My Best Man
January 15, 2013
Upon the death of my father last month, a sports writer from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who was preparing a story on my father’s career as athlete, coach and Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association executive director, asked for my insights about Dad and his impact on me. I could have written a book, but here’s what I had space to say . . . just the right length for a blog:
“Dad served at a time before electronic media and online meetings when state high school association executive directors traveled their states doing rules meetings, thus building stronger relationships with coaches and officials than is common in our work today. And in Dad's case, because he was THE expert in high school wrestling rules in the United States, Dad traveled the country presenting wrestling rules meetings in states where wrestling was an emerging high school sport. It is not an exaggeration to say Dad was the ‘father of high school wrestling in America.’
“Dad and I worked together when he headed the WIAA and I was an assistant director at the National Federation of State High School Associations in the 1970s, allowing us to form an even closer bond in both our personal and professional lives than most fathers and sons enjoy. In those days, when there was a particularly difficult speaking assignment at a national meeting on school sports, Dad would be one of the first people whose name came to mind to address that topic. He was a forceful speaker; and I expect that my nationwide speaking trail owes a great debt to the many times as a youngster that I traveled with Dad when he gave sports banquet speeches.
“I'm told I idolized Dad when he coached, and know I admired him as a state association executive, and he was my closest male friend ever -- even ‘Best Man’ at my wedding. He was a great model as a father, husband and leader.
“At his retirement dinner in December of 1985, a spokesperson on behalf of the state's coaches said: ‘John, we didn't always agree with your decisions, but we never once doubted your motives.’ I can't think of a greater compliment for any man who worked so long in such a controversial line of work, which Dad loved so much.”
Leadership Impressions - #3 (Embracing Interruptions)
June 15, 2018
I was once told that “the job is the interruptions” – to look at an interruption not as something that detracts from my work but rather is the work. But there are two types of interruptions that have gotten my special attention over the years.
One type happens often, perhaps twice a week when averaged over the course of a year. It happens when the assistant directors of the Michigan High School Athletic Association are asked a novel Handbook question, one of first impression in their experience, and there is a difference of opinion among their colleagues as to the correct answer.
I expect to be involved in answering such questions; and sometimes I determine that the question needs MHSAA Executive Committee attention – for ultimately under the MHSAA Constitution, it is the Executive Committee’s responsibility to interpret what is not clear in Handbook Regulations and Interpretations.
The other type of interruption happens not twice a week but about twice a year, when a legal challenge confronts the MHSAA. It has been our practice to keep other staff focused on the daily business of the MHSAA, helping to make tournaments and other programs operate without distraction; while the executive director (as well as the associate director in more recent years) deals with litigation, which is usually a three- to six-month sprint but can also be a three- to six-year marathon.
I expect to insulate other staff from these diversions that can suck time and energy out of a forward-looking staff.
We anticipate that every day will bring us questions that were not on that day’s to-do list. We try to treat those interruptions as an important part of our work.