Turnover
October 21, 2016
Turnover in local leadership is one of the biggest challenges facing all of youth sports, and it’s partly responsible for the disconnect between the policies of state or national sports organizations and the actual practices of local programs. It is beginning to occur almost as rapidly in school sports as non-school youth sports programs, eroding yet another advantage that school-sponsored programs have enjoyed over non-school programs (other examples being that participation in school sports has generally been less expensive for families, and school coaches more often have been trained educators).
Turnover not only challenges local schools, it causes, or at least contributes to, many of the challenges the Michigan High School Athletic Association faces – everything from administering the transfer rule to conducting District and Regional tournaments.
One of every seven MHSAA member high schools has an athletic director this year who has not served in that role for at least the past five years. Each of these 108 new ADs attended a required orientation program at the MHSAA office in late summer. We provide a follow-up program in November.
More than 80 athletic department administrative assistants or secretaries attended a session at the MHSAA office in September. MHSAA staff conducts a second session for this appreciative audience every March during the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association conference in Traverse City.
MHSAA Athletic Director In-Service programs are conducted at several league meetings during late summer and in conjunction with most MHSAA Update meetings across the state during September and October. Attendance will exceed 500 persons.
Given the increasing complexity of life and the effect on school sports, more needs to be done. Our next efforts may include quick electronic tutorials to help coaches, athletic directors, principals and superintendents keep abreast of what is most important in school-sponsored, student-centered sports.
Imperfect Patriots
July 12, 2017
Perhaps the most loyal thing a patriot can do for his or her country is to point out its flaws.
Even before this country’s Independence Day, people were at work to form a union that was imperfect at its start and remains so today. Some of its many flaws have been corrected, even as new flaws have been revealed.
We have imperfect patriots to thank for forming this nation and for helping this nation improve itself. Flawed people of conscience and courage have helped a young nation see itself as it was and also as it could become.
Some patriots have been famous, a few infamous, but most unrecorded in any historical account as they lived and labored in ways that improved their local community and, unknowingly, contributed to change they might not have imagined possible, improving everything from race relations to recycling to renewable energy.
This nation’s patriots are not merely those who lived at the birth of this nation. Every generation has had patriots who have been as important for nation-building as those in the 1700s. Patriots are found in and out of government. In homes and places of worship. They are found in the for-profit business world and in nonprofit organizations.
When, out of sincere loyalty, a person brings constructive criticism to a cause, that person helps to build and better the enterprise. It is as true of this imperfect organization as it is of our nation.