It’s Not Us
October 2, 2015
There are continuing and crescendoing complaints about “AAU ball” – the travel, the competition without preparation, the agents and hangers-on, the sleaze factor. Yet some of those same complainers are critical of the very rules that tend to keep that sleaze at a low level in school sports in Michigan.
If so many people agree that kids and parents are being sold a bill of goods full of empty promises by a growing number of youth sports zealots, recruiting gurus, and both club and college level coaches, then why should we provide passports that would expose more students to this atmosphere?
If so many people feel that what’s happening in youth sports is bad and what’s masquerading as educational athletics in major college sports is baloney, then why should we help high school students earn frequent flier points through relaxation of time-tested travel and television policies?
If so many people believe there are too many athletic-motivated transfers, then why should we throw fuel on the fire? Those schools which could afford it would try to make their programs more attractive with national travel and televised games as a magnet to suck the best players out of neighboring schools that cannot afford the same excesses.
There is more than enough travel and exposure opportunity for schools here in Michigan and Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario and Wisconsin. Any more adds impure emphases and increased expenses to programs that are already overburdened or bankrupt.
When our school administrators and coaches say that national travel and tournaments are unaffordable and “It’s not us,” they mean it. They’ve got their priorities right.
Weaving Policy
February 10, 2017
My wife weaves. She weaves scarves and placemats and napkins and table runners and rugs. And while she weaves, I watch, looking for the metaphors.
One of the most obvious comes from looking at both sides of her work. In its simplest form, one side of the woven project is the result of careful planning and preparation; the other side just sort of happens. In weaving, except for the "plain weave" where the bottom of the item mirrors the top, the underside of a weaving project is usually unimportant.
In leadership, however, that's rarely the case. Leaders have to be concerned with two or more sides to most issues. They have to consider in advance both the seen and unseen aspects of the project.
So when people advocate for expansion or contraction of cooperative programs or football playoffs, or for tougher or more liberal transfer rules, or for more or different tournament classifications, or for seeding of tournaments, leaders of the Michigan High School Athletic Association need to look at both sides of any plan and the multiple angles of the issues raised.
This leadership will try to explain to proponents what opponents see in a proposal, and vice versa. This leadership will try to speak for and report to those who are underrepresented in the discussion.
This leadership is entitled to its own opinion but responsible for seeing that sincere and studied opinions of others are both well heard and thoroughly vetted.