Marriage Reflections
October 18, 2013
Recently, and for the first time, I drew parallels between marriage and the hiring of staff. It occurred when a gray-haired, ponytailed officiant in the Phoenix foothills exhorted the wedding couple to be “the mirror of their partner’s best values.”
We want our newest staff person to be everything we need and want, immediately filling every hole and completing our wish list. Frankly, that’s impossible.
But, the one thing I am sure we must have and can have is a person who mirrors the MHSAA’s best values – an individual who reflects the core values of school-sponsored, student-centered sports and of the MHSAA on its best days as it serves and supports educational athletics.
And just as it’s not lethally late for a husband in his fifth decade of marriage to work harder to reflect his wife’s best values, neither is it too tardy for veterans of the MHSAA staff to focus on our reflection of the best values of school sports and the organization that has served educational athletics for ten decades.
Future Thinking
August 11, 2017
The prolific author Thomas Friedman has written more than once that those who don’t invest in the future tend not to do well there.
What might it mean to invest in the future of interscholastic athletics? What are the things we should be doing now that may not show immediate results, but are essential for securing a future for school-sponsored sports?
Two things, I believe, most of all ...
One is the emphasis on serving and supporting junior high/middle school programs. Getting to students and their parents at this stage and even earlier with the meaning of educational athletics. With a definition of success and demonstrations of sportsmanship that differ from other programs. With encouragement to sample different sports and to eschew year-round practice and competition in a single sport. Feeding the roots of high school sports with the nutrients of educational athletics.
The second is the education of coaches, the delivery system of most of these important messages about school sports. What the MHSAA does season after season with rules/risk management meetings and week after week with the Coaches Advancement Program, and what local school administrators do day after day to manage, mentor and motivate coaches. These efforts may not show quick returns, but they are essential investments in the future of school sports.
We cannot expect to do well in the future if we do not pay attention to our foundation – junior high/middle school programs – and to our infrastructure – coaches.