The Future of SHAPE America

by Steve Jefferies, Central Washington University

(This speech was given as candidate for President Elect at the 2014 AAHPERD/SHAPE America Convention in St. Louis. It has been edited for publication.)

"I've been asked to share with you a few thoughts on my favorite topic - the future - and especially what I think lies ahead for SHAPE America and the professions we represent.

First however, I am going to share with you some exciting personal news. If I appear to be glowing, it's not just because I'm proud of the nomination to be your next President Elect or convention excitement. This week, while I've been here in St. Louis I became the grandfather of a healthy young girl named Harlow. Those of you who are grandparents know how I feel. As a grandparent, you go through a period of anticipation, concern, and finally relief then joy when this new tiny human arrives into your world. You realize that with decent parenting, good decision-making, and a little luck this child will live into the next century. And then it occurs to you, "What's life going to be like for this child?" "What's in her future?"

And it's that thought that's very similar to where we are today with SHAPE America. How amazing is it that we are members of a professional association with a history going back 129 years! Think about how the world has changed since then! Since the beginning of time, our ancestors have gazed into the sky and dreamed of flying. Then just over 100 years ago everything changed. On a North Carolina beach, two brothers who refused to accept the impossible succeeded with a flight 20 feet above the ground that lasted 12 seconds.

Since then, changes in science, medicine, politics, social values, engineering, and of course technology have transformed our world. Many of us today grew up flying with Pan Am, TWA, and Eastern Airlines. We shopped at Woolworths and Montgomery Ward. Chronicled our lives on Polaroid and Kodak film. And watched movies from Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. We had parents and relatives who worked as typists, door-to-door salesmen, TV repairers, and elevator and switchboard operators. Would we ever have imagined today that it would all be gone?

And yet here we are as SHAPE America 129 years later. How did we do it? How come we survived when others didn't? I have to think it's because of what we do. No matter how much the world has changed, for thousands of years humans needed to move to survive and to enjoy the world they lived in. And the good news is that this need is not going to change in the next 129 years. But the question we face as health and physical educators is whether it's going to be us - physical and health educators - who meet this need in the future? Nothing lasts forever and change is happening around us fast. And I believe that SHAPE America and the professions we represent need to be prepared to make some big, brave, and in all likelihood bold decisions.

Some years ago, author Jim Collins identified shared characteristics of organizations that excelled and were thriving. One of these was that they set big and audacious goals for themselves. They weren't afraid of striving to do difficult things: To accept big challenges.

This thinking reminded me of President John Kennedy who in 1961 was confronted by a major challenge. The US was in the depths of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Two competing political systems each bragging superiority but in one area the Soviets had moved ahead. They had launched the first rocket into space and put the first man into orbit. It was a national embarrassment and President Kennedy decided the nation needed to respond.

In his famous moon speech, he set the bold goal that the US would send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth within the decade. He had no guarantee of success yet boldly chose a big, audacious, and clearly measurable goal that inspired incredible collaboration and as we now know succeeded. Like the Wright brothers before him, John Kennedy set out to achieve the impossible and he did.

I'll give you one more example. In 1987, the World Health Organization set a goal of ridding the world of the body-crippling disease of polio. It was everywhere in the developing world. To many it was an impossible task. But in 2012 the WHO reported that polio was entirely gone from India, the hardest of all places to succeed. How did they do it? Through some amazing collaboration.

SHAPE-America can succeed in the 21st century if we let these examples inspire us and set our own big, audacious, clearly defined, measurable, and not necessarily easy to achieve goals.

So you might be wondering what this might look like. A starting point is for us to ask ourselves an important question, "What would SHAPE America and the physical and health education professions look like if we were truly successful?" In other words, how different would the world look from where we are today?

For health and physical educators I think that's a pretty easy question. Surely we'd all want to see each and every one of the approximately 50 million young people in our schools physically active and leading healthy lives? Let's think of it as a goal of "50 million strong." Impossible? Really? Why not?

Physical and health educators have almost immediate access to every American child. In fact, if there were ever a pandemic threatening US children it's pretty certain our schools, teachers, and gyms would be the fastest way to get to every one of them. 50 million strong may not be an easy goal and it won't be achieved without us doing things differently, but is it really harder than getting someone to the moon and back or eradicating polio in a still developing nation that contains nearly 1/5 of all humanity? Even better, to prove this goal possible will take only one person - perhaps one of you in this audience - succeeding and showing others it is doable. Why not you?

Finally, looking forward, SHAPE America can't afford to be complacent. Today, we face competition from lots of other groups all wanting to get kids moving and improve their health. Let's Move. Active Schools, President's Council, Action for Healthy Kids, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nike, and many others. But let's face it; SHAPE America presently has a huge advantage over all of these groups doesn't it?

When Jeff Bezos created Amazon, beginning first just selling books and then expanding to sell pretty much anything, one thing he did not try to do was to create his own delivery system. He realized that Amazon could succeed best if it worked with UPS to deliver his products.

And that's what SHAPE America has that the other health-promoting groups I mentioned don't. We have a nationwide delivery system in place. A health and physical education teacher in pretty much every school! And like UPS delivering packages, the nation's health and physical education teachers are ready and qualified to put into place the lifestyle changes today's young people need. They just need a clear and unifying goal to strive for with support from their national professional association.

Let's not underestimate our value to these other health-promoting groups or our potential to change the country. SHAPE America is poised at greatness and through working collaboratively with others I'm convinced we can get every one of the 50 million children in our schools physically active and healthy.

Let me end with a quote from President Kennedy's moon speech that inspired the nation and the ideas I've shared with you today. He said:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills."

Thank you."

Steve Jefferies was elected as the new SHAPE America President Elect at the 2014 national convention in St. Louis. He will be serving a three-year term on the Board of Directors

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