While objective measures of time and distance are staples of competitive sports, athletic administration is less science than it is art.  Snap decisions and judgment calls mingle with hard and fast rules; emotional fans in sharp contrast with dispassionate officials.  The work is both wearying and wonderful.

At its core, athletic administration is the never-ending and perhaps quixotic search for competitive equity, what we sometimes call a “level playing field.”

“Competitive sports cannot long exist without fundamental fairness,” says Paul Dee, who not only is a lecturer in law and education at the University of Miami in Florida but also chair of the NCAA Committee on Infractions.  The search for competitive balance in playing rules, eligibility regulations and competition limitations – and for appropriate penalties – is the central business of a statewide high school association such as the MHSAA.

That means seeking input from throughout our diverse constituency and assuring that many points of view are heard at tables where perhaps few people have actually been assembled.

One of the MHSAA’s wisest and longest serving former Representative Council members occasionally would remind his fellow members on the Council, Executive Committee or other committee that “we sit at the table for all those who can’t.”

When people would comment about how poorly a policy or procedure was serving them, this sage would remind us to think also of the other schools and students who might be disadvantaged by a change being proposed.  “Let’s remember who is not here and what they might say if they were,” he would say.

That’s a large part of what we try to do.