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Remarkable Student-Athletes

May 8, 2015

Every spring I have the privilege and pleasure of participating in several league or local school events that acknowledge and reward the careers of student-athletes who distinguished themselves as multiple-sport participants with very high academic grade point averages. One of those events this year was the 2015 Senior Athlete Recognition Ceremony of the Capital Area Activities Conference. It was remarkable in several ways.
It was my fourth time in attendance at the event, which started when the league was smaller and simply called the Capital Area Conference. I was the speaker at one of its first recognition ceremonies. In later years I attended as our first son, and then our second, were among the evening’s honorees. But I found the 2015 CAAC event remarkable in two other and more important ways.
First, as the Master of Ceremonies Tim Staudt read off the intended college majors of the 200 honorees (10 per school), I noticed that not one of the students had declared the intention of being an English major, which was my college major and to which I credit much of the pleasure I’ve enjoyed as a human being and the success I’ve experienced as an administrator of school sports. I’m hoping some of these 200 of the CAAC’s best and brightest – a truly impressive group – will decide or even just stumble into an English major – a place to learn how to think and to communicate.
The second remarkable feature of this remarkable group of 200 was that the number of boys almost equaled the number of girls. This almost never happens, and that has always concerned me – that boys settle for athletic achievement alone while girls strive to achieve in athletics, academics, activities and much more of what a comprehensive education has to offer.
It is extremely important to the future of our society that we demand much more of boys than we are getting. If we expect them to be productive in life and to be good citizens, husbands and fathers, boys need to learn in high school that “settling” is not sufficient and that a life which revolves around sports alone is a life that will be disappointing.

An Easy Call

April 6, 2016

A few people of limited perspective blame the MHSAA for the loss by MSU’s women’s basketball team in the NCAA tournament last month on our refusing to shuffle off the Michigan Girls High School Basketball Semifinals and Finals to some other time or place.

It wasn’t a bad call in Michigan that caused MSU’s loss in Mississippi. It wasn’t even a tough call for us; it was the only call.

No way would we dash the dreams of 16 teams or even diminish the experience of coaches, players, parents and spectators surrounding those 16 deserving girls high school basketball programs.

No way would we damage relationships with vendors, broadcasters and sponsors who have expectations of, or even legally binding agreements for, a certain event, on certain dates, at a certain site.

The NCAA has changed the format of its women’s tournament frequently, and it may change its policies and procedures again before next March, or before the contract expires for the MHSAA’s Girls and Boys Basketball Semifinals and Finals at MSU following the 2017 tournaments. So we are not in a panic about future tournaments.

We hope to keep the MHSAA girls and boys tournaments together; and we are confident both MSU and the greater Lansing community see the significant benefits of hosting these events.