No Returns or Refunds
January 18, 2013
The “Boxing Day” tradition of New Zealand, like most of the current or former British Empire, is to return to stores on the day after Christmas the unwanted or ill-fitting gifts of Christmas. My wife and I exchanged no gifts this year, except for the gift of time with each other and our China-based son and his wife in New Zealand. So we had nothing to return, and we’ve had moments to savor.
Outside our window on Christmas Day was an extinct volcano rising 758 feet above New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty coast. Its peak was hidden in clouds sent by the remnants of Cyclone Evan. We couldn’t see the top of Mt. Maunganui; but our fragment of the Roberts family who had gathered for this holiday, below the equator and on the other side of the International Dateline, decided on a “Christmas climb” anyway.
Attempting a challenge whose goal is shrouded in uncertainty is an every-season experience of coaches, which may be the opiate that draws so many men and women to that vocation for so long, and consumes coaches so far beyond what are reasonable hours for most other occupations.
Even in the more mundane existence of a state high school association administrator, it is the unknown of each year, week and day that energizes the grind. How boring it would be to know what’s at the end of each climb. How exciting it can be to come to a problem-solving table with good ideas and also with the expectation that the best ideas will come out of collaboration with others’ good ideas.
I count myself among the fortunate folks who, at the end of most days and weeks and years, do not feel inclined to want to return the gifts that each has brought. And I’m still attracted to the discovery of what the next cloud-shrouded climb may reveal.
High-Performing Programs
July 10, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com June 28, 2011, and was printed in the September/October 2006 MHSAA Bulletin, and in Lasting Impressions, which appears in the MHSAA's online Library.)
A study of 10 academically-oriented after-school programs in New York City funded by the After-School Corporation may provide some unintended guidance for interscholastic athletic programs.
Prepared in November 2005 by Policy Studies Associates, Inc. for the After-School Corporation and Southwest Educational Development Laboratory with support from the U.S. Department of Education, the report “Shared Features of High Performing After-School Programs” identifies the following characteristics of high performing after-school programs:
- A broad array of enrichment opportunities.
- Opportunities for skill building and mastery.
- Intentional relationship building.
- A strong, experienced leader/manager supported by a trained and supervised staff.
- The administrative, fiscal and professional development support of the sponsoring organization.
While competitive junior high/middle school and high school sports were not the subject of this study, here’s what I think these findings could mean for school sports:
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Interscholastic athletic programs should provide a wide variety of opportunities appealing to a diverse group of students.
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Interscholastic athletic programs should provide competitive opportunities for the highly skilled as well as learning opportunities for the less skilled so they too might progress to higher levels of competency, or just enjoy the fun, friends and fitness of school sports.
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Teamwork, sportsmanship and leadership should be outcomes as intentional as development of skills of the sport and strategies of contests.
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A full-time athletic administrator is essential, and it is imperative this person have authority to train and supervise staff and hold them accountable for performance consistent with the best practices of educational athletics.
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School boards and their administrators must provide sound policies and procedures, adequate financial support and opportunities for continuing education for the athletic director and every coach.
All in all, a pretty good blueprint for school sports in Michigan.