Persuasion
April 13, 2012
“People are persuaded by relationships more than reasons.”
That’s the one statement I remember from a radio interview I was inattentively listening to during a recent long drive. I don’t remember the topic, the speaker, the interviewer or the radio station; but that single statement soaked further into my soul as the miles passed by.
I began to think of many instances when I gave the benefit of the doubt to a person I knew well. And the times when both sides of a debate had merit but I decided in favor of the source I knew better and trusted more. Relationships.
I thought of my own failures to direct a change or defend the status quo because I depended solely on solid rationale and disregarded the biases and baggage of those I needed to influence. When I didn’t take time to cultivate allies because I was so certain that the idea itself was powerful enough to carry the day. When my confidence that “what was right” would ultimately prevail, but it did not. Relationships.
Twice during the past four months we have seen a preview of how, more frequently in the future, people will attempt to influence decision making in school sports without building genuine relationships. Once as a first strategy, and once as a last resort, a constituent of our state utilized the World Wide Web to generate support for a policy change.
In each case an online petition was initiated that generated, from across the nation and around the world, a large number of emails, many of which were vulgar, profane or ridiculous, triggering all email to the MHSAA through that website to be filtered as spam, never to be seen by the decision-makers. This approach is the antithesis of effective persuasion.
No organization of substance should be swayed by bored souls surfing the web who, by mere chance, stumble across an issue and then ring in, without real knowledge of that issue, and no real stake in its outcome.
The Fourth Option
February 27, 2018
Throughout the years, schools of this and every other state have identified problems relating to school transfers. There is recruitment of athletes and undue influence. There is school shopping by families for athletic reasons. There is jumping by students from one school to another for athletic reasons because they couldn’t get along with a coach or saw a greater opportunity to play at another school or to win a championship there. There is the bumping of students off a team or out of a starting lineup by incoming transfers, which often outrages local residents. There is the concentration of talent on one team by athletic-motivated transfers. There is friction between schools as one becomes the traditional choice for students who specialize in a particular sport. There is imbalance in competition as a result. And there is always the concern that the athletic-motivated transfer simply puts athletics above academics, which is inappropriate in educational athletics.
All states have developed rules to address the problems related to school transfers. In some states, it is called a “transfer rule” and in other states a “residency rule,” because linking school attendance to residence is one of the most effective tools for controlling eligibility of transfers. None of the state high school association rules is identical, but all have the intention of helping to prevent recruiting, school shopping, student bumping, team friction, competitive imbalance and sports overemphasis. The goal of promoting fairness in athletic competition and the perspective that students must go to school first for an education and only secondarily to participate in interscholastic athletics is paramount.
The transfer/residency rule is a legally and historically tested but still imperfect tool to control athletic-motivated transfers and other abuses. It is a net which catches some students it should not, and misses some students that should not be eligible. This is why all state high school associations have procedures to review individual cases and grant exceptions; and why all state high school associations have procedures to investigate allegations and to penalize violations where they are confirmed.
Over the years, state high school associations have considered four options to handle transfers. The first two options are the easiest courses: either (1) let schools decide themselves about transfers, as Michigan once did, but this leads to inconsistent applications and few states now subscribe to such an approach; or (2) make no exceptions at all, rendering all transfer students ineligible for a period of time, but this becomes patently unfair for some students and no state high school association subscribes to that extreme, although it would be easy to administer.
The third option – the ideal approach, perhaps – would be to investigate the motivation of every transfer and allow quicker eligibility or subvarsity eligibility to those which are not motivated by athletics, but this is very time consuming if not impossible to administer. No state high school association has sufficient staff and money to consider every detail and devious motive of every transfer.
This is why a fourth option has been most popular with most state high school associations. This is a middle ground which stipulates a basic rule, some exceptions (we have 15 exceptions in Michigan), and procedures to consider and grant waivers – a primary role of the Michigan High School Athletic Association Executive Committee.