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Software Development

August 8, 2014

In his book The Sports Gene, author David Epstein causes the reader to think about athletic performance as software more than hardware; and I believe this is even more important for us to consider in educational athletics.
In school sports, at least in most situations, we still believe that opportunity is for everybody, regardless of gene pool or body type. High school sports teams often have an eclectic mix-and-match look that defies each sport’s stereotype on other levels.
In school sports, coaches don’t select and sculpt the body type as much as welcome what comes to them and work to develop skills to overcome inherent shortcomings.
In school sports, we focus on the software more than the hardware on other levels as well.

We are concerned with character development more than physical development, on principles more than physiques. It’s the operating system we focus on, much more than the hardware.

We also judge success differently – more on intangibles than tangibles, more on heart and mind than trophies and medals.

    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.