Click here to read Kathy Button Bell talk about the value of sport to her in the business world. It has often been said that “success leaves clues.” It’s always nice when successfuly people remember the practical life lessons they learned in the High School athletic arena.
Click here to read one columnists take. Unfortunately, it’s a question being asked more and more in these trying financial times.
“Pay to Participate” fees seem unavoidable. Click here to read how 24 school districts in Southwest Ohio are dealing with the issue.
If someone were to ask you to list the top 10 issues that our political leaders should focus on what topics would be on your list? Would anything sports related be worthy of the time of elected officials that you voted for?
Whether its a summit on professional athletes and steroid use, state senators threatening action to force a Division 1 football playoff system or lawmakers looking to strengthen high school transfer laws in Iowa, it’s time to STOP! NOW! PLEASE!
We live in a great country founded on principle and guided by a constitution that has withstood the test of time, and I’ve got news for you….high school sports weren’t mentioned in there. But as the globegazzette.com reports, consider what is happening in Iowa right now.
“Iowa lawmakers expect to take another look this session at expanding to one full academic year the period of time that an athlete must sit out of varsity sports competition when transferring to another school to address inequities for some students and nip the potential for some programs to gain a winning advantage at the expense of other schools.”
Are you kidding me? Click here to read the entire article.
There’s no debating the importance our country has placed on sports. You just have to open your eyes to see that. If the Iowa High School ATHLETIC Association was addressing the topic and making a recommendation to it’s members, it would be appropriate. But the House and the Senate?
I’d prefer our elected officials focus on “the list” and let the sports management professionals worry about the rules that govern their organizations.
“You go back 30 years, a lot of your best quarterbacks were coming out of the state of California,” Yost said. “Why was that? Well, they were playing seven-on-seven before the rest of the country was.” –David Yost
By now, most of us are familiar with off season programs such as AAU Basketball, Club Volleyball, Select Soccer, Year Round Swimming and the like. Well, for the first time, 7 v 7 tournaments and leagues are showing up for football players. Football is the only HS sport where for the most part, outside of the school season there really isn’t an opportunity to play the sport…until now.
Click here to read an article about the rise of these types of opportunities and some of the factors behind the gain in popularity.
No question that a child is the number one asset in the life of a parent and because of that, many parents want to be involved. It’s no secret that school budgets are taking a hit and as a result, athletic budgets are getting tighter by the day, so there has to be a need for the help, right?
The answer is most certainly, yes! Parents have many opportunities to make a difference in the programs of their children. There is a passive way in which they can write a check to join a booster group or just donate cash. This money will certainly be valued and used to benefit the chosen team. Money = equity and makes a difference. But what if you don’t have the money? Or have more time to be actively involved?
Then you may want to consider opportunities such as working athletic events, signing up as a team parent or becoming actively involved in the booster organization. But before you do any of these things, ask yourself the following question.
“If I invest my time, energy and money into my childs program and my child doesn’t get to start, play or win any of the team awards, will I be able to handle that or won’t I?” Another way to get to the same place would be to ask yourself, “Do I trust the coach and the program in such a way that if things don’t go the way I hope for my child, I’ll still be able to give my all in the volunteer capacity that I have chosen?”
This is “agenda free volunteering” and these are important considerations, folks! I have seen all to often the volunteer who gets after it in incredibly positive ways only to become disenchanted with the program almost overnight….because their child isn’t starting, or didn’t get nominated for a particular award. OVERNIGHT.
Bottom line is this….every program could use your time, talent and support. You really can make a huge difference in the overall experience of all of the kids. However, if you don’t think you are capable of separating your support from decisions made by a coach that you can’t control….you may be better off limiting your support to cheering in the stands.
Its no secret that soccer is one of the first sports that most parents introduce to their kids at a young age. What better way for them to get great exercise while developing those motor skills and coordination?
Unfortunately, we are learning more and more about concussions and head injuries and the consequences of being ignorant or uninformed in this area. Click here to read the story of one Kentucky High School soccer player and her struggle to do things that were once second nature.
Watch the video and answer the same questions the coach answered. Would you have handled the game the same way?
I’ve often watched a basketball game and thought to myself, “you couldn’t pay me enough money to be an official!” I mean, the coaches aren’t happy and the fans are rarely happy.
Click here to read an article from the Marietta Times detailing the demands of the trade.
As with week 1, this t-shirt was spotted at a wrestling tournament. And without question, the message is as appropriate for a teenage wrestler as it is for anyone who may reading this post.
I especially like this one because there are no promises made in the opening statement. It crystalizes the ultimate reality that hard work, dedication, discipline are all requirements on the path to meeting challenges. Though these attributes don’t guarantee success, mastering them will ensure you put your best foot forward when the time comes.
Who could ask for more than that?
Just completed the quarterly task of checking eligibility for the students in our school. Four times per year I get 1,195 grade cards and go through each of them one at a time. GPA, check. Passed enough classes, check. In all, 102 out of 1,195 students would be ineligible for sports during the third quarter should they choose to play. In reality, 6 of this 102 actually are currently playing a winter sport in our school out of 300 team members.
That means just 2 percent of the students actively participating in sports are ineligible, while just under 11 percent of the remainder of the student body would be ineligible if they had chosen to play…or would they?
Every time I do this little exercise it becomes more obvious to me that being involved and busy is better than not being engaged. I’m not saying it’s all about sports, though I recognize the benefits. I am saying that having something that is meaningful to pursue and worthy of your time is always better than the alternative.
Time management is a great skill to learn at an early age and being involved certainly contributes. A deeper look at the list reveals something more. Students that are involved in sports are generally involved in other school groups and clubs including music, orchestra and band. They are also class leaders and officers.
Sports and other school activities provide daily opportunities for young people to not only refine and develop their character and personal attributes, but to reveal them as well.
In what has sadly become more and more common a high school hockey coach recently resigned citing “lack of appreciation” as his reason. It is a shame that coaching high school athletes has become such a thankless job on so many fronts. People who take on this challenge are very special. They don’t make lots of money and the time they give up is significant. He didn’t leave quietly, however, offering the following on his way out, “Life isn’t a democracy, and I don’t have time to field six emails a night with ideas from people that are in conflict with the three emails I got from other parents that night.”
It goes without saying that parents appreciate the efforts of their kids. My challenge would be that they show more appreciation to the people who are trying to make a difference in their kids lives.
The life of an athlete can take many different paths. Some will never play sports again after high school and some will go on to play professionally. But there is one path that the New Mexico Activities Association is hoping to prevent students from taking.
The new “Life of an Athlete” campaign, an interactive online alcohol awareness program, seeks to educate high school students on the dangers of alcohol in a new and inventive way so their lives don’t take the path that Gabe Gurule’s did in November of 2005.
Click here to be directed to this months issue of High School Today and read the article written by Arika Herron.
You can also click here to be directed to the website for “Life of an Athlete” and have your son, daughter or team take the FREE interactive course about how the use of alcohol can affect their lives.
Now, I have never seen this one before! No news about what has happened to this guy since it happened, but I think a suspension in coming down for sure.
Kids and teams will wear the shirts with all kinds of motivational sayings on them. Some that speak about hard work. Others addressing team unity and yeah, some are just plain funny. I get to attend many athletic events and have started to take pictures of the shirts I see and will feature a shirt of the week.
This weeks winner is from a recent wrestling match. Yeah, those wrestlers are hard corp. Training to be your best is difficult in every walk of life to be sure. And sorry, shirt, but failure is a certainty for all of us. How do you react to that failure? Does it make you stronger? What about all of the successes along the way? Do they make you less likely to quite? I think so.
Train hard and refuse to lose. You’ll be rewarded by reaching a place that you may never have thought possible.