A Shift
April 10, 2018
The disease of youth sports generally – observed in premature sports specialization and the commercialization of kids’ games by both local entrepreneurs and corporate giants – is infecting school-based sports, especially basketball.
We see it in transfers by starters and dropouts among reserves.
We see it in short benches for JV and varsity games and empty gyms.
There is no shame in identifying our weak spots; it’s the only way to start fixing them.
And heavens! NCAA men’s basketball is being investigated by the FBI. Players are being ruled ineligible. Coaches are being fired. Others are being arrested.
School-based basketball is beautiful by comparison! But we can and must be better. And that can only begin to happen by facing up to our shortcomings.
The clock is ticking on the life of school-based basketball, and only a change in emphasis – a cultural shift – may save what arguably has been the most historically important sport in our schools. A shift ...
Away from all-star games for a few graduating seniors and toward junior high/middle school programs open to all kids.
-
Away from national events and toward city, county and conference rivalries.
-
Away from “elite” travel teams and toward local K-6 development programs operated by schools.
-
Away from creeping commercialism and blatant professionalism and toward a re-commitment to amateurism.
-
Away from gamesmanship and toward sportsmanship as a precursor to citizenship.
-
Away from running up the score – a lot – and toward playing every kid – a lot.
The leaders and lovers of school-based basketball must resist the slippery slope and advocate for the cultural shift. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to save school-based basketball; but it does take courage and persistence.
A Meaning-Driven Brand
June 5, 2012
One of the apparent conclusions of the MHSAA online “Have Your Say” opinion poll conducted five years ago that continues to guide us today, is that the character of school sports is key to the appeal of school sports. This is true for both sponsoring school personnel and for those participants and spectators regularly involved in school sports. This suggests that to keep our core customers, we must preserve our core characteristics. That whatever changes occur in school styles and structures, we must maintain by our policies and programs the features and values which our core customers have experienced and both want and expect to continue.
It may sometimes feel that we are swimming against the current of public opinion when we enforce rules that define student eligibility or the limits of competition and travel, but the development and implementation of such restrictions might be essential to the expectations of our core constituents for the experience they remember for themselves and want for their children or team.
Just because schools change, it is not necessary that rules of school sports change as well. Sometimes, perhaps. But not always or even often. Leadership must always consider the program without a rule before we do away with the rule.
It is not too strong to state that schools seek MHSAA membership precisely because there are rules. In fact, schools formed the MHSAA to be their vehicle for making and enforcing rules. Just as participation by students is more valuable to them and their schools where standards of eligibility and conduct are higher, so is membership by schools in an organization more valuable where such standards are developed and enforced.
The Culting of Brands is a good book with a bad title in which author Douglas Atkin writes about the success of “a meaning-driven brand.” He says, “The product carries the message and then becomes it.” These kinds of brands, he says, are really beliefs. “They have morals – embody values.” They “stand up for things. They work hard; fight for what is right.”
Ultimately, it is exactly this that is expected of the high school brand of competitive athletics in Michigan.