HIGH SCHOOL-OHIO

OHSAA proposal adopted, but not everyone behind it

Tom Groeschen

tgroeschen@enquirer.com

Friday was a landmark day for Ohio high school sports, but not everyone was celebrating.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced that principals statewide had approved a competitive balance proposal aimed at helping level the playing field between public and private schools in all but the highest division.

The referendum, following narrow losses the past three years, passed by an 88-vote margin, 411-323.

The plan will use a multiplier formula for adjusting enrollment numbers, making athletes count as more than one student toward enrollment based on where their parents live, how long they have attended their school system and what sport they play.

The OHSAA plan is expected to go into effect with the 2016-17 school year.

Reaction among Greater Cincinnati schools was decidedly mixed.

“I’m surprised it passed, because all the feedback I was getting from the Southwest District was that it did not seem like it was going to pass,” said Theresa Hirschauer, athletic director at Cincinnati Country Day.

With the OHSAA basing division placement on enrollment, many private schools – plus public schools with open enrollment – could move up a division based on the various multipliers.

That means smaller private schools such as Cincinnati Country Day, Fenwick, Purcell Marian and others could find themselves bumped up a division.

“I’m not really happy with it,” Purcell Marian athletic director Kenny Pope said.

“You get these multipliers from kids, and that’s not the true number from my school. If a soccer player is on the football team, too, he’s a 6 (multiplier) in soccer and a 2 in football, but it’s the same kid.

“I don’t like how those numbers will get fudged around. We are a Catholic school, and why do we have to limit our enrollment when we’re struggling to get kids as it is?”

Hirschauer said she believed CCD and most every fellow small-school Miami Valley Conference member voted against the measure.

“The unique thing about our league, what I use as a sort of gauge, is that it’s a combination of public and private schools,” Hirschauer said.

“We never wanted a public-private split. My whole thing is the safety issue. We’re Division VI right now in football and if we move up to Division V, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

Western Brown athletic director Tim Cook said he favored the plan, with his public school often on the border of Divisions I and II. Cook also is president of the Southwest District board and member of the state board of directors.

“In our case, I’m excited,” Cook said.

“We’re right on the line between Division I and II, and in Division I our chances are very slim when it comes to the tournament in any sport. It’s going to move schools up that draw kids from all over the city, but it affects the public schools with open enrollment, too.

“Basically, it’s going to help schools that have kids raised right in their school districts.”

OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross said the plan was not intended to address the biggest schools, the Division I level.

Adding a seventh division in football in 2013, creating a smaller pool of Division I schools for football, addressed that sport. Ross said a committee would be formed to discuss other issues in Division I.

“We crafted a proposal we believed would help the competitive-balance issues in our state,” Ross said in a teleconference. “This is a journey. This is a starting point for us.”

Private schools account for only 17 percent of OHSAA members but continue to win state titles at a disproportionate rate. Private schools won 44 percent of the state titles in the 14 years before this school year, according to the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.

The multiplier formula will be used for football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, baseball and softball.

Jan Wilking, athletic director at public school Wyoming and a Southwest District board member, said there is no simple formula for competitive balance.

“If you are a school like Wyoming that does not have open enrollment, it means not very much to us because we’re not going to see a big fluctuation in our situation,” Wilking said.

“If you are a public school or nonpublic that has open enrollment or gets some of your enrollment from other local districts, it could have a significant effect.

“Each member school can take away their own thought about it. The bottom line is the majority of schools said, ‘This is the way we want it to go.’ That’s part of being in an association.” ⬛

HOW THE OHSAA MULTIPLIER FORMULA WILL WORK

• Each private school will designate a feeder school that provides its students. Also, districts with multiple high schools will create attendance zones for each school.

• Athletes from a private school’s designated feeder school or a public school’s district are spared a multiplier.

• Private school athletes not from the designated feeder school, but in the same education system since seventh grade, are multiplied by one.

• Athletes attending public school through open enrollment, and in the same education system since seventh grade, are multiplied by one.

• Private school athletes not from a designated feeder school and not in the same system since seventh grade are subject to a sports-specific multiplier.

• Public school athletes attending through open enrollment, but not since seventh grade, are also subject to a sports-specific multiplier.

• Sports specific multipliers are: two for football, six for soccer and five for basketball, volleyball, baseball and softball.

Scott Patsko,

Northeast Ohio Media Group

How the OHSAA multiplier formula will work