has become ineligible largely as a result of actions by others, most often a transient, broken or otherwise dysfunctional domestic environment.
While the Executive Committee starts the consideration of every case with a bias toward helping the student, the Executive Committee does not accept as a blanket excuse, “It wasn’t the student’s fault.” That alone will not win a waiver for the student.
When schools utilize an ineligible player in competition, resulting in forfeiture of the contest, it is almost always an inadvertent violation, often an administrative oversight. Once again, there is an inclination for people to appeal the required forfeit because, “It wasn’t the kids’ fault.”
Every third year or so, a school team will participate in more than the maximum number of contests or days of competition permitted during the regular season, and lose its MHSAA postseason participation privileges in that sport. Again, this is almost always an administrative misunderstanding ... “an adult’s error which shouldn’t penalize the team.” Again, “It wasn’t the kids’ fault.”
If every rule was unenforceable when it was an adult’s error, not a student’s fault, there would be few enforceable rules in school sports, and increasing disregard for rules. It has been encouraging to have so many people contact the MHSAA office in support of that message.