February Newsletter
As our seasons head into the final phases, culminating in the state play-offs, it is so important for teams , players, and coaches to stay positive and engaged. At this point, all too often the win and loss columns take on a life too large for the good of High School sports. Keep the energy as positive and forward thinking as you can. Keep things lively and enjoyable. End your season , and for many players, their careers, with good vibes and positive feelings .
Self-nominations are open for the first step in re-aligning roles and responsibilities in the IBCA. Please look at those forms. In addition, with the move to more committee based functioning, members can serve in more focused and less time-consuming ways that being an active Board member or Associate director. Think about where you might like to serve, and volunteer!! New ideas, new faces, new blood, so to speak, is always appreciated.
Here is something gleaned from Michigan and their asst executive director, Dan Young….
You know where many players get their fight, grit, and toughness to succeed and win? From Failure!! We want our players to have this inner drive, but in reality they learn it better when they get exposed or even embarrassed in defeat once in a while.
As coaches and parents we all want to have success for our student/athletes. When confronted with hardships, try to focus upon developing the fight inside them to succeed together. This is a skill and knowledge that lasts a lifetime .
As you enter “the Grind” of the season and experience some failure along the way, remember that such mishaps can make your team stronger and your players more ready for the often tough game of life.
In March, a survey will go up that will be open for about two weeks. It is part of the information that National Federation uses to edit and revise rules and formal procedures for prep athletics in the United States. Two big topics are again on the board for open discussion and perhaps “ adoption as “experiments” .
One is the shot clock. This debate has been going on for a great deal of time and has come very close to being allowed for experimental purposes. Three major sets of hurdles are always presented (1) At what level with this be used ? varsity only , etc? (2) Initial and on going costs. The mechanical equipment isn’t that cheap and then someone competent will need to be hired for each game to operate it (3) The actual rule sets….These include how long a clock? Half court count? Re sets? Referee decisions on violations, etc. These have been major stumbling blocks
The second is halves vs quarters. Minnesota uses halves and wont go back to quarters. The issues arise in how long the halves should be 16 minutes , 18 minutes? Administrators fear 18 minute halves would lengthen the games too much, even though they run 75-80 minutes right now. If this is granted an experimental level of approval, it is hoped we will use 2-5 games and do some data taking on time and length of games and amount of players sued, etc. One if the stumbling blocks within that process is the quarter/game counts for players
The debates will be interesting.