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Over Our Heads

June 29, 2012

In last month’s Wired magazine, Vint Cerf of Google cites American computer scientist Alan Kay’s comment, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Wired’s Thomas Goetz writes, “Too much of the technology world is trying to build clever solutions to picayune problems.”  (A quick look at the more than 1.2 million mobile phone applications available free or for sale in our world today – growing by 2,500 per day – makes the observation abundantly clear that many great minds are being wasted on the mundane, silly apps that do nothing to improve the quality of life for humankind.)

Goetz would have these talents aimed at much higher order needs of society.  “These times especially call for more than mere incrementalism.  Let’s demand that our leaders get in over their heads, that they remain a little bit naïve about what they’re getting into.”

And what might “going beyond incrementalism” look like for us in school sports?  Well, on just one topic – health and safety – it might mean, as provocative samples to stimulate bigger and better ideas:

      • Restricting kickoff returns, punt returns and interception returns in football – the three most dangerous times for players.

      • Reducing heading of the ball in soccer to reduce the effects of repeated blows to the brain.

      • Requiring all head coaches to complete CPR training, and requiring all coaches on all levels to complete an online coaching fundamentals course within their first two years of coaching.

      • Presenting an AED with every MHSAA tournament trophy – District, Regional and Final, for both champion and runner-up – during each of the next four years.

In any event, we need to avoid the distraction of meaningless matters and fix our focus on larger issues, and risk raising ideas and making changes that could have more lasting impact than incremental changes.  Just talking about these things begins to send messages that improve school sports.  Doing some things like them would actually invent our future.

Leadership Impressions - #1 (The Double Win)

June 8, 2018

I have tried to treat the staff I’ve hired at the Michigan High School Athletic Association the way I wanted to be treated as a staff member before I came to the MHSAA as executive director. I wanted to be given a job and be allowed to run with it, without interference.

This dislike I have for micromanagement turned out to be a double win. Staff have enjoyed their freedom, and I’ve enjoyed mine. By not spending time overseeing and second-guessing staff, the executive director has had time to work on other matters.

Those other matters have sometimes turned out to be unique and defining features of the MHSAA. For example:

  • The only state high school association to publish an issued-focused magazine, benchmarks.

  • The only state high school association to conduct a face-to-face, multi-level coaches education program anytime, anywhere across the state, the Coaches Advancement Program.

  • The only state high school association to conduct the true sport of girls competitive cheer.

  • The only state high school association to mandate reporting of all suspected concussions in practices or competition for all sports by all member high schools.

  • The only state high school association to pay for concussion care “gap” insurance for all students in grades 6 through 12, at no cost to schools or families.

  • The only state high school association with a Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.

But at least as often, this time for reflection has helped the association identify areas of weakness that could be turned into strengths. For example:

  • It allowed us to be among the nation’s earliest adopters of concussion protocols, and then to see the need to appoint a task force to address contact/collision exposure during football practice.

  • It allowed us to be among the earliest adopters of regular-season recommendations and postseason requirements for managing high heat and humidity.

  • It allowed us to move from the back of the room to nearly head of the class in terms of state high school association health and safety training requirements for coaches.

It was only because the MHSAA operated with a talented and empowered staff that the executive director could devote time to the NFHS Network during the past five years, serving as the Network board chairman during its first five years of operation. This forward-looking initiative is arguably the most effective platform the National Federation of State High School Associations has ever had for promoting school-based sports and the values of educational athletics.

A hands-off, lead-by-example leadership style unlocks the time leaders need to look down the road and around the corner, to try to separate trendy fad from fundamental trend.

Sports is a slave to defined season and contest starting and stopping points that promote routine. But in today’s world, school sports requires anything but routine thinking. And breaking from routine thinking demands that high school athletic association leaders leave their staff alone and replace as many supervisory hours as possible with opportunities to learn from people in other places working in other disciplines ... and then to disrupt our routines with some of those ideas.