Valuable Victories
June 30, 2014
The 95th annual meeting of the National Federation of State High School Associations occurs June 28 to July 2 in Boston. I wonder if any speaker will say anything as profound as this statement by philosopher/psychologist William James during a lecture in Boston in 1906 (just months after the founding of the National Collegiate Athletic Association):
“. . . 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.”
Competitive athletics is nothing without a set of rules that opponents must follow. All opponents. Even those with “helicopter parents” who try to provide a parachute to their child after a mistake. Even those who believe their money or connections should give them a free pass. Even for star players; even for substitutes.
Without rules of eligibility and competition, and opponents playing by the very 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 or crossing the finish line.
Without a regulatory scheme adhered to by all competitors, victory is hollow. Rules are a big part of what gives school sports meaning and value.
Where are the Adults?
February 2, 2016
According to Jim Tucker, a certified financial planner and National Football League Players Association registered player financial advisor, writing for the Jan. 11-17 issue of Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal: “... university presidents, trustees and athletic directors are failing at their job of upholding the ethical standards of their universities.” They exploit, rather than educate, the so-called “student-athlete.”
He asks the right questions: “Where are the adults at our colleges and universities? Where are the adults to say no to football games on a day other than Saturday? Where are the adults to say no to athletic conferences that crisscross the country? Or adults to say no to a 35-plus-game college basketball season with excessive travel and missed class time?”
Behind the glitz and glamor of major college athletics is a program without, it appears, any rudder but the pursuit of more revenue, and less and less relationship to the educational mission of the sponsoring institutions.
I wouldn’t care about this. Except that the best predictor of what may go wrong in school sports is a look at what already has gone awry in college sports.
Those who pressure school sports to copy the college or AAU model miss the lessons that are all around us. We do not have to make the same mistakes.