Investing in Kids
May 31, 2016
Tom Farrey, the journalist and author who now serves as executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, included this comment in his opening remarks at the “Project Play” Summit on May 17 in Washington, D.C.: “Invest in kids who aren’t your own.”
Upon hearing that, I thought this is precisely what coaches do ... the good ones anyway. They pour their lives into the lives of athletes. And in school sports, they do it not so much to improve students’ chances to be successful in an athletic contest as to be successful in life after competitive sports.
This is why the Michigan High School Athletic Association pours so many resources into coaches education. The MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program is delivered face to face anytime and anywhere schools, leagues or coaches associations can gather 20 or so learners.
For 2016-17, the MHSAA is offering every member junior high/middle school and senior high school $300 in free CAP training – six $20 vouchers and three $60 vouchers. Visit the CAP administrative page in July. (Users must be logged in as administrators to access the vouchers.)
Organized sports without trained coaches can do more lifetime harm than good. Coaches education, infused with the core values of educational athletics, is a necessity, not a luxury. And sports without purposefully trained coaches can be a liability.
Sounds of Silence
April 12, 2015
I write in the early morning hours for the same reason birds sing then – it’s quiet. Birds can hear their voices, and I can hear my thoughts.
It is during the uncontested moments of the day that I can try out ideas – test them on paper. Yes, on paper! My most creative and productive process still employs a legal pad, a pencil and an eraser. The physical process of writing the words, looking at them, and often erasing what doesn’t make sense to my mind or sound right to my ear as I read it aloud.
The task of written communication has become more difficult during the four decades I’ve been engaged in this enterprise. While the work has become more complex and requires more nuanced discussion, the space available for careful comment has been reduced. Pretending cleverness or profundity, texts and tweets often do more harm than good to promote creative and productive discourse.
I am rarely provided the luxury of long-form journalism in this modern age. Even a “feature” article in a prestigious national professional journal is expected to be less than 1,500 words.
Modern scribes must boil down complicated matters to brief blogs like this one, hoping in a few short paragraphs to share an insight worth reading and to suggest a response worth doing.
The insight here? Silence is golden.
The suggested response? Seek a solitary space to describe and defend what it is that you hear in that silence.