Our Laboratory
June 30, 2014
Failure: Lab is a speaker-audience experience modeled after TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design); but unlike TED’s frequent focus on success stories, Failure: Lab showcases stories of failure – and it instructs speakers not to provide lessons learned. Figuring out those lessons is the role of the audience, not the presenters.
Of course, one of life’s most bountiful laboratories of failure is sports. At least 50 percent of the participants in any athletic contest do not win. Sometimes it’s just one competitor out of 10 or 100 or 1,000 who wins.
In MHSAA tournaments, all but one team in each class or division ends the season with a loss. In basketball this past winter, only four of 729 high schools that sponsored boys varsity basketball ended the season with a victory.
It’s a fact; sports is a failure lab.
In the spirit of Failure: Lab, I won’t offer a defense or an explanation of the lessons learned. You’re the audience; you figure it out. Why do we go to so much time and effort to create this laboratory?
Yin and Yang
November 15, 2016
The essential skill in the ancient yet still practiced art of paper cutting is to be able to make a single cut that will remove what is unwanted and retain what is needed. The Chinese phrase "yin and yang" captures the meaning ... that which is simultaneously disconnected and connected.
There is a similar art to leading modern day interscholastic athletics, where the top task is simultaneously to protect and promote school sports. Preventing what will damage the pure essence of the interscholastic brand while at the same time promoting the experience for players and spectators.
As the Michigan High School Athletic Association steps up efforts to promote attendance and enhance the spectator experience at local and statewide school-sponsored athletic events, the MHSAA must also be intentional to avoid or discard that which will poison the underlying educational purpose of the events.
As the National Federation of State High School Associations launches its #MyReasonWhy campaign, it must do the same. What we believe and what we do must remain connected.