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Long-Term Investment

January 25, 2012

Many homes have just removed the decorations from their holiday trees and removed the bare, brittle tree from their house. This has caused me to reflect on a drive last fall through many miles of tree farms, observing some trees ready for harvest but many more trees that were many years away from cutting.

During that drive I thought about the character of those who had planted the trees.  This is not like many crops which are planted in spring and provide a return on the investment by fall.  One who plants trees knows the harvest is many years of growth and pruning away. That return on investment could be a decade or two of toil down the road.

As I questioned how these farmers could wait so long, I began to marvel at the optimistic, patient spirit they must have.  Their hope and persistence.  Their assurance that the time and money invested now will be rewarded later.

This humbling internal dialogue caused me to think of dedicated teachers, coaches and administrators who, metaphorically, are planting some trees and pruning others each and every school year, knowing they may never personally see the results.  But having confidence that, in time, there will be a return on the investment they and their communities have made in our young people.

No Easy Fix

February 13, 2015

“If we don’t fix this problem, even our friends and allies may turn against us.”
That was the dire warning one of the MHSAA staff members gave to the rest of us at a weekly staff meeting recently, during which this staff member was receiving emails from people appalled over the mid-season transfer of a basketball player from one school to another.
The “fix” that some people want is a rule that makes every transfer student ineligible for a full year, regardless of the reason for the change of schools or the circumstances of the student. Of course, that rule would never survive judicial scrutiny, and legislators in every corner of the state would be advocating change for the sake of one child or another.
A more moderate remedy is to utilize a rule that applies the full-year period of ineligibility to those students whose circumstances do not fit one of the already established 15 exceptions that make a student eligible without delay following a transfer. That half-measure would not stop many transfers that would still frustrate people, and it would snag many transfers that would continue to anger people.
The rules we already have in place are tools for schools to use to stop many of the transfers that frustrate without snaring those transfers that anger: the athletic-motivated transfer rule and especially the athletic-related transfer rule (or links law).
Before our friends and allies turn their backs on us, they need to turn in the transfer situations where the rules already apply, and the undue influence (recruiting) they can document. They need to give the system a chance to work to the full extent of its potential. We should not make tougher rules if schools fail to utilize the rules they already have.
Adopting rules is usually easy for the organization. Applying rules is often much harder for the schools.