It’s Change, Not Status

January 5, 2016

When I see a professional sports team install a scoreboard that is more expensive than the total of the interscholastic athletic budgets of the two dozen high schools closest to that stadium, I gripe.

When I see a half-dozen medical professionals scamper out to attend to an injured college football player, and then watch a local high school junior varsity soccer game where no medical professional is present, I grieve.

But in spite of these dispiriting moments, I never wish that my life’s work had been at those higher levels. Long ago I was impressed by the statement that we should measure impact by change, not by status.

It is at the school sports level, much more than at so-called higher levels, that lives are changed. No glitz. No glamour. Just huge results, with limited resources.

Seeding Questions

April 6, 2015

The more I hear people speak with absolute certainty that seeding MHSAA tournaments would be a good thing for more sports to implement, the less I’m certain that adequate wisdom accompanies those words. And I’m particularly concerned with the condescending attitude of the advocates toward those who question if seeding is practical or fair for MHSAA tournaments.

Before seeding is adopted for additional MHSAA tournaments (and it appears ice hockey is on the fastest track), there are many practical questions to address for each sport, including who decides, how they decide and when they decide. Seeding in school sports is a much more difficult task than it is at higher levels where there are many fewer teams operating in much less diverse settings.

Any successful proposal for seeding in school sports must be able to give an informed “No” to these questions:

  • Will the plan cause the “rich to get richer,” the successful to be even more successful?
  • Will the plan add fuel to the public vs. nonpublic school discord?
  • Will the plan create additional travel expenses for schools and loss of classroom instructional time for students?

Furthermore, any successful seeding plan must also provide an informed “Yes” to these questions:

  • Will the plan promote the tournament among schools, media and the public?
  • Will the plan increase tournament attendance?

And it is of most importance that every advocate of seeding acknowledge that opponents of seeding pose the right questions when they ask:

  • Is it fair and is it right to ease the tournament trail for teams based on their regular season performance?
  • Is a brand new start in the postseason bad, and if so, by what educational criteria?

When people boast that “the seeds held” in the NCAA basketball tournament or in our own MHSAA Tennis Tournament, we have to admit that this is exactly what ought to have happened when we gave the top seeds the easiest road to the trophy.

It is not wrong to question if that’s the right thing to do.