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Our Tools

March 11, 2014

MHSAA staff does very many things, including these two tasks: (1) we use the tools we have; and (2) we strive to develop more effective tools.
The tools we have are limited. We don’t have a huge staff to conduct investigations. We don’t have subpoena power to coerce disclosure of testimony and documents. We don’t have rules to cover every situation.
Thus, it feels like some people get away with things; and sometimes they do. We don’t have the tools to catch them or convict them. That is the inescapable condition of every voluntary statewide athletic association in the US.
But the other thing we do is keep working on better tools. Rules with broader reach and/or fewer holes. Penalties that are a greater deterrent to some people, and more punitive to others when deterrence doesn’t work.
Developing new rules is a tough process. Sometimes it takes months or years to get membership buy-in. Sometimes the “no-brainers,” so-called “easy solutions,” get shot down by lawyers who demand the most narrow remedy to each and every excruciatingly detailed problem.
We work today with the tools we’ve been given through the democratic processes of our voluntary association. And we keep working on ways to sharpen and strengthen those tools in ways that are reasonable in breadth and depth, rationally related to the basic tenets of a voluntary association, one of which is local control. Obviously, these are two of the more difficult things we do.

Misspent Money

January 12, 2018

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted July 15, 2014, and the message is worth another read.

It is not news to us, but it makes more waves when others report it.

William Hageman of the Chicago Tribune reported last month on a study from Utah State University’s Families in Sport Lab that found “the more money parents spend on youth sports, the more likely their kids are to lose interest.”

A Utah State researcher explains the connection: “The more money folks are investing, the higher pressure kids are perceiving. More pressure means less enjoyment. As kids enjoy sports less, their motivation goes down.”

Hageman exposes the folly of parents’ justification for their financial outlay – increasing their child’s chances for a college scholarship. Hageman says “a look at the numbers shows they (parents) may be deluding themselves.”

He cites NCAA statistics that only two percent of high school athletes receive athletic scholarships; and we have to add that many of those are not “full-rides.” The average scholarship covers less than half the cost of an in-state college education for one academic year.