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Making an Impact

September 11, 2012

Here’s a provocative statement by David Gergen, professor of public policy and director of the Center for Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a frequent political analyst for CNN:  “The nonprofits making the greatest impacts these days are entrepreneurial, adaptive, outward-looking, and sometimes a little messy.”

I like that, and I think using these four features or criteria to evaluate the MHSAA now and in the mid-range future would be good for those we serve.

  • Are we entrepreneurial?  How could we be more so?

  • Are we adaptive?  Are we flexible in how we do things?

  • Are we outward-looking?  Are we impacting school sports broadly and deeply?  Does the impact have staying power?  Are schools better because of what we do?  Are communities stronger for our doing it?

  • Are we sometimes a little messy?

I suspect that if we are the first three – entrepreneurial, adaptive and outward-looking – then messiness is a natural byproduct.  There will be starts and stops, failures before successes, changes.  There will be disagreements and compromises.

I suspect that we will have to tolerate a little more messiness if we are to move forward, even faster than we have, and if we are to have impact, even greater than we have.

Secret Weapon

October 25, 2016

The rapid rate of turnover in the ranks of local school sports leadership might suggest a program that is in disarray and has lost its way. But that’s not the case most of the time in most of our schools, which operate with a North Star sense of direction and regular recall of the core values of educational athletics. This is because school sports has a secret weapon.

In schools across this state there are coaches and administrators whose lifetime profession and passion has been school sports. People who chose to stick with sports when there were other opportunities in education with more regular, less demanding hours. People who chose to stay at the secondary school level when there were opportunities at higher levels. These folks are sold out for school sports, and they are the secret weapon of school sports.

For these people, school sports has been the life-affirming, life-shaping, sometimes even life-saving business of educational athletics.

For these people, school sports has been a calling, nearly a mission, not quite a crusade.

For these people, everything they do is connected, is intentional, is purposeful.

When these people conduct a coach or parent meeting, or a pep assembly or a postseason awards night, they know why they are doing so.

When these people coordinate homecoming week festivities or create their school’s student-athlete advisory council or its Hall of Fame, they know why they are doing so.

It’s because they know interscholastic athletic programs are good for students, schools and society in ways that other youth sports programs can’t come close to matching.

The why of their work guides them and drives them. It gives meaning and motivation to their days. It assures our success.