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Sportsmanship is a Way of Life

January 4, 2013

Twenty years ago the MHSAA received a plaque from a member school that I continue to prize above all other awards our organization has received.  The plaque reads:  “In recognition of outstanding contributions to interscholastic athletics, and for promotion of sportsmanship as a way of life for all young athletes.”

There are no words I would more prefer to describe the work of the MHSAA then and now than those highlighted words.  No work we do is any more important than promoting sportsmanship as a way of life.  Reduced to a phrase, that’s our most essential purpose; that’s our product.

Not victories, titles or championships, but sportsmanship.  Not awards or records, but sportsmanship.

It’s teaching and learning sportsmanship more than speed and strength; sportsmanship more than coordination and conditioning; sportsmanship more than skills and strategies.  Even more than teamwork, hard work, discipline and dedication, it’s sportsmanship we teach and learn.

In Discovery of Morals, the sociologist author (not a sportsman) writes, “Sportsmanship is probably the clearest and most popular expression of morals.  Sportsmanship is a thing of the spirit.  It is timeless and endless; and we should strive to make it universal to all races, creeds and walks in life.”

Sportsmanship is more than a list of do’s and don’ts; more than grace in victory and defeat; more than how we play the game and watch the games.  It’s how we live our lives.

Sportsmanship begins in our homes.  We work on it in practice.  It extends to games.  It reaches up to the crowd.  It permeates the school halls and shopping malls.  And it begins to affect society for good, or for bad.

Permission to Disagree

February 17, 2015

An organization leader who is doing a good job works hard to provide the organization’s board of directors all the history and detail necessary to make good decisions. Questions and concerns are anticipated, and addressed in advance.
As a result of this good leadership, meetings usually run with efficiency, decisions are made without long discussions, and debate is infrequent and never contentious. Votes usually reflect unanimous agreement.
While these are traits of good organizational leadership, a tradition of great organizational dynamics is disagreement.
If the board is always in total agreement, then management is not bringing the board tough enough topics. The subjects are not serious enough. They are operational more than strategic; they are transactional, not transformational.
Among the current topics of school sports in Michigan are two upon which there is certain to be disagreement: (1) the role of 6th-graders in school sports and the MHSAA; and (2) out-of-season coaching rules. We see the lack of consensus at the local level and the league level and between different coaches associations. And we expect the Representative Council will lack unanimity if these topics ever arrive for the Council’s action.
These are large topics, worthy of our time because of the disagreement, not in spite of it.