Logo

Questions

September 9, 2014

Sometimes leadership looks at questions as a challenge to its authority, or as a way to obstruct progress. Both can be true.

But a better way to view a good question is as a valuable gift. It can provide an opportunity to learn, to consider details that hadn’t been addressed or alternatives that hadn’t been raised.

And a better way to look at a leader than the one with all the answers is to view the leader as a collector of questions.

The quality of those questions can have a direct relationship on the quality of ideas and initiatives that form, and a direct effect on programs and services that follow.

During August and September, MHSAA Associate Director Tom Rashid has been meeting with athletic administrators at their league meetings. Among several objectives has been to ask these front line administrators to think about some new approaches to some old topics – like out-of-season coaching limitations and policies and programs for junior high/middle school students. He has been asking questions, and then he’s been listening to questions, both of which are preparing us for more in-depth discussions on these topics throughout the remainder of the 2014-15 school year.

Current Events

November 3, 2017

This is the ninth year that I have been posting blogs twice a week – each Tuesday and Friday. A recent project required I go back through the postings of the eight previous years; and a sidebar of that project is this posting.

I rediscovered that in the fall of 2009, I was writing about topics that remain current today. For example,

  • August 18 – What new sports may be in the future of high school athletics?

  • August 25 – The prospects of 8-player football.

  • September 4 – Baseball pitching rules.

  • September 8 – Video streaming.

  • October 6 – Protection from head injuries.

  • November 17 – Foreign students.

  • November 20 – Football scheduling.

  • November 27 – Football Playoffs.

And on several occasions over the first six months, the topics were problems in school finance and the financial pressures on school sports, reasons for various eligibility rules, changes in playing rules to promote participant safety, tournament classification, and the need for stronger leadership on all levels of school sports.

All of these topics remain current. Proving once again, perhaps, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, that there are no genuinely new topics.