By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
We have officially shoved off from the pier on the excursion that is the 2025-2026 sports year.
A lot of high school sports teams had their first official contests in the last week, and those that didn’t will have them this week.
The fall and spring sports seasons are very short seasons, and they scoot by very quickly. This column hits your front porch on August 20, and the girls golf sectionals are scheduled for September 18-22.
For those of you keeping score, it’s roughly six weeks between the first day that teams can have first matches and the day most of their seasons end.
Since Dale Hubler first asked me to write for him each week, I promised that I would use my space to try to do more than just rant about things that bothered me or to right wrongs.
I wanted to make sure that a few times a year, I offered advice on how sports can be more fun for them and everyone around them.
Today is that kind of day.
The goal today is just to give you some general reminders of things you have already heard and you already know. But most classroom teachers start their year with review, and we’re doing the same thing here.
The Indiana High School Athletic Association, the governing body of Indiana high school sports, has a simple approach to its mission.
The concept is called “education-based athletics.”
That means that what happens in the gym, on the field or in the weight room is supposed to be a supplement to what happens in the classroom. I believe that the lessons learned in sports will benefit the learners long after their playing days are over. Less than 10 Hoosier high school athletes of the thousands that compete each year will ever make a professional roster, which means they will make their living doing something other than playing sports.
Athletics can help bring families together. Athletics can create memories for families that last a lifetime.
But, with a disproportionate view of the importance of sports in a family, it can be a miserable experience.
I want to encourage parents and grandparents to be careful of what their postgame approach might be.
Of course, you are going to talk about the game after it ends! I would never suggest otherwise. However, it’s not productive to overdo it. If the only subject that comes up is the mistakes that are made, things that went wrong or plays that didn’t work out, it’s probably not going to be a lot of fun. No one should dread the postgame conversation.
Here’s the barometer to use: if the only things that come up are the bad things or things the athlete or team didn’t do well, you might want to re-examine your after-game plan.
Let me also encourage you to exclude from your postgame commentary any negative comments about your coaches and the game officials.
Even comments made between parents in the front seat can be heard in the back seat by young ears that don’t understand the sensitivity of what they just heard their parents say.
Oh, and when you say “the coach did a poor job of subbing tonight” on the way home from the game (for example), your kids believe that. And they file that away in the warehouse of their minds, and it leads them in forming opinions about people and things.
The problem is: what if your opinions are wrong? You are naturally and understandably biased, and that means the lens you see things through is often skewed to a certain extent, which could cloud your vision of the truth.
As far as officials go, I talk to you about this all the time: try hard to back off.
You might say “I hear you comment and complain about the officials all the time on your broadcasts,” and that is true. But if you really listen closely, you’ll notice that I give officials as much or more credit for getting a tough call correct as I do complain about one they missed.
I can do that because I am a licensed basketball referee and have been a licensed baseball umpire. I have a pretty good idea of where an official is supposed to be and what they are supposed to be looking for in any given situation, which helps me help my listeners understand why that call was made — no matter which way it goes.
You could become a better fan if you got your officiating license and learned the rules, and I highly recommend that.
One last thing: every school has corporate and business sponsors that support its athletic programs and athletic departments. Without them, high school sports would wilt and die.
Those sponsors are mentioned on the microphone, on the rotating video board, or on signage at sporting venues at your school.
Would you please take a minute to stop in and say “thank you” to them for their financial support? It will only take a few minutes, and you might just find that some product or service that they offer is just what you need.
Time to get started for season No. 35 of covering high school sports. We’ll see you out there.
