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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.

Taking Our Half in the Middle

September 22, 2015

When there is a rule that is as frequently criticized for being too weak as for being too harsh, it’s likely the rule is just about right. 

For every administrator and coach who complains that the transfer rule misses a situation where there is no question the student transferred for sports participation, there are as many administrators and coaches – and many times more parents – who plead for leniency under the transfer rule.

For every congested community in Michigan that offers students multiple school options, and some of those who participate in interscholastic athletics shop for the situation that best fits their needs or desires, there are many more communities in Michigan where few options exist, and transfers by student-athletes are both low in number and logical in nature.

For every call for a mandatory year-long, no-exceptions period of ineligibility to penalize athletic-motivated transfers, there are dozens of transfers by low-level, low-profile student athletes who do not deserve such draconian consequences.

For every statewide high school association in the U.S. that has a tougher transfer rule than Michigan, there are as many that have a weaker transfer rule; or, they have no rule at all because the state’s legislature intervened, usurped the association’s authority and overturned its over-reaching regulation.

The MHSAA transfer rule is not perfect and likely never will be, which is why it is among the two most reviewed and revised rules of the MHSAA Handbook. But the MHSAA transfer rule is on the right path. A dramatic detour will serve school sports badly.

What most negatively affects the administration of the existing transfer rule is the reluctance of administrators and coaches to report directly the violations they observe personally. If these people won’t do their part, they have no right to critique the rule or to criticize the rule makers.