Don't say EAA, Lisa Lyons says, trying to expand the EAA. Say OPTIONS!!!
I can hear legendary Michigan Football broadcaster Bob Ufer in my mind's ear:
"Two tight ends and a balanced line...Ricky 'the Peach' Leach under center, [Russell] Davis close, [Harlan] Huckleby deep...Bo 'General George Patton' Schembechler pacing the sidelines...there's the snap..it is the Meeechigan option...Leach keeps...he is in for the score!!!!"
Honk! Honk! Hail to the Victors! (the horn, by the way, came from Patton's own jeep -- a gift to Ufer from Patton's nephew)
Ah, simpler days.
Michigan and Ohio State dominated the Big Ten, very often with "option" football.
Option football was an offensive scheme wherein the quarterback (Leach) would take the snap, head down either side of the line of scrimmage, and either hand to the "close" man/fullback (Davis), keep it himself and turn the corner off tackle, or pitch to a "deep' man/ tailback (Huckleby) who was running more or less parallel to him, but deeper in the back field.
Here is Ufer, hear and see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nam4sX1i7fo
Option football went out of style -- long before the dominance of Michigan football went out of style -- mainly because it really didn't provide "options."
Defenses knew you needed one guy to play the fullback (inside linebacker), one guy to play the quarterback (defensive end), and one guy to play the pitchman/tailback (cornerback).
And, most importantly for my extra point to come about education reform discussions, if you didn't have overwhelming force on the offensive line the scheme was kind of useless. Michigan in the 70s and early 80s had overwhelming force, intellectual and physical, up front. As Ufe says, M only had "7 pounds per man" on Ohio State's Defensive line. What makes the play here is the tight end manhandling the defensive end and good offensive tackle play -- not the "Option!"
You will note in the Ufer video the Michigan tight end (last M player lined up on left) latches on and then buries the Ohio State stand up defensive end, allowing Leach to turn in to the endzone.
[True afficionadoes will appreciate, too, the left OT, next to tight end, takes an inside shoulder on the defensive tackle and still drives him 2.5 yards off the line. Taking the inside shoulder drew the DT away from the direction of the play. If the OT stepped to his left to wall the DT off the DT would have headed towards the play. (All World OT Mike Kenn, I believe, 6'7, 275 who played 17 NFL seasons w/out missing a game, is here the right tackle; in a regular, rather than goal line set, he would have been at left -- he actually gets a piece of the middle linebacker here and the play was probably crafted to make OSU think M was running behind Kenn, to the right, following the man in motion)]
I thought of that this morning because the new word for education -- soon to replace "choice" -- in statewide discussions of Michigan education is "Options"!
This turn to the Option! really was not an option chosen, and therefore not optimal for organizing discussions of education.
It was forced by academic and political reality when State Superintendent Mike Flanagan -- having called for more schools to go into the EAA in December -- sent "Chancellor" ( a bit too Germanic, I prefer the more Midwestern "General George Patton" Bo) John Covington a note asking him to end the EAA's 15 year contract of exclusivity with the state (signed in 2011 at the height of Gov. Snyder's eduction reform moment) to turn around Michigan's low performing schools.
This happened during the same week House Education Chair Lisa Lyons was doing incoherent presentations to the Republican caucus trying to get them to codify the EAA to go statewide, goal line to goal line.
But after a series of stunning posts by www.eclectablog.comshowing what most in education knew -- the EAA is a disaster -- everyone involved wants a way out and the way out is -- Options!
Flanagan and the MDE, via spokesperson Martin Ackley, don't disagree with the EAA's "academic strategies," they just suddenly want -- Options! This even though Flanagan and the MDE chose the EAA as the state's only -- Option! -- in 2011.
Governor Snyder and education reporter turned Snyder spokesperson (and is there really a difference in Michigan?) Dave Murray says we have been in support of this all along! Options! The Governor wants Options! too!
Chancellor Dr. or is it Dr. Chancellor Covington himself sent out a letter in favor of -- you got it -- Options!
Reasonable education folks like Vicki Markavitch and David Arsen want -- Options! -- if it is way to get clear of our current Options! Markavitch actually was funny in the Free Press story about this, saying failing schools should have a "choice" about where they seek help.
The whole conversation is starting to center around the positively goofy assumption that Superintendent Flanagan somehow just needs to be unleashed, legislatively speaking, to tap into the assorted -- Options! -- available to him to save struggling Districts and Schools.
Let Flanagan be Flanagan? Heretofore Mr. Flanagan's preferred option to help schools was to dissolve Districts.
Couple other problems here with the return of Options! football -- other than Superintendent Flanagan.
First, public education is not failing, although several Districts are bogged down with issues related mainly to poverty and huge cuts in state support since 2000. Second, the State of Michigan has never "turned around" a District in its history so I why are we acting like we have some proven plans ready to go? Third, to the extent one can imagine good academic -- Options! -- beyond the EAA there are none this legislature or Governor will fund. Option football, again, depended on investing in a massive, overwhelming force up front to create the "option." Fourth (punt!), and perhaps most important right now, kids and families in Detroit's EAA have no Options! because the state forced Options on them.
One positive thing: it is nice to see so many in Governor Snyder's divided Michigan to be gathering around the Michigan Option! the way they once gathered around the Meeechigan Option as called out by Ufer. Perhaps instead of awful game playing with kids by creating chaos, obfuscation, and animosity we can try Bob Ufer's once winning formula: Simplicity, Sincerity, and Enthusiasm.
We really can't afford another fumble like the EAA at this point in the game.
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