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.
History Reveals Legacy
December 5, 2017
It is well established in dusty textbooks and derelict files that the National Federation of State High School Associations owes its origins to a small group of Midwest high school athletic associations, and that the most significant accomplishment within the National Federation’s first decade of existence was to influence the end of national tournaments for high school teams and individuals.
I joined this National Federation as a staff member about halfway through the organization’s march to its centennial celebration scheduled for 2019. A large part of my initial duties was helping to administer recently started services for high school athletic directors – first a national conference, then a publication, and then a national organization, now called the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
This programming was launched in large part to frustrate efforts by what was then called the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which had formed a national athletic directors organization that was tending in directions the National Federation opposed – from federal legislation to national competitions.
A few years later, the National Federation created the National Federation Interscholastic Coaches Association. Again, a primary reason for doing so was to counter the efforts of a man in Florida who had created a national high school athletic coaches association whose almost sole purpose was to conduct national high school championship events.
National Federation opposition to national events in high school athletics is not “one and done.” Yes, it’s in the core of the National Federation’s founding; but it’s also at the heart of its more recent launching of national organizations and services for athletic directors, and then for coaches.
Opposition to national high school athletic events isn’t ancient history for the National Federation; it is the organization’s living legacy.