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School sports is a team sport.  It’s not just something that coaches and athletes do; but something, even in so-called individual sports, that a team must do together to do well.  It’s coaches and athletes, of course; but also administrators, board members and boosters, as well as the media and a whole lot more.

And on this team, we can’t all be the stars; but we can be people who help to make the stars shine.  We can all be playmakers.

On many championship basketball teams, the key player is the playmaker. 

  • Lew Alcindor's Milwaukee Bucks couldn’t win the NBA Championship until they got Oscar Robertson to get him the ball.
  • Lew Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar and changed his team to the Los Angeles Lakers, but that team didn’t dominate the NBA until the Lakers got Magic Johnson to get Kareem the ball.

The playmaker – the person who equips and encourages others – is a role to rejoice in, not resent; responsibilities to relish, not regret.  Playmakers are absolutely essential to school-sponsored sports, and never more valuable than during these times of so much selfishness in our national sports heroes and so much need in our local sports programs.
 

Posted in: Perspective

Comments

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010 8:45 AM
It was with great interest that I read your blog today. We have to remember that, as you said, the playmaker can come from any part of the team. In cross country you run seven athletes and only the top five score to determine a team score with the other two athletes being pushers. Sometimes you will have a tie and then the sixth runner stops being a pusher and becomes the athlete that the team wins or loses by. In the Southwestern Michigan Conference, the Big-16, league meet on Saturday we had a tie for first place between Sturgis and Battle Creek Lakeview for the women's title. The sixth place athlete from Sturgis placed ahead of the sixth place athlete from Battle Creek Lakeview and it gave them the championship. This is why we have to always preach to our athletes that no matter what their position on the team is they have to perform to the best because they may be the athlete that wins the championship. -- Blake Hagman

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From the Director

From the Director is the official MHSAA Blog which will touch on pertinent school sports topics periodically throughout the school year from various MHSAA Staff.