Ohio Schools Vote 'No' On Playoff Reform

[ACCBiggz]

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

A referendum that would have changed the way Ohio high-school teams are assigned to divisions for postseason play in eight sports has been voted down by a margin of 332-303 (52 percent to 48 percent), the OHSAA announced.

Principals from the 829 schools that are members of the Ohio High School Athletic Association could vote on the proposal from May 1 to 16. A majority was required for passage. The plan would have gone into effect by Aug. 1, 2013.

Currently, schools are classified solely according to their enrollment. If a majority of schools had approved the referendum, teams would have been divided according to an "athletic count" formula based on enrollment and adjusted according to three other factors -- a school's boundary area (including open enrollment), its socioeconomic status and recent postseason performance in each sport.

OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said that in drafting the referendum the OHSAA's Competitive Balance Committee was trying to achieve balance, citing concerns that 17 percent of its member schools won 43 percent of state championships, according to a recent survey.

Referendum proposals to create separate public and private tournaments were thoroughly defeated in 1978 (84 percent to 16 percent) and 1993 (67 percent to 33 percent).

[superblue]

That's great news.........

[Chieftain]

Really no news at all as I fully expected this piece of crap to fail.

However, what is news is that the vote totals to address the unfair gap in competition with parochials & privates has narrowed considerably. Won't take much more abuse by the parochials to tilt this thing into a split & separate divisions. Only a very poorly constructed propsal kept that from happening,IMO. With more abuse ahead, a new proposal is just ahead and maybe drafted by the schools themselves since the OHSAA is a bunch of incompetent fools and incapable of governing.

[selonmc]

I agree. Right concept... wrong formula. Something needs to be done but the formula they were trying to push seemed like it was quickly written by some C+ Math student.

[JohnKnight]

Yeah, as bad as it was it still almost passed. If the proposal had made any sense at all it would have passed hands down, in my opinion.

[superblue]

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer 192 state principals did not vote on the Referendum..... Wonder Why?

[Gray Fighting Tiger]

The Ironton Tribune reported that of 827 ballots mailed, only 644 were returned (78%). Why not the others? Good question.

http://www.irontontribune.com/2011/05/1 ... eferendum/

I agree that something needs to be done but I didn't think that this proposal was the answer. I think that in some cases, it was punishing the innocent.

[4thgoal]

Probably the other 192 are either from schools where athletics are not very important and they never go very far in the tournaments anyway or they are still trying to figure out the formula.... :122245

[1987chieftains]

do any other state use some kind of system like this?? if so why cant we just copy it and then taylor it to fit ohio?

[datchillicav]

This is great news. Something does need to be done but this was a terribly misguided proposal. Why can't there just be a simple multiplier for private schools? Why penalize schools for success?

[Yossarian]

Anything is better than the current system, ANYTHING!

[FANOSPORTS]

This is great news. Something does need to be done but this was a terribly misguided proposal. Why can't there just be a simple multiplier for private schools? Why penalize schools for success?

The multiplier would work and probably be the easiest solution in this whole mess.

[superblue]

This is great news. Something does need to be done but this was a terribly misguided proposal. Why can't there just be a simple multiplier for private schools? Why penalize schools for success?

The multiplier would work and probably be the easiest solution in this whole mess.

Would you use the multiplier on all private schools? Would you use it on all sports? Why single out the privates, some publics do the same thing that privates do to gain an advantage... How would the multiplier close the disparity in D-1 football? IMO the multiplier would just create a bigger mess than what we have now.....

[mister b]

The schools that would have benefitted the most from this were the large, poor city schools.

The vote totals were closer than I expected.

[Flatulence]

This issue brought forth too many questions - first of all, it was brought about because of complaints from football - my question is 'How much more competitive balance does football want?' They have six (6) divisions, now whereas most other sports have three.

Next question - 'Why punish success?'

Next question - 'Why are so many parents CHOOSING to send their sons/daughters to a private school?'

My opinion: football needs to stop whining about the "unfairness" of it all; success should be praised - not penalized; and parents are sending their children to these schools because of a lack of discipline within the public schools. Personally, I enjoy going up against those who are three to four times larger than us in student population, it is a huge motivation factor and brings out the best. To be the best you have to beat the best otherwise you will just be a rum-dumb champion and i believe this proposal and any other will only water down the championships even more.

[Westfan]

Private schools dominate all divisions, not just D1. Ursuline controls their enrollment to play D5 with hand-picked D1 talent. They beat some of the best D1 teams because of that. Not because of coaching or tradition. But because they have a big city allstar team. You tell me how that is fair to a public school playing by the rules? When it comes to that, slotting the playoffs based on enrollment is an advantage to them. D1 talent playing D5 just isn't right.

Actually the fact southern ohio doesn't have a dominate private school is a good thing. To me this means that the public schools must be doing OK because the kids are staying and the private schools like Notre Dame must be somewhat ethical because their not recruiting like other privates in the state.

Let a Scioto County area private school do what Ursuline does and take some of the best players from Portsmouth, West, Wheelersburg, Minford, Clay, Greenup County Ky, etc; and then go play Ursuline. That would be a fair game.

[superblue]

So what is the solution?

[Flatulence]

There is no solution. Football has been complaining about this for years - more "fairness." In my opinion there is no such thing as "fair" because every time one attempts to make it "fair" for one it brings forth a bias against another and another and another and another. For example. look at football, now, - six - that is -6 divisions and they still complain. This has been done to make it more "fair" and it has only brought forth more complaints, "Oh, woe is we" who have to compete against these horrible, vicious, mean, nasty, evil "private schools!" Go back to three divisions and compete!

[selonmc]

I don't think it is as unfair in the top 2 divisions. Division 3 starts to get a little fuzzy, but from 4 through 6 is where the unfairness comes into play the most. When a D5 private school sits in a city of 80,000 and a county of over well over 100,000 they have a decided advantage over the average D5 public school that draws from a population of about 8000 or so. A private school can turn away whomever they want whereas a public school must take all including special ed students. So in the available student pool to choose a football team from, a certain percentage of kids in the public school does not have the capability to play anything but those same kids count toward their enrollment. A private school, if they so choose, can choose a dozen students that are the biggest, fastest, strongest. In the lower divisions, it doesn't take much to get an advantage. Get 3 or 4 blue-chip athletes to come play for you and you walk through D5 with ease. It just happened.

Maybe a multiplier that takes into account the population within so many miles of a private school can be instituted. Perhaps a multiplier is based on objective facts, but a unique multiplier for each school might make sense. Meaning maybe a multiplier for Ursuline would be larger than for say... Portsmouth Notre Dame. A D5 private school sitting in Cleveland has more population to choose from (whether they use it or not) than a private school sitting in Portsmouth, OH and should be treated differently in my book. I don't have the answers, but seems worth investigating.

But the quickest and easiest thing that OHSAA could do and could do today is simply put in the rules that anybody is allowed, if they choose, to move up to any division they desire. Maybe nobody would; but the pressure by the media, et al, put on a school that is way too dominating in its current division would be enormous.

[Westfan]

There is no solution. Football has been complaining about this for years - more "fairness." In my opinion there is no such thing as "fair" because every time one attempts to make it "fair" for one it brings forth a bias against another and another and another and another. For example. look at football, now, - six - that is -6 divisions and they still complain. This has been done to make it more "fair" and it has only brought forth more complaints, "Oh, woe is we" who have to compete against these horrible, vicious, mean, nasty, evil "private schools!" Go back to three divisions and compete!

Doesn't matter if it's 3 divisions or 10 divisions. The same will happen. Teams will control their enrollment to play in a division, but with talent the equivalent of a much larger school.

Look at Ursuline. They were a solid D4. In 2002 West upset them in the final 4. Before that Kenton beat them in the championship. Then they had other private challengers like Mooney and a few really good public schools in D4 at the time in Stuebenville and Coldwater. So they dropped their enrollment to play D5 where they have few challengers.

As far as the answer. It's either separate privates and publics, which isn't going to happen; or a multiplier. All kids have the opportunity to go to public schools. They choose to go to private schools. The rules should at least be fair if not be on the side of the public schools because they are the majority. Of course it could stay the same and have 20% of the schools continue to win 80% of the championships.