On the Move
June 8, 2012
Two members of the MHSAA’s executive staff live on the same side of the same town. Each lives less than a five-minute drive to the MHSAA building; and yet they live in differently named neighborhoods, taking the names of the public elementary schools which serve their sections of town and the school district.
Students of those two elementary schools feed the one and only public middle school of the district, which feeds the one and only public high school of the district. Historically, there would not be too much to deter the children raised in these two homes from attending the same schools.
However, if one of the families is Catholic, it might choose to send its children to the Catholic grade school located across the street from the public high school. And it might decide to send its children to high school at the Catholic high school in the town which neighbors to the west.
If one of the families were inclined, it might choose to home school its children before sending them to the district’s high school or to one of two Christian high schools nearby.
Or perhaps one of the families would choose to send one of their children to a charter school near the location of the mother’s employment. Perhaps another child would be a school of choice student at a traditional high school convenient to the father’s place of work but in a different school district. These are common occurrences today that were rare just 15 years ago.
A multitude of other factors could affect the choice of school:
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One school might be better known than others for a particular curriculum strength, or it might have a strong reputation in drama or music or sports, or in one particular sport.
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Children are more likely today to have mingled on non-school youth sports teams and to decide to stay together for high school teams.
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High school students might attend the same summer camps and be attracted to a different group of kids or a coach, and transfer to join the new group or coach.
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As families relocate more frequently, students are required to transfer; and as the nuclear family becomes less stable, students are more often forced to change domestic settings, and change schools.
These and other factors – some worthy or unavoidable, some unhealthy and contrived – add up to the following:
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During the entire 1986-87 school year, the MHSAA Executive Committee processed 96 requests by member schools to waive eligibility rules, and 58 of those requests were for student transfers.
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25 years later, the total requests for the school year were 462; and of those, 337 were to waive the transfer section of the eligibility regulation.
This demonstrates in numbers what we have observed to be true: that during the past quarter century, the clientele of high school athletics has become five times more mobile. It’s one of school sports’ greatest challenges.
Our Drop in the Ocean
December 18, 2015
It has been difficult, recently, for us to get too worked up over the complaints submitted to this office about officials’ calls, coaches’ decisions, students’ ineligibilities and tournament times and venues. All of this seems petty in light of the terrorism in Paris and other places, and the worldwide refugee crisis as innocent people flee from atrocities in their homelands.
Try to imagine the pain in Paris and other places of recent mass execution. Try to imagine the horror that refugees have faced in their native countries and their ongoing agony in the camps that contain them for years while more “civilized” nations struggle politically and economically with decisions that define their humanity.
But now, as often before, we remind ourselves that the job we are paid to do requires our focused attention and best efforts as we try to make our small niche in the world of sports – our drop of water in the ocean of the world’s concerns – a little bit better each day.
And also now, as often before, we try to interpret how the worldwide human condition affects us and might be affected by us. Affects us, for example, with the need to improve tournament venue security. Is affected by us, for example, by delivering programs that help create in young athletes those qualities that will make them good citizens of their future world – adults who are respectful, tolerant and compassionate.
When I traveled in Northern Africa recently, I encountered immense admiration for the United States – what our hosts always referred to as “America.” People elsewhere look past the shallow or spiteful political rhetoric of our so-called leaders and candidates for leadership to see a disciplined freedom exercised by the citizens of our country that is still, in spite of our shortcomings, the world’s best hope for peace and prosperity.
This country is unique in the world. And school-sponsored sports exist in this country like no other place on earth. There just might be a connection. Which is why – even when the world’s problems seem too large for us to impact – by doing our best every day to deliver these programs, we actually may be performing a vital role.