Blog: From the Director

Recently I’ve read about a new challenge to the sports specialization myth. It’s called “interleaving.”

It is difficult for me to think of any part of our schools that provide these lessons and nurture these skills any more efficiently than extracurricular sports and activities.

There was initial excitement that we might be onto something, but that brief infatuation began to wane as we dug deeper and discussed the plan more widely.

If there is need for more than four classes in basketball or girls volleyball, or for more than four “equal divisions” in most other sports, it is not because of the reason most often cited.

No equipment can prevent concussions in any sport. What can reduce such head trauma is to diminish the frequency and severity of contact to the head.

A national committee was convened last year to address seven-on-seven football. It recognized problems but could only wring its hands regarding solutions.

Many people also recognize that well-intentioned rules to curb excesses and abuses in school sports not only do that, but also tend to drive student-athletes to non-school coaches and programs.

With maturity and humility uncharacteristic of athletes twice his age, our newest of 17 four-time wrestling champs said: “I definitely had some great practice partners who were beating me up.”

“Standardized achievement tests are a vital tool, but treating test scores the way a corporation might treat sales targets is wrong. Students are not widgets."

Our posting of March 29 (“Hit Again”), about the mistakes being made in the guise of reforming education, struck a nerve with readers.   And since then, writers with wider audiences have offered similar commentaries, including DeWayne Wickham writ...

I suspect that those are also the three major obstacles we must overcome as we think about the future of interscholastic athletics.

This might cause us to consider more deeply what a high school sport should look like, or at least what an MHSAA tournament sport should stand for.

It’s what we have and what the AAU doesn’t have; what US Soccer Development Academies don’t have; what club volleyball lacks and what travel ice hockey is missing.

Look through someone else’s window was the name of our Sunday school lesson. The entire lesson was about how we should stop and try to see things the way others do.

Education reform needs a Mulligan. A do-over. The opportunity to go back to “Go” and start over. For example . . .

My counterpart in Georgia has a nice way with words, and recently used that talent to add his perspective to topics like those we’ve been addressing here in Michigan.

School sports is not engaged in the never-ending addiction to add layers of competitions and levels of championships.

Strewn along almost every shore is the waste of nations outliving their means. Plastic in all shapes and colors, from products of all types – bottles, toys, sandals, tools.

The contests, concerts and dramatic performances for the public were almost entirely beside the point.

Zealous advocates for child safety wish to protect children from any risk of physical exertion, while in the next breath they complain of youth inactivity and obesity.