Why Not National Events?
October 7, 2016
The constituent groups of the National Federation of State High School Associations are engaged in a deliberate discussion of the merits of conducting national high school sports championships. The topic has been raised and rejected by the National Federation membership multiple times over many years.
Support for such events is infrequently merit-based and more often found where political pressures have assaulted policies that have prohibited schools from participation in national tournaments by school teams and students representing schools. Opposition is based in both philosophical and practical concerns.
Proponents of national tournaments say such events will provide a platform to promote education-based athletic programs, but what we would often see – teams full of transfer students missing a lot of school – would undermine any positive promotional message. We would be saying one thing but doing another.
While more promotion of what we believe in might be nice, opponents believe national tournaments would worsen everyday problems and especially the most unsavory problems of school sports, namely undue influence and athletic-related transfers.
Opponents see national events as symptomatic of the "select the best and forget the rest" virus that is infecting much of youth sports that is neither school-sponsored nor student-centered. They see national events as causing school sports to move from ally to adversary of schools' educational mission. They see more loss of classroom instructional time, more travel, more costs and more local fundraising that saps community resources. They see the rich getting richer ... more for a few "haves" and less for most others, and nothing for the "have nots."
With each state having made its own decisions regarding when sports seasons will occur, many opponents wonder how any national tournament can serve the wide variety of seasons in place. Some sports that occur in the fall in one state are conducted in the winter or spring in other states. Even when sports occur in the same season in two states, the seasons may start and end two, three or four weeks differently. Do we really want our programs to place even more pressure on kids and coaches to specialize in a single sport year-around?
With each state having made its own decisions regarding the maximum number of contests, who is going decide what the national rule will be? Will it be the 18 games of one state or the 36 games of another? With each state having made its own decisions regarding age rules and transfer rules and out-of-season coaching rules, who is going to make and enforce these and all the other rules that must apply to all to assure the competition is fair?
And with four Michigan High School Athletic Association champions in most sports, which do we choose to represent our state? Do we really need to demean the champions of three classifications or divisions by advancing the fourth? Do we want our state finals to be the qualification for another level, or the ultimate experience for MHSAA member schools and students?
Tools of Thought
July 13, 2018
(This blog first appeared on MHSAA.com on May 11, 2012.)
I am famous at home and office for my lack of keyboarding skills. The only “C” grade I received in high school was a summer school course in what was then called “typing.” At Dartmouth I paid a woman who worked at the dining hall to type my college papers. In an early job at the University of Wisconsin I typed the play-by-play of Badger football and basketball games with a clumsy “hunt-and-peck” approach.
Today, with the same lack of style, I pound out dozens of emails daily, hammering the keys like my first manual typewriter required four decades ago.
But for any document of great length or importance, I do as I’ve always done: take up pencil (my software) and legal pad (my hardware). There is no question that, for me, the nature of the equipment I’m using for writing affects the nature of the thinking.
With his eyesight failing late in his life, Freidrich Nietzsche bought his first typewriter, changing from pen and paper to the new technology of the 1800s. According to a 2008 article in Atlantic Monthly by Nichols Carr, a friend wrote to Nietzsche in a letter that, since adapting to the telegraphic style, Nietzsche’s terse prose had become even tighter. To which Nietzsche replied: “You are right, our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”
Which makes one wonder where all today’s tweeting and texting may take us.