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.

Answering Seeding Questions

January 19, 2018

Seeding is a topic on the agenda of several Michigan High School Athletic Association sport committees. Last May, the Representative Council reiterated that its approach is to consider seeding on a sport-by-sport, level-by-level basis, depending on its committees and others to develop specific plans and to demonstrate wide support among schools of all sizes and types.

A recommendation by the Basketball Committee in December of 2016 to seed District and Regional basketball tournaments with one of the systems utilized by the NCAA for its men’s Division I tournament was not adopted by the Council last May, but MHSAA staff was requested to explore alternatives for seeding District level tournaments only.

Subsequently, MHSAA surveys have demonstrated significant support, especially in more populated areas, for an approach that separates on District basketball tournament brackets the top two teams of each District whose teams continue to be assigned on the basis of geography. We’ve found that historically strong programs tend to support this “simple seeding,” while middle-of-the-pack programs tend to see seeding as another obstacle to success and creating more distance between haves and have-nots.

MHSAA staff have demonstrated how similarly the results would have been if any one of the three systems had been used to perform this simple seeding of District basketball tournaments in 2017. In the vast majority of 2017 District tournaments, the team that actually won the tournament would have been the No. 1 seeded team in that District, demonstrating that simple seeding may be less about picking the winners than it is determining which two teams will play in the District championship games.

Many questions would have to be answered before any one of these systems could be adopted. However, even without answering any questions, in December 2017, the Basketball Committee recommended seeding for District tournaments as soon as possible.

At its January meeting, the MHSAA Classification Committee made a recommendation to the Representative Council that attempts to answer one of the questions. That committee agreed that if a plan is approved to separate the top two seeded teams in each geographically determined District of the Girls and Boys Basketball Tournaments, the system used should be completely controlled within the MHSAA office.

Of course, many other questions and logistical details need to be answered. Do we only use games versus member schools? What do we do with unreported scores? When is the data finalized? Should human input be added to the computer ratings? Do seeded teams automatically get a bye? How and when do we assign officials?

Answering such questions must come next.