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.
History Reveals Legacy
December 5, 2017
It is well established in dusty textbooks and derelict files that the National Federation of State High School Associations owes its origins to a small group of Midwest high school athletic associations, and that the most significant accomplishment within the National Federation’s first decade of existence was to influence the end of national tournaments for high school teams and individuals.
I joined this National Federation as a staff member about halfway through the organization’s march to its centennial celebration scheduled for 2019. A large part of my initial duties was helping to administer recently started services for high school athletic directors – first a national conference, then a publication, and then a national organization, now called the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
This programming was launched in large part to frustrate efforts by what was then called the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which had formed a national athletic directors organization that was tending in directions the National Federation opposed – from federal legislation to national competitions.
A few years later, the National Federation created the National Federation Interscholastic Coaches Association. Again, a primary reason for doing so was to counter the efforts of a man in Florida who had created a national high school athletic coaches association whose almost sole purpose was to conduct national high school championship events.
National Federation opposition to national events in high school athletics is not “one and done.” Yes, it’s in the core of the National Federation’s founding; but it’s also at the heart of its more recent launching of national organizations and services for athletic directors, and then for coaches.
Opposition to national high school athletic events isn’t ancient history for the National Federation; it is the organization’s living legacy.