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Program Priorities

January 10, 2014

Many school districts face more requests from their constituents for sports programs than they have the resources to accommodate, so they are forced to make very difficult decisions. For three decades, when I’ve been consulted, I have offered and stood by this advice.

First, I advance the premise that if the activity is educational, there is just as much potential for the education to occur at the junior high/middle school and subvarsity levels as at the varsity level. Just as we would not discriminate against one race or gender, we should not disadvantage one age or ability level. In fact, with a little less pressure to win, it is likely to see more education at subvarsity levels and more reason to sponsor them.

Second, I advocate the position that schools should avoid sponsorship of any activity for which a qualified head coach cannot be secured. Qualified personnel are, in order of priority:

  1.  a teacher within the building who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  2.  a teacher within the district who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  3.  a teacher in another district who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  4.  a certified teacher from the community who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.
  5.  a non-certified person who has current CPR certification and completed CAP.

I urge schools not to descend lower than this for program leadership. Coaches are the delivery system of the education in educational athletics; they are the critical link in the educational process. More problems occur than are worth the effort if the program is in the hands of an unqualified coach.

Next, I urge that schools rank sports on the basis of cost per participant, and give higher priority to sports that spread funds over the greatest number of participants.

Next, I urge that schools place lowest in priority the sports that cannot be operated on school facilities and create transportation, supervision and liability issues, and give higher priority to those conducted at or very near the school.

Next, I urge that schools place lowest in priority the sports which are most readily available in the community, without school involvement. If resources are precious, then duplicating school programs should be a low priority; doing what the community can’t do or doesn’t do should be given a much higher priority.

While I’m a fan of school sports, I recognize that an athletic program has as much potential to do harm as to do good. Programs without qualified coaches that are conducted for small numbers of students at remote venues and without comprehensive school oversight and support may create more problems for schools than the good they do for students.

Bare bones budgeting will require brutally honest assessments based on priorities like these.

No. 1 Worries

December 27, 2017

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted Sept. 21, 2012, and the theme rings true today.

Fueled by the “No. 1” syndrome, people often worry about and value the wrong things when it comes to interscholastic athletics.

For example, they worry about the eligibility of athletes more than the education of students.  They worry about athletic scholarships to college more than genuine scholarship in high school.  Faced with financial shortfalls, they use middle school athletics as the whipping boy because the No. 1 syndrome causes people to value varsity programs more than junior varsity, and high school programs more than middle school.

It is possible in the subvarsity programs of our high schools (far more than in varsity programs where crowds and media bring pressure to win) and it should be and usually is pervasive in our middle school programs, that participation is more important than specialization, trying more important than winning, teamwork more important than individual honors, and teaching more important than titles and trophies.

At the middle school level, coaches have an opportunity to look down the bench for substitutes without first looking up at the scoreboard.  The scorebook should be kept to see how many students played in the game, not how many points any one player scored.

Here is where education prevails over entertainment in interscholastic athletics.  Here is where philosophy of athletics is more in tune with the mission of the school.  Here is where the taxpayer’s dollar is spent best.

To the degree we introduce large tournaments and trophies into middle level programs, we damage the purity of educational athletics and the purpose of middle school programs.  To the degree we cut middle level programs in the face of budget crises, we succumb to the No. 1 syndrome.

We must expose the No. 1 syndrome for the sickness it is:  a cancerous growth that must be cut out of educational athletics before it leads to cutting out what is arguably the most educational parts of interscholastic athletics:  middle school programs.