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The Student Effect

January 7, 2014

The key to assuring an activity is educational is to consider the effect on the student of every decision made. For example, what is the effect on a student who ...

  • gets cut from the team?
  • never gets in a game?
  • never experiences a win, or never a loss?
  • frequently hears vulgarity or profanity?
  • is taught how not to get caught breaking a rule?

If one student’s participation is at the expense of another student’s self-esteem, whether opponent or teammate, we can’t justify the program. It’s not consistent with the educational mission of schools.

If we ridicule those who fail, or if we lavish too much praise on those who achieve, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational athletics.

If we direct or pressure students to specialize in only athletics or non-athletic activities, or in just one sport or activity, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational.

If we miss or misuse the teachable moments of school sports – split seconds of time and circumstance in which to teach values like commitment, discipline, integrity, hard work and teamwork, we can’t justify the program. It’s not educational.

We assure the program is educational when we consider the effect on the student and when we seize the positive purposes of teachable moments that permeate the program.

None of this means we can’t have rules that, when violated, remove the privilege of participation. And none of this means we cannot have teams with both starters and substitutes, and contests that determine wins and losses. It means that there are objectives that go much deeper and outcomes that go much further.

A Can-Do Response

January 5, 2015

Michigan has a tradition of some of the nation’s most lenient out-of-season coaching rules, especially in the summer; and yet, the few rules we have are sometimes blamed for driving students to non-school programs.
Nevertheless, there is some validity to the criticism. It is observably true that non-school programs seem to fill every void in the interscholastic calendar. The day after high school seasons end, many non-school programs begin. The day a school coach can no longer work with more than three or four students, a non-school coach begins to do so.
The challenge is to balance the negative effects of an “arms war” in high school sports against driving students toward non-school programs. It’s the balance of too few vs. too many rules out of season.
The out-of-the-box compromise for this dilemma could be to not regulate the off season as much as to conduct school-sponsored off-season programs in a healthier way than they normally occur, i.e., to move schools back in control of and in the center of the non-school season. To not merely regulate what schools and coaches can’t do, but actually run the programs they can do and want to do.
Of course, this would require more of what schools have less of – resources. School administrators who may be in agreement that schools should operate off-season programs to keep kids attached to in-season programs still balk because they lack resources. At a time when resources are being cut for basic support of in-season programs, how could they justify spending more for out-of-season outreach?
Ultimately, in discovering the sweet spot for out-of-season interaction between school coaches with student-athletes, we need to give at least as much attention to providing more opportunity for what they can do together as for what they can’t do.