Outside View
October 4, 2011
Steve Jobs’ departure from Apple and then his death on Oct. 5 has caused just about every newspaper and business and technology magazine and online newsletter to provide its take on what Jobs meant to Apple, and to the world we live in.
Among the analyses I’ve read that could be most helpful to those in leadership of school sports is that of Cliff Kuang, before Jobs' death, in the October 2011 issue of Fast Company. In “What Steve Jobs Can Still Teach Us,” Kuang comments on Jobs’ “ability to see a company from the outside, rather than inside as a line manager.”
Over his career, observes Kuang, “He (Jobs) became less enamored of tech for tech’s sake. He blossomed into a user-experience savant.” He took the “outside view of a user.” Ultimately for Jobs, “usability was more important than capability.”
I suspect it would do us all well to take the same approach to school sports at the local and state levels; that is, to keep thinking about how the programs appear from the outside. How they appear to the end-user.
It’s all well and good that our rules are correct in their philosophy; but if they don’t make sense to end-users or don’t work in practical application, we may have problems. Same is true for our events, and for our technology.
It is impossible to expect complete understanding of all the policies and procedures of school sports or to avoid all controversy when the competing interests of partisans are involved as is the case in athletics. Remembering, therefore, that the task is not to please but to serve is a necessary mindset, because service in this work often means saying “No” or citing violations and requiring forfeits.
But even as we do these necessary but unpleasant things, which we know in advance will not be universally understood and supported, it is good to be mindful of how it all looks from the outside. It is most important that those in the necessary positions of doing these things be professional and consistent, with a steadfast commitment to apply policies and procedures uniformly. When people view the organization from the outside, even if they don’t fully understand or agree with a decision, they must see that each rule is applied identically to every school, without favoritism, and that rules are not just made up as we go along to relieve a pressure point or grease a squeaky wheel.
Upon Further Review ...
May 12, 2017
A veteran track & field coach wrote critically that the Michigan High School Athletic Association has erred by not implementing numerous proposals of his state coaches association over the years. So this year I was an even more careful than usual observer of the fate of proposals from coaches associations and our own coach-dominated sport committees.
Some proposals from coaches associations don’t even make it to a vote at the MHSAA sport committee level. Others fail to get an affirmative vote, while still others are passed by the committee as a recommendation to the MHSAA Representative Council.
Each of the sport committee recommendations that is received by the time of the League Leadership meeting in mid-February is presented to the league administrators in attendance so they will be aware of what’s flowing in the pipeline toward the MHSAA Representative Council for a vote. It is intended that these sport committee recommendations will be discussed at meetings by each league, and that the MHSAA staff will be notified of questions or concerns that any proposal generates.
MHSAA staff – most often Associate Director Tom Rashid – take some of the proposals on the road, to both league meetings and Athletic Director In-Service programs, where experienced practical minds praise some proposals and poke holes in others.
Many of the recommendations are also discussed at the March conference of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, and some are made “Position Statements” on which the MIAAA members vote at the conclusion of their conference. It’s interesting to observe that some recommendations that passed coach-dominated sport committees with unanimous support fail to receive 50 percent support by the athletic directors as they make a more circumspect review of the issue.
All along the way, the MHSAA staff is watching, listening, and learning. We learn, for example, that some proposals have negative unintended consequences, that other proposals lack sufficient research or even essential facts, and that in both cases, approval should be denied or at least delayed for more complete development and study.
That was a major theme of this past week’s Representative Council meeting when many committee proposals were, if not derailed, at least detained for later departure. For example:
A proposal to revise the limited team membership rule for 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders that would allow during the school season up to two dates of non-school participation in all sports except football was tabled in order to gather more membership input.
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A proposal to alter the three-decade-old MHSAA Baseball Tournament schedule was delayed to consider the effects of and questions raised by the pitching limitation rule that is new this year – a late requirement of the national rules committee.
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A proposal to seed and bracket District and Regional Basketball Tournaments raised more questions than answers and did not advance.
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A proposal to require observers in each group at all Lower Peninsula Boys and Girls Regional and Final Golf Tournaments was at least slowed.
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A proposal to require two days rest between the Semifinal and Final games of soccer Regionals received a yellow card, even though the proposal has good intentions and is part of an evolving package of proposals to make that sport a healthier experience – with more attention to practice and training and less competition.
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A national soccer committee rule change regarding the color of undergarments was delayed indefinitely by the Council, to avoid both unnecessary confusion and new costs.
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A proposal to allow additional teams to advance from Regionals to Finals in the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Tennis Tournaments was not adopted – perhaps a good idea in good weather, but problematic in bad.