Frosh-eligibility issue pits group vs. individual
Age does amazing things to your eyes.
Type that was once so easy to read is now nothing but a blur. Street signs that were crystal even at night are now white lines up until the final 20 feet.
But it goes both ways.
It’s so much easier now to see both sides of an issue.
Such is the case with a subject being debated within the Greater Spokane League, a subject that ostensibly revolves around freshman eligibility, but really is serving as a litmus test on the role of high school athletics and who should control the fate of the athletes.
In a nutshell, here’s the issue: The GSL’s athletic directors (I know their official title is Activities Coordinators, but please …) voted recently to limit freshman participation, starting next year. Currently, freshmen can compete on the league’s three levels of play: varsity, junior varsity or freshman – except in the Mead schools, where the frosh are limited to either varsity or freshman play.
A recent loss of freshmen teams round the league, especially in softball, prompted Mt. Spokane’s John Miller to propose bringing the Mead rule to the league as a whole. The ADs voted their approval right after spring break and sent it up the ladder to the principals.
Then coaches got wind of it. The ensuing storm has inspired the ADs to take another look at the issue, which they will do at their meeting next week, before presenting the change to the principals.
Which brings us to that vision thing.
The ADs saw a problem – a decline in freshman participation at some schools – and they attempted to fix it. That’s admirable. But is the proposal the best way?
Over the years I’ve heard complaints from Mead coaches about their district’s rule. Even Miller admits it isn’t popular.
“I can tell you that some of our coaches weren’t 100 percent in favor of the rule,” Miller said. “But I think the reason was, because the rest of the league were moving their better freshmen up, the frosh league wasn’t very competitive.
“So our better freshmen were playing at the freshman level, but they weren’t seeing real quality competition. If the entire league does this, you’ll see that frosh league become much more competitive.”
That’s not only what’s been said in the district. Many of the coaches agree with the sentiments expressed by Central Valley basketball coach Rick Sloan.
“The freshman playing up isn’t the problem,” Sloan said. “The problem is (Mead) has a rule against freshman playing up. Let’s not create this model after something nobody likes just to even the playing field.
“I don’t think there was any malice here. I don’t think the ADs intended to micromanage programs, even if that’s the impression coaches have received. Give us a little professional credit. We’re going to put kids where they belong.”
Where kids belong seems to be at the crux of the matter. Is it better to keep ninth-graders together, playing as a class, or is it better to have individual evaluation, placing kids where they have the best chance for future success?
“It’s comparable to mandating that all freshmen have to take beginning algebra,” Sloan said, “even though they are capable of advanced algebra.”
“There’s a little bit of apples and oranges here,” Miller said. “If in the school setting, if we say we’re moving up the kids capable of doing higher-level math to that higher level and what that means for the rest of you, we’ve decimated the class to the point there is no math class for you anymore, that’s a different argument.”
In this case it seems right to side with Sloan and the coaches, but for a different reason.
There’s no problem with the ADs establishing guidelines concerning team membership. They are the coaches’ bosses, and it’s within the boss’ bailiwick to make those types of decisions, just as it will be the principals’ prerogative to tell the ADs they are wrong – if they do.
But to limit individual opportunity in deference to the collective rubs me wrong. There has to be a better way, a way that preserves both.
Some leagues on the West Side have tried a different model. They have varsity, junior varsity and C teams. Participation is based on ability, not class.
Though Miller understands the attraction of such a plan, he doesn’t like it, partly because he sees it as limiting. The Mead schools have been so successful attracting kids, that they have multiple freshmen teams in some sports. That might not be possible under the C team idea.
But what would stop a district from having multiple C teams, if that was the desire?
Of course, there are those who feel public school sports serve as a way to keep kids involved in school, to improve everyone’s high school experience.
It’s true, but incomplete. Subscribe to that theory and you make sports (or any other extracurricular activity) nothing more than an adjunct to academics, and that’s not right.
Education is about preparing youth for life – as one district says, building a bridge to the future. Life preparation doesn’t just go on in the classroom. It also happens on the field, the gym, the band room – anywhere kids gather under the direction of a mentor. Lessons need to be taught there as well.
That seems pretty clear.