Locker Room Talk
November 4, 2016
I am greatly offended that politicians and pundits dragged sports into the trash pile of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The vulgar, victimizing language we heard from a presidential candidate in a 10-year-old recording is NOT “locker room talk.” It is far worse than anything I ever heard in any locker room I was a part of as either player or coach.
In fact, the expectation I had of school sports was that such talk would have caused coaches to disqualify the players involved or, if not, such talk would have caused administrators to dismiss the coaches in charge.
School sports locker rooms – like the fields, courts, pools, mats and other venues of play – are classrooms. While the volume may be turned up, in educational athletics, the content and vocabulary of the locker room must match the classroom. Anything less is unacceptable in the locker rooms of school-sponsored sports, and it ought to be unacceptable to the fans in the stands, people on the street and candidates for public office.
The Definition
July 25, 2017
This question was posed to me by a colleague last fall: “How does your state association define education-based athletics and activities?”
My response was as follows:
“Defining and defending educational athletics is one of the MHSAA’s four focus topics of 2016-17. We are striving to encourage and equip our core constituency to ‘blow their own horns’ about the values of school sports, the benefits of multi-sport participation and the meaning of success in educational athletics.
“To us, educational athletics is school-sponsored and student-centered, where the concern is for the whole child. It is local and inexpensive for both participants and spectators. It is amateur. It is inclusive, with as much potential to provide physical, mental and emotional lessons at the junior high/middle school level as the high school level, and in subvarsity programs as varsity programs, and in low profile sports as high profile sports.
“The programs are extracurricular: after the school day is when they should usually occur, and they are after academics in importance. They support the academic mission of schools.
“Educational athletics is not a right but a privilege available to students who meet the standards of eligibility and conduct established by the sponsoring school.”
I hope you agree.