Urgency
November 8, 2011
I still have in my files and in my mind Joe Klein’s Newsweek editorial of Sept. 21, 1992, that took Bill Clinton to task for his “small themes” during the closing months of his campaign for the U.S. presidency.
Never one to be shy in his bully pulpit at Newsweek (or in his then anonymously published novel Primary Colors based on the 1992 Democratic presidential primary), Klein wrote that Clinton’s late campaign efforts were “rhetorically flaccid, intellectually unadventurous, morally undemanding.”
In response, Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, resorted to a sports metaphor: “The way to the goal line is to keep running off tackle. Four yards and a cloud of dust.”
This “take no chances, do no harm, run out the clock” spirit and strategy that so infuriated Klein will not be seen at the MHSAA. Expectations and efforts will be in continuous crescendo no matter how close the goal line gets. In fact, as it is with any good football team in the “red zone,” the closer the goal line looms, the greater the sense of urgency there will be.
There is no greater proof at this moment to our most inner circle of constituents – high school athletics directors – than the MHSAA’s work with ArbiterSports to become the first state high school association in America to develop, and to deliver at least initially at no cost to all member high schools, a comprehensive suite of electronic tools for athletic department administration. This is a responsibility, and risk, that could have been left to others; but we’re being motivated by undertaking the task here and now – first in the nation – so that the product is tailor-made for high school sports, Michigan’s way.
Soccer for Schools
January 22, 2016
International soccer has provided me the greatest experience I’ve ever had as a sports spectator. Watching the Boca Juniors come back to win 2-1 in overtime in their historic stadium in Buenos Aires in November 2013 provided me an almost out-of-body experience as the home team fans, decked out in blue and yellow and waving flags, sang their way through the lows and dramatic highs of this match.
Soccer has been called “the beautiful game.” But of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; and not all sports fans see beauty in a game that, at its highest levels, has so little scoring and so much flopping, and only one person knows how much time remains in the game. And of course, the sport has been supervised at the highest levels by individuals so corrupt that they make the recent scandals of this nation’s Amateur Athletic Union leadership seem like child’s play.
Soccer is a global game, and we – at the high school level – are not going to change the game at its highest level in the U.S. I don’t really care. I just want a more appropriate game for the interscholastic level.
We already have altered the global game’s substitution rules for the interscholastic level to promote greater participation and player safety. And we use a scoreboard that lets teams and spectators know how much time remains in each half.
To promote more safety, we could implement a football style practice policy that limits the number of practices when heading the ball can occur to one per day during the preseason and to two per week during the regular season.
To promote more scoring, we could implement a basketball style “over-and-back” rule at the midfield line, and also by prohibiting defenders from playing the ball to their own goalkeepers.
The beautiful game has imperfections – at least for our purposes – which we have corrected for our needs in the past and we can do more of in the future without challenging the global juggernaut that soccer has become.