More than Fun and Games

September 24, 2014

Five years ago there were many skeptics when the MHSAA redesigned its website and included twice-weekly blogs by the executive director and active Facebook and Twitter pages as well as YouTube channels, and gave constituents and critics alike an opportunity to post comments. Some skeptics said we were being distracted with frivolous fun and games, and others said all this interaction would be a persistent source of problems.
In fact, for the MHSAA, this constituent engagement has been about much more than fun and games and it’s been a means to solve problems.
Our primary use of social media and other means of constituent engagement has been to drive people to high school events and to the MHSAA website where the distinctive messages of educational athletics would stand out.
Rather than creating problems, allowing the crowd to enter scores on MHSAA.com has led us to post more accurate scores more rapidly than when we depended on school coaches or administrators alone.
More recently we have been reviewing our event emergency plans and our office business continuation plans, which had been developed before social media became a fact of life; and now we are revising those documents to make social media the primary means of communication during such problems.
It is entirely through social media, primarily Facebook and YouTube – that the MHSAA has caused people to be talking about sportsmanship and inciting larger, more positive student and adult spectator sections at high school contests. That’s our award-winning “Battle of the Fans” that moves into its fourth year in 2014-15.

Reunion Reflections

July 23, 2015

Summer is a popular time for high school reunions, and those reunions are a popular time for reliving the accomplishments of high school sports teams of many years ago. Because I played on a winless football team during my junior year of high school, I don’t always take pleasure in such conversations.
However, I have the greatest discomfort when I sense that those reveling in past glory may have peaked in high school. There can be nothing worse, for them or for society.
While on-the-field or court exploits may become exaggerated over time, we may underestimate the intangible benefits that high school sports participation has provided.
Last month the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies published new research that links varsity high school athletic participation to future leadership. It suggests that such participation may (it’s not certain) nurture adults who have more self-confidence and self-respect, which are (certainly) linked to leadership.
The research also suggests a link to improved work habits as an employee and to greater philanthropy.
The researcher is Kevin Kniffin of Cornell University who continues to contribute plain talk and practical ideas to the role of extracurricular activities in secondary school education.
This type of research, and the tsunami of F-1 and J-1 visa students from Asian countries for the well-rounded “western” style education, should add to the dissuasion of those who suggest we jettison these “distractions” from junior high/middle schools and high schools.
While some “high school heroes” never were as great as they now think they were, the programs they engaged in may be even greater.