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Pay to Play

July 28, 2015

Our local newspaper recently reported that a group of 8-year-olds had qualified for a national 3-on-3 soccer tournament July 31 to Aug. 2 at a theme park resort in Florida; but the report said the team had to raise $5,000 for the privilege.
Without knowing it at the time, the players and coaches qualified on the basis of a second-place finish at a tournament last August in Hastings, Michigan. Really? Second place? Last year?
Let’s be frank. The basis for qualifying for this national event in Florida was not a runner-up finish in a tournament for 7-year-olds the previous summer in a small town in Michigan. The basis for qualifying was the ability to raise $5,000 so the resort could fill its hotel rooms and sell tickets to its theme parks.
National tournament? Baloney. If you can pay, then you can play. Sell this as an expensive family trip, perhaps; but as a national tournament, it has zero integrity.
This kind of hype and hypocrisy adds to the challenges of administering sane and sensible school sports. Neither 8- nor 18-year-olds need national tournaments. There’s a lot more bang for the buck in our own backyards.

The Limitation of Rules – Part 2

September 6, 2016

There may be an inverse relation between the length of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Handbook and the commitment to follow its rules.

There seems an increasingly popular attitude that if something isn’t specifically prohibited, then it’s permitted. The question is more often “Is it legal?” and less often “Is it right?” Technical integrity rather than ethical integrity.

There may not be more rule breakers today, but there sure seems to be more rule benders – people at the borders of what is allowed, testing limits.

Which leads to an even longer Handbook as efforts are made to plug the holes and fill the gaps.

Which is a temptation we must resist, for we cannot keep up. Like a dog chasing its tail, we’ll go in circles. Getting dizzy. Losing sense of what is important.

We were successful in that the 2016-17 MHSAA Handbook has the same number of Interpretations as the year before. A whopping 284 Interpretations. Our goal for 2017-18 should be fewer.