War Stories
May 25, 2012
I recently returned from a national meeting of my counterparts – an annual gathering where legal and legislative topics are on the agenda. With increasing frequency, the business aspects of the gatherings are sidetracked by “war stories,” as my colleagues relate the latest attacks on their organizations by media, legislators, lawyers, parents and others as these good leaders assist their member schools in regulating interscholastic athletics.
It is well known that respect for authority figures and organizations of all kinds has been slipping for decades; and there are many reasons for it. What has made the decline even more apparent is the Internet where people can communicate with more speed and less consequence than before.
It is well studied that appropriateness of tone and language diminishes as one moves from face-to-face meetings, to telephonic conversations, to traditional letters, to emails, texts and Twitter.
People will usually research topics and learn more about the complexities of an issue before meetings and use dialogue to come to consensus during conversations. They will be more circumspect and contemplative in correspondence (which means, literally, an exchange of letters). But they will not hesitate to make assertions and cast aspersions without any factual basis in brief, one-sided email or social media comments; which usually adds nothing but acrimony to the issue.
Perhaps by being the No. 1 user of social media among the nation’s state high school associations, the MHSAA has made the problem worse. Perhaps by being the only state high school association executive director in the country to blog, I’ve also added to the problem.
Sports, after all, is not a subject that often suffers from too little communication. Perhaps, at least sometimes, it suffers from too much quantity and too little quality.
Perspective
July 9, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com November 2, 2010)
Each summer I put together a list of all the problems we’re addressing and all the projects we know we’ll be working on through the MHSAA during the year ahead. It’s always a long list, and accomplishing just a few items would make any year a good year.
So, this requires that we try to decide between all that we might do and all that we must do. And here’s a reminder of one thing we must do.
When I ask school and community groups with whom I’m speaking about what they think the problems are in school sports, the most popular responses from these constituents are (1) too little funding, and (2) too many misdirected parents; or sometimes that order is reversed: over-involved parents and under-funded programs.
I like to caution people that in some situations, our students suffer from too little adult engagement in their lives and that, almost everywhere, interscholastic athletics benefit greatly from the time and energy parents and other adults volunteer to help local programs operate. But I get the point of what I’m hearing.
These and other responses I hear – serious as these cited problems can be – may merely be symptoms of the single, fundamental issue that’s at the heart of all the others. That’s perspective.
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Too little money for schools and sports?
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Pressure-packed parents?
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Poor sportsmanship?
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Too much specialization? Too much year-round competition?
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Too much talk of college athletic scholarships?
Perspective – spending money on less essential things.
Perspective – people focusing on adults’ desires more than students’ needs.
Perspective – forgetting or never learning the pure purpose of educational athletics.
Perspective again.
Perspective once again.
In essence, almost all issues arise from matters of perspective. At their root, almost all problems are problems of perspective.
What can we do about this?
I don’t have the perfect prescription; but one thing is certain: we can’t relegate this to an afterthought. We cannot hope to make time to address this problem each day; we must plan to make time for it each day.
We need to model a positive perspective. Point to it when we see it. Explain it. Reward it.
It can’t be left to others. We are the guardians of proper perspective. It’s Job 1.