Northville, MI girls celebrating their short-lived 2nd place automatic bid to NXN (Colin Boyle photo)
Fair sometimes is unfair-
I was once told that the world is unkind sometimes and having unfair circumstances happen and it supposed to be build character. In putting together this last segment I really took some time to think about these sentiments. I reached out to a few friends and associates of mine from far and near. I want to make sure what I say reaches those intended loud and clear.
This post-season has not been anything short of interesting to say the least. The last week and a half since the end of the state championship I have been inundated with controversial news regarding cross country. First, it started with a scoring snafu with an unattached runner not being scored with her team in the NXN MW girls championship race. That issue was sorted out with Northville, Michigan keeping their second place and automatic bid to Portland, Oregon... so we thought. It was ruled a few days later by their state association: Michigan High School Athletic Association has now jumped in and decided for themselves that Northville which acted as the Northville Cross Country Club could not accept their hard earned bid to attend NXN. What??!! I searched hard to find a statement from that state association on its social media forums. Nothing except a ton of football scores. LOL! Ahh, I finally ran across a statement on the MHSAA website by the executive director Jack Roberts titled "Respecting Rules." Mr. Roberts put out this summation regarding participation in national type competition:
"For nearly a full century, the high schools of Michigan have stood in opposition to national high school athletic championships. As they existed in the early years of school sports, and even today, such events have very often exploited students and benefited commercial sponsors most. Such events are beyond the limited resources of most local schools; and allowing one school to participate tends to require other schools to go to the same extremes to remain competitive, creating the kind of arms war in school sports that now drives college sports further and further from their academic mission."
Really??!! If I only I could cuss (but let's stay level headed and professional). Mr. Roberts represents a bureaucracy and whether he disagrees with his statement or not, he is a hypocrite in the biggest way. He believes big corporations like Nike are the enemy and that high schools of Michigan feel this way. I believe as a career "state association politician" that he and his cronies feel this way and not the schools. Why else would Northville High School even allow the kids to leave the state? And how does corporate sponsors corrupt kids? Are they any different from overzealous AAU coaches snatching kids from high school teams to feed their own greed? In this day and age of rising transportation costs and programs getting cut because schools and their districts not having the necessary monies to adequately fund them, sponsors are the best deals. A non-revenue sport like cross country has grown tremendously from corporate sponsorship.
Northville may very well be denied the right to go to Portland and compete against the best runners in the nation, but why does Madison Troy (Harding HS) and Isaac Harding (Rockford HS) get to go and compete in NXN? Last year as the Midwest individual representative to Portland, I was the manager for three Michigan runners Audrey Belf, Rachel Bonner, and Ryan Robinson. They both were wonderful and leaders of such a talented group. I know for a fact that the experience helped them in their continued maturation. The spotlight helped Belf and Robinson secure athletic scholarships to Georgetown University and Michigan State University. What makes one kid different from seven? Aren't the individual kids from Michigan susceptible to the bad influence of the so-called evil ways of Nike as Mr. Roberts put it? Speaking of Rockford, I remember years ago when superstar runner Dathan Ritzenheim competed in the Nike Indoor Nationals and Adidas Outdoor Nationals with his team. Teams and individuals still compete in the New Balance Indoor and Outdoor Championships. How is that different than cross country? Somehow I feel this issue is just the beginning of a big movement to change horrible by-lays in the near future.