Taking Back Their Game
December 15, 2017
Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted August 30, 2011, and the message still rings true today.
Grayling High School’s Rich Moffitt is one of our many fine high school basketball coaches, and a good portion of the heart and soul behind the MHSAA/BCAM “Reaching Higher” experience for our state’s students aspiring to play college basketball. Rich shared with us a recent article in Basketball Times written by Billy Reed, a long-time basketball writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Lexington Herald-Leader and Sports Illustrated. In this piece Reed urges high school basketball coaches to take back their game from the corrupting influences of street agents and summer coaches. He writes:
“I’d like to see the high school coaches publicly challenge university presidents to stop sacrificing academic integrity on the altar of the almighty sports dollar. I’d like to see them petition the NCAA to do everything possible to rid college football and basketball of the slimy street agents, summer coaches, pimps, hustlers and con artists who undermine the authority of their high school coaches and teachers.
“I’d like them to urge the NCAA to start running its own summer games instead of leaving it to the shoe companies and NBA stars, and I’d like to see them work with their state high school athletic associations to adopt rules stipulating that only certified high school coaches can coach summer teams.
“I’d also like to see the high school coaches rededicate themselves to teaching humility, civility and respect for the opposition, the public and the media instead of letting young superstars grow into rude, selfish, egotistical adults who think the same rules that apply to the rest of society don’t apply to them.”
No Rules?
February 6, 2018
We like to say that school sports is “educational athletics,” but this does not mean athletics and academics should be treated exactly the same.
Competitive athletics is not like the composition or algebra classroom. Competitive athletics requires two opponents playing by the same rules that govern who can play and how they can play.
In 1907, William James put in writing a series of lectures he had given in Boston the year before titled “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking.” Included in the third lecture is this gem:
“. . . the aim of a football team is not merely to get the ball to a certain goal (if that were so, they would simply get up on some dark night and place it there), but to get it there by a fixed machinery of conditions – the game’s rules and the opposing players;”
This to James was a given, cited to help him make a more profound point.
But the point here is profound enough for us. Without rules, and opponents playing by the same rules, there is no validity in moving the ball to the goal. Without rules, there is no value in sinking the putt, making the basket, clearing the bar, crossing the finish line. Without a regulatory scheme adhered to by all competitors, victory is hollow.