The Needle
March 2, 2012
Jordan Cobb is one of the MHSAA’s superbly talented staff members; and one of his many duties may intrigue you.
Jordan watches “the needle.”
The “chartbeat” needle tells us, at any moment, how many visitors we have to MHSAA.com. It even tells us what page they’re viewing on MHSAA.com, how they got there, and where they’re located in the world.
Not so long ago, Jordan would fret on a Friday night in the fall that our servers did not have the capacity to handle all those looking for game scores. Through lots of creative programming and work-arounds, and an in-house eight-unit “server farm” that shifts and spreads loads to accommodate peak demands, Jordan now watches the needle more in wonder than with worry.
On most Friday nights during the fall and winter, and for the entire months of November and March, MHSAA.com is among the one percent most visited U.S. websites – on any topic, not just sports.
Even on a quiet weekday afternoon, there will at all times be one to two hundred viewers navigating MHSAA.com.
A decade or two ago, the MHSAA office would not receive two hundred telephone calls per day or two hundred letters per week. Now, every second of the workday and long into the evening and all weekend long, one hundred to one thousand people or more are making contact with the MHSAA at MHSAA.com.
So MHSAA.com deserves our attention and resources. It is creating first and lasting impressions. It is branding us, and doing so far beyond the walls of schools and the borders of our state.
Most importantly, it is demonstrating what we value. It is conveying messages about who we are, what we do and what we believe. And providing a stark contrast to who we are not and what we don’t do and don’t believe.
The National Anthem
November 1, 2016
The National Anthem has been in the news this fall ... across the nation when players have demonstrated discontent during its playing at sporting events ... in Michigan over administrators' decisions about how frequently it was played when multiple sporting events were at the same venue on the same day or night.
Frankly, my biggest complaint is not about peaceful demonstrations of deeply felt feelings. And my complaint is not about game management determinations to have the National Anthem played or performed just once when there is a JV and varsity double-header at a site.
In fact, I welcome those debates, because at least it causes people to think. For my biggest complaint for many years has been the lack of thought that goes into most occasions when the National Anthem is a part of sporting events. How casual we often are. The National Anthem is so frequent and routine at most high school events that, sometimes, spectators barely notice.
I don't mind that most spectators don't sing the National Anthem – it's an almost un-singable song. And the words – glorifying war – are hardly what I'd like recited at sporting events, which too often are stupidly equated with war.
What I do mind is forgetfulness, both of the sacrifices that have secured this free country and of the toleration for freedom of expression that our secured freedom protects.