Our Own Worst Enemies
September 26, 2017
The early history of school sports was in four phases. It began as activities that students alone would organize. Then schools saw the need to supervise. Then schools created statewide high school athletic associations to standardize. Then a national federation of those state associations brought an end to corporate and college efforts to nationalize school sports. All of this between the U.S. Civil War and World War II.
The entire history of school sports has had one overriding narrative. Inherent in the struggles that defined each phase of the early history, and every decade since, has been the struggle between those who believe competitive athletics is an asset for schools intent on educating students in body, mind and spirit, versus those who believe interscholastic athletic programs are a distraction at best and, at worst, damaging to the character development of students. There is much evidence to support both sides of this long debate.
Sometimes, the advocates for school-sponsored sports have been, and are, their own worst enemies. What the advocates of school sports must realize is that the more they do to enlarge the scope of school sports ... more games, longer seasons, further travel, escalating hype ... the more they prove that the opponents of school sports have been correct.
As they encourage the chasm between athletics and academics and between school sports' haves and have-nots to widen; as sports teams are outfitted in uniforms that are fancier and funded for travel that is further, while classroom resources are fewer; as sportsmanship declines and athletic transfers increase; the so-called “progressive” thinkers help make the case that competitive athletics is bad for students, schools and society.
Opposition to escalation in school sports is not old fashioned; it's the only way to assure the future of sports in schools ... the only way to save school sports from itself.
Fit to Fly
February 3, 2017
I suppose I’ve flown more than a half million miles on commercial or chartered aircraft. Nevertheless, it still amazes me to witness a large passenger jet lift off the earth and take to the sky.
Sometimes it has occurred to me that, with enough thrust, almost anything can be made to fly. Of course, the more aerodynamic the object, the less power is needed to send the object into the sky and keep it there.
The metaphor is obvious.
If there is enough force behind it, almost any idea can take flight. However, the best ideas take flight with little effort ... they have been fitted for the intended purpose and the environment ... while bad initiatives require extraordinary effort to get up and keep going.
This doesn't suggest that leaders should always take the path of least resistance. But it does mean leadership should count the costs. Is the amount of effort required to launch an initiative worth the collateral damage? Is the amount of energy required to maintain an initiative worth the results?
The image some people have of the current proposal to seed Boys and Girls District and Regional Basketball Tournaments is of an ungainly object being thrust into the air. It can be done, but should it be done? Will the result be worth it?
The proponents want the Michigan High School Athletic Association to adopt and modify a system used to seed the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. That's a tournament limited to just 68 of 350 universities that sponsor Division I men's basketball programs. One person collects the scores of all the games involving those teams and enters the data to compute the strength of each team’s record and schedule.
But the MHSAA tournament involves 750 varsity teams for boys and nearly the same number of varsity teams for girls which together play approximately 27,500 games in a single season. There are often more than 350 high school varsity basketball games on a single evening. One person is NOT going to be physically able to collect all those scores and enter all that data. And the MHSAA would be foolish to think that it could be accomplished, and irresponsible to have the basketball tournament experience depend on such a scheme.
Well-intentioned people have unrealistic expectations about this. They don't appreciate the amount of resources the MHSAA would have to put into making this thing fly. We could do it by mandating that every school use the same schedule and score software and conditioning a school’s tournament participation on 100 percent compliance with score reporting.
But even if we launch it and apply even more force to keep it in the air, we have to wonder about the fairness and outcome of easing the path in the MHSAA Basketball Tournaments for teams which had the best regular-season records, at least up to some point before the end of that season when the number crunching would have to stop and pairings and sites would need to be announced.
Three of the four state high school associations that border Michigan have seeding for their high school basketball tournaments (basketball crazy Indiana does not). But those three state associations seed only the first round of the tournament, and those three use no fancy formula ... they have the coaches of the teams assigned by geography to the tournament site meet to separate the better teams in the earliest games.
If there is to be seeding in MHSAA Basketball Tournaments – and that’s a big if – our neighboring states’ approach is more practical and better fitted for an all-comers tournament at the high school level. That might fly, and stay in the air without excessive force.