If you have ever wondered why MHSAA member schools have adopted rules that tend to temper the hype of high school sports, then current events in college sports – added to many similar incidents over many years – provide your answer.

Newly reported financial irregularities of a college football booster group in this state and a football bowl game in another state, suspensions of players and a head football coach in a neighboring state, and more reports of financial inducements to players on college football’s top team last season, remind us that when the scope of competition is too grand and the stakes of winning too great, things too frequently happen that embarrass even the strongest of our nation’s educational institutions, and lower the prestige of higher education.

We kid ourselves if we think humble high school superintendents and principals can stand up to pressures that brilliant, politically-connected college presidents and academic deans have not, or that the modest MHSAA can prevent or control abuses that the mighty NCAA has not.

No, we can look at the scandals of college sports as warning signs of what will happen to school sports if we remove the barricades on the road to ruin that too often are hidden in the hype of high-powered programs. Restrictions on booster groups, coaches’ compensation, travel and broadcasting are among those policies that protect our precious product in these most precarious times which may require more – and certainly not fewer – restrictions.  We have no need for more proof that such policies are necessary.