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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.

Turnover

October 21, 2016

Turnover in local leadership is one of the biggest challenges facing all of youth sports, and it’s partly responsible for the disconnect between the policies of state or national sports organizations and the actual practices of local programs. It is beginning to occur almost as rapidly in school sports as non-school youth sports programs, eroding yet another advantage that school-sponsored programs have enjoyed over non-school programs (other examples being that participation in school sports has generally been less expensive for families, and school coaches more often have been trained educators).

Turnover not only challenges local schools, it causes, or at least contributes to, many of the challenges the Michigan High School Athletic Association faces – everything from administering the transfer rule to conducting District and Regional tournaments.

One of every seven MHSAA member high schools has an athletic director this year who has not served in that role for at least the past five years. Each of these 108 new ADs attended a required orientation program at the MHSAA office in late summer. We provide a follow-up program in November.

More than 80 athletic department administrative assistants or secretaries attended a session at the MHSAA office in September. MHSAA staff conducts a second session for this appreciative audience every March during the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association conference in Traverse City.

MHSAA Athletic Director In-Service programs are conducted at several league meetings during late summer and in conjunction with most MHSAA Update meetings across the state during September and October. Attendance will exceed 500 persons.

Given the increasing complexity of life and the effect on school sports, more needs to be done. Our next efforts may include quick electronic tutorials to help coaches, athletic directors, principals and superintendents keep abreast of what is most important in school-sponsored, student-centered sports.