Valuable Volunteers
July 18, 2017
One of the most encouraging aspects of the job I have enjoyed for more than 30 years is what I see on display whenever I attend regular-season contests and Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments. It's the many volunteers who make the events run smoothly.
From parking lot supervisors, to ticket sellers and ticket takers, to concession stand cooks and servers, to program sellers, to the dozens of people needed to time and measure and otherwise administer large meets in individual sports ... volunteers are the blood pulsing through the veins of school-sponsored sports events.
They work in numbers that amaze me; they work with consistency and longevity that humbles me. They show up years after their own children were participants. I can attend the same event several years in a row and see most of the same volunteers serving year after year. Serving with enthusiasm and with joy, and with no more compensation than a T-shirt, sandwich and soft drinks.
Appropriately, our trophies and medals go to the top-performing student-athletes. But my gratitude goes to these many behind-the-scenes adults.
Thanks for another great year.
Political Fallout
April 22, 2016
It has been my long-held belief that there is a link between the quality of sportsmanship in our schools and the quality of citizenship in our society ... that if we made our games more respectful, society would tend to be more civil.
I’ve held this belief even though I’ve watched deteriorating standards of behavior in almost all aspects of society drag down the standards we’ve raised up for school sports. And frankly, I’ve admired that the standards of school sports have declined so little in comparison to the standards of society that have plummeted so far.
But now I read that the lack of decorum in this year’s presidential campaign has infected conduct at school sports events in at least three states, two of which border Michigan.
Student spectators would not shout chants about building walls to keep immigrants out of America if politicians had not created such slogans and campaigned on such themes.
Shallow, spiteful politics is doing deep damage to America, even to school sports. Of course, our coaches and administrators will attempt to use these ugly incidents as teachable moments.
But why should they have to? Why can’t those who claim they should lead the nation act like leaders? Why can’t they try to lead us to a higher level of humanity instead of inviting us to such hurtful or even hateful behavior?