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Thinking Inside The Box
October 5, 2012
Praise is often heaped upon the innovative person who thinks “outside the box.” But thinking “inside the box” is equally praiseworthy.
By this I mean doing the essentials better. I mean remembering our first and fundamental reasons for being, and delivering the very finest services that support those purposes.
It is possible that by thinking outside the box, some organizations forget about their reasons for being; and in interscholastic athletics, we would be well served to think inside the box.
In sports we learn we must compete within the confines of end lines and sidelines. Go beyond the boundary lines and you’re out of play, where you can’t score and can’t win.
If school sports will secure a victory for its future – meaning, school sports continue to be a tool for schools to reach and motivate young people in an educational setting – it will not occur from out of bounds. It will occur because we stayed within prescribed boundaries: local, amateur, educational, non-commercial, sportsmanlike and physically beneficial.
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Redefining Winning (and Losing)
March 9, 2018
There’s been much media attention given to a boys basketball game in another state that turned into a brawl led by adult fans and resulted in suspension of both schools’ seasons and dismissal of both schools’ teams from the state basketball tournament.
From a thousand miles away, I can’t comment on who’s at fault or whether the penalty fits the crime. However, I shout a hearty “Amen!” to what that state’s high school association executive director had to say, according to one of the state’s major newspapers.
“We have too many people putting too much emphasis on winning, or on the wrong definition of winning. Their definition of winning is on the scoreboard only. It’s become a very big problem, and it’s not the (state association’s) definition of winning.”
He continued, “Sportsmanship has been eroded. We’re supposed to be teaching ethics, integrity and character to these kids ...”
Spot on!
The biggest challenge we face in school sports administration across the country is communicating amidst the clutter of contradictory messages that the definition of winning – the meaning of success – is very different in student-centered, school-sponsored competitive athletics than in most other popular brands of sports.
This is educational athletics. It’s about learning far, far more than about winning, which is an important goal but nowhere near the highest objective in interscholastic athletics.
If we lose this perspective, all is lost.