For more than 23 years we’ve been taking some space in MHSAA publications and some time in the busy days of readers for editorials to which I affix my name.  These editorials are intended as much to provoke thinking as to report fact.  But even more, these editorials are intended to force us to clarify our thinking by articulating and defending it on the printed page.

In the early and mid 1970s, I was privileged to work with Clifford Fagan who was then executive secretary of the National Federation of State High School Associations.  I remember vividly conversations with Mr. Fagan in which he lamented that fewer and fewer school sports administrators were writing about interscholastic athletics.  He advised me to take time always to write . . . to take time to organize my thinking and defend it on paper.  He said the process would clarify my thinking and that the responses would validate (or invalidate) my opinions.

So I write. I write to communicate with others, and also communicate with myself.  To describe an idea and debate it internally and then stand behind it when it’s printed.  Cicero wrote:  “Never act upon a subject until you have first written upon it.”  We’ve tried to follow that principle.

It is our hope that this blog will help the MHSAA and its diverse constituency discuss even more topics in an even more timely fashion, and do so respectfully in a manner consistent with the ideals of educational athletics.  We hope you will join in such conversation.