Our Times
November 11, 2011
It is in fashion to say that schools (and also school sports) are operating in a time of unprecedented austerity. This is not true. Not even close.
While it may be true that recent times in Michigan have seen a deeper and longer recession than most people have lived through before, it is not true that these are the worst times ever for school sports.
Imagine the austerity, and imagine yourself administering school sports during the Great Depression when unemployment was three times today’s rate. Or during World War II when gasoline was rationed and MHSAA tournaments were cancelled. Now those were tough times!
What may make us think at this moment that these current times are the worst times or are unique times is that these are our times, and we don’t yet see light shining at the end of the tunnel through which we’re traveling.
Because it affects us now and isn’t something we’re reading about in history, we tend to believe these times are somehow much worse and that today’s problems are somehow of such a different type that our programs are at greater risk than ever before.
It is possible, of course, that our reaction to these times will be unique and will make these times the worst ever. In other words, it’s not the troubled times per se, but our reaction to them that might set these times apart from all others.
It is possible that we will chop and change school sports so much that we never get the program back on the course of truly school-sponsored, student-centered educational athletics – a brand of sports unique in the world.
Inside Information
September 25, 2015
The source you choose selects your news.
If your source is Fox News, you will get different stories than from ABC, CBS and NBC, and different slants on the same stories.
If your source is publicly supported radio, the news stories will be different than on commercial radio stations; and if you choose Public Radio International, you will hear some topics that are much more frequently and deeply covered than by National Public Radio.
PRI is, for example, where I was following the crisis of refugees fleeing from Northern Africa to Europe long before that story became headlines for other news sources. Did you know, for example, that there are more displaced people in the world today than at any time except World War II?
Similarly, if I were to listen only to coaches of one sport or another, I’m likely to learn about issues that affect that sport, but not much about issues that affect other sports, or affect schools as a whole. Our sources must include input from all sports.
Our sources must also include the perspective of principals who deal with academics more than athletics and who are as attentive to the essential needs of harassed, homeless, displaced and disabled students as they are to the athletic desires of gifted and talented students.
And our sources must include the even broader perspective of superintendents who are fighting for the financial life of their districts. Sometimes that means they are throwing open the doors of their schools and recruiting students from far and wide to replace the dwindling school age children of their local population.
Ours is an association of schools. Not an association of football coaches, or of all coaches. Ours is an association of schools whose directions are determined by blending top-down with in-the-trenches views.
From our vantage point at the Michigan High School Athletic Association we do not learn about everything happening in our state’s secondary schools. But from the myriad calls, emails and letters we receive and the many meetings we have with administrators, coaches, officials and students, we know much more than those who are on the outside looking in.