Making the Game Safer
October 6, 2015
I’ve recently overheard two insightful perspectives about football.
From an attorney for the National Federation of State High School Associations (I’m paraphrasing): “We need to remind people that we didn’t invent football. We are the ones making it safer.”
From a professor at Michigan State University (again I’m paraphrasing): “In the 1950s when automobile injuries disturbed the national conscience, we didn’t abolish cars; we made it safer to drive them. That’s where we are with football today – recognizing dangers and making the game safer.”
What this means to me is that there’s little need to be on the defensive or apologetic, but much need to be on the offensive and to be optimistic about football’s future.
Never has the equipment been better than it is today. Never have coaches been better educated about player safety. Never have there been more safety rules, and never have officials had more authority and encouragement to enforce those rules. This is true for all school sports, but most obviously so for school-sponsored football.
We are on offense, have been for years, making a game that was very good to me as a player even better, every year, for participants at the secondary school level today.
The Limitation of Rules – Part 2
September 6, 2016
There may be an inverse relation between the length of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Handbook and the commitment to follow its rules.
There seems an increasingly popular attitude that if something isn’t specifically prohibited, then it’s permitted. The question is more often “Is it legal?” and less often “Is it right?” Technical integrity rather than ethical integrity.
There may not be more rule breakers today, but there sure seems to be more rule benders – people at the borders of what is allowed, testing limits.
Which leads to an even longer Handbook as efforts are made to plug the holes and fill the gaps.
Which is a temptation we must resist, for we cannot keep up. Like a dog chasing its tail, we’ll go in circles. Getting dizzy. Losing sense of what is important.
We were successful in that the 2016-17 MHSAA Handbook has the same number of Interpretations as the year before. A whopping 284 Interpretations. Our goal for 2017-18 should be fewer.