You’re Not in Trouble… But You Could Be: The Hidden Risk in How Booster Clubs Are Solving Problems Right Now

There’s something I need to say, and I’m saying it in the middle of a long day, in a ballroom in Atlanta, while we’re building out a major event for a room full of attorneys… and I still cannot get you all off my mind.

That’s not an exaggeration. As I was driving to Georgia from Kansas, I saw multiple posts come through—some tagging me directly—and I didn’t have the capacity to respond. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I physically couldn’t in that moment. And that didn’t sit right with me. Because I could already feel what was behind those posts. The tone. The confusion. The pressure. That quiet sense that something isn’t right, but no one in the room quite knows how to say it out loud.

So I’m taking a minute right now, in the middle of everything else I have going on, because this matters.

What I’m seeing right now across booster groups is not people doing things wrong on purpose. It’s people trying to fix real problems—cost, access, fairness, participation—and doing it the only way they know how, in real time, under pressure, with limited information and a whole lot of emotion tied to their kids and their programs.

I understand that instinct deeply. I’ve lived it.

But I need you to hear me when I say this, and I’m saying it with more concern than anything else…

The way many of these problems are being solved right now is creating risk that you cannot see yet.

Not because you’re careless. Not because you don’t care. But because you’re building systems in motion without a governance filter in place to tell you whether those systems actually hold up.

And once you build it… once you vote on it… once you communicate it out… it doesn’t just disappear.

It becomes policy. It becomes expectation. It becomes something the next board inherits. And if it’s flawed, now you’re not just fixing a problem—you’re unwinding something that has already taken root.

That’s the part that weighs on me.

Because I know what it feels like to be in that room. I know what it feels like to be the one trying to make sense of it while everyone else just wants to move forward. I know what it feels like to have that gut check moment where something doesn’t sit right, but you don’t quite have the words or the backing to slow it down.

And I also know what happens when those moments get ignored.

So let me be very direct with you.

A Facebook post is not the place to solve this.

It’s not.

You will get opinions. You will get validation. You will get ten different answers that all sound confident. But what you won’t get is clarity that is specific to your structure, your bylaws, your risk level, and your actual situation.

That requires a conversation.

Not a thread. Not a comment section. A conversation.

If you are feeling that tension right now… if something feels off… if you are trying to solve a problem and you’re not completely sure you’re on solid ground… I need you to take the next step.

Go to the website. Start there. The triage and intake form is sitting right on the front page for a reason.

Fill it out.

Start the process.

Yes, I am busy. Days like today are full. But I am watching for these. I respond based on severity because some situations truly cannot wait, but I will reach out.

You don’t have to sit in that uncertainty.

You don’t have to keep trying to solve something this important in isolation or in a public forum where the stakes are higher than most people realize.

Just start the conversation.

That’s all I’m asking.