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The Investment
February 3, 2015
“. . . a strong, vibrant society invests in its future by investing in young people. What our youth can learn from playing sports are life lessons we, as a society, place at a high value.“How we pay for it all – education, the arts and athletics – has become a political football . . . and it deserves to be treated as the serious and significant investment that it truly is.”
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Cheering for Sportsmanship
July 31, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on January 8, 2013.)
I try to start each new school year at the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association summer camp at Michigan State University. I talk briefly about who the MHSAA is and what it does; and then two or three dozen high school newspaper editors and writers ask me questions; and in doing so, they give me clues to what’s going on in our schools and what’s important to our students.
Several years ago, when I opened the session to questions, one young man asked: “Mr. Roberts, what’s your job?” I paused, and then said, “I guess I’m the head cheerleader for high school sports in Michigan.”
So then this precocious student asked: “Okay, what do you cheer for?” With a briefer pause, this is some of what I said:
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I cheer for sportsmanship that’s not merely good, but great.
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I cheer for sportsmanship, not gamesmanship.
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I cheer for playing by the rules, both the letter and the spirit.
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I cheer for maximum effort to try to win each and every contest.
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I don’t cheer for winning at any cost; I do cheer for learning at every opportunity.
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I cheer for losing with grace and for winning with even greater grace, with humility and modesty.
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I cheer for the lessons of victory and the even greater lessons of defeat.