Preserving A Place
July 27, 2013
During the summer weeks, "From the Director" will bring to you some of our favorite entries from previous years. Today's blog first appeared Sept. 18, 2012.
Nearly 20 years ago I spoke with a parents group at an elementary school. Most in attendance were parents of elementary students. Most were moms.
During our discussion, the mothers pleaded with me – that’s not too strong a word – to help develop policies that would preserve a place on high school teams for their children. “Just a jersey,” one mom said. “Just a spot on the team.”
These parents were almost sick with worry that if their sons and daughters did not play one sport year-round, starting now, they wouldn’t make the team in high school. And they believed that not making the team would doom their children to absenteeism, drug use, pregnancy, and every evil known to youth.
They saw the high school program becoming a program for only elite athletes, only the specialists, with no room for their kids who would meet the standards of eligibility but lack the necessary athletic experience to make the team because they didn’t belong to a private club, go to all the right camps, or make a certain travel team in the third grade.
Did these parents overstate the problem? Yes. But there’s some validity in their worries.
>Those moms gave me a goal, and later my own sons personalized that goal: to work for that generation of high school students and the next to preserve a place in our programs for all students, regardless of athletic ability, who meet all the essential standards of eligibility, want to participate in more than one school sport and activity and embody the spirit of being a student first in educational athletics.
Why
August 5, 2016
Yesterday began my 31st year as executive director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association. When I was asked recently why I’ve served so long, I answered, “Actually, ‘why’ is the reason.”
What we do in school sports is important. How we do it is even more important. But why we do it is most important. And, to quote the last line of the last workshop speaker I heard on July 2 at the 97th Annual Meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations, “The ‘why’ of our work is an incredible gift we’ve been given.”
The why of our work is the map that connects the dots between all that we do – all the policies, procedures and programs of competitive school-sponsored sports. The why of our work is the gravitational force that keeps what we do and how we do it grounded in the core beliefs of interscholastic athletics – healthy, amateur, local, inexpensive and inclusive programs that benefit students, schools and communities.
The why of our work sees what we do and how we do it as necessary for helping young people learn skills for life as much as skills for sports. The why of our work sees lifetime lessons available in both victory and defeat, and at both the varsity and subvarsity levels. The why of our work sees good sportsmanship not merely as an enhancement of our games but also as a precursor to citizenship in our communities.
When we begin our planning with why, then what we do and how we do it will more likely inspire and motivate others, and keep us in the game long after others have retired.
(Turns out that these ideas aren’t original. Simon Sinek lays out the “Why” premise in one of the top-viewed TED talks of all time. While the NFHS conference speaker was my inspiration, clearly Simon Sinek was his.)