Prime the Pump
July 24, 2017
Even the awkward or aggravating moments in life – perhaps especially those moments – have the redeeming value of offering metaphors for these messages. Times like this ...
Country dwellers and cottage owners know that the pump which brings water to their residences is a precious apparatus. When it works, it’s taken for granted; when it fails to work, it ruins almost everything planned.
So it’s prudent for those who don’t live on a community water line to know how to prime their own water pump; and some of us have had to learn the hard way to keep jugs of water on hand to prime the pump. As my local well expert told me, “You can’t prime the pump with water that’s already run down creek.”
That’s wisdom on many levels. It reminds us to have emergency plans. But more than that, it suggests we should take advantage of opportunities as they arise, not try to do so after they’ve passed by. It suggests boldness ... a degree of aggressiveness.
In our current situation, it suggests that we assess what is trending, but not take forever to do so; and seize the day in order to shape the future.
This is when I think, for example, of conducting regional junior high/middle school meets and tournaments across Michigan and 7-on-7 football leagues in the summer. When I think of mandating MHSAA camps for officials during their first three to five years of registration. When I think of adding a co-ed Ryder Cup format to the MHSAA Golf Tournament and a co-ed team tennis format to the MHSAA Tennis Tournament. When I think of adding flag football for girls, volleyball for boys and both water polo and weightlifting for both genders. This is when I want to take a chance with the exploding e-sports world, and the emotional tug of Special Olympics unified sports.
I have zero motivation for increasing the number of contests or the distance of travel for high school athletics, but I get very excited when I think of expanding the number of students who might get engaged if we would prime the pump before the water runs away from us.
Sweating the Small Stuff - #2
June 1, 2018
Seeding of Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments, especially basketball and ice hockey, is a topic that routinely finds its way to MHSAA Representative Council agendas.
In May of 2017, the Council rejected a comprehensive proposal to seed the District and Regional levels of MHSAA Basketball Tournaments; but the Council instructed MHSAA staff to examine ideas for limited seeding at the District level only, using an MHSAA-controlled system.
In May of 2017, it appeared there was a small number of Council members who supported the proposal submitted for that meeting by the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan, and that there were two larger groups – one open to seeding on a more limited basis than BCAM proposed and another group opposed to seeding of any scope by any system.
MHSAA staff responded to the Council’s request by presenting in March of this year and again in May a plan for seeding only the top two teams of each District, to which teams would continue to be assigned by geographic proximity, and then placing top seeds on brackets that would assure those two teams could not meet until the District Finals.
The staff provided answers to the many obvious policy and practical questions, including the system to be used, the games to be included and the placement of teams on brackets.
The effort to arm the Council with these answers had the effect of turning some advocates into opponents of seeding. It was as if the more questions staff anticipated with answers, the more people objected to the plan.
This brought defeat to the plan to seed basketball Districts, and the same to plans to seed ice hockey Regionals and Semifinals.
The questions now are: Do we vote on a fully vetted plan, knowing the details before we move forward; or do we buy a pig in a poke, voting in a concept without details, surprising others and ourselves with how seeding would be implemented? And do we vote on anything at all until we have answered the large philosophical questions as well as the dozens of smaller practical questions that seeding requires we address.