My first thought when I heard about the move to 7 divisions was exactly "participation trophies."trojandave wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2024 6:09 pm This is the last year that there will be a 4 division system. The OHSAA will go to a 7 division system starting next season. It will be interesting to see how that affects district and regional play. Now there's about 200 schools in each division; next season the projection is for the D1 and D2 divisions to have about 64 schools each, with the remaining 5 divisions having about 133 schools each.
Most likely it will be a little easier to win the state title, but it will still will be a great accomplishment.
The "participation trophy" critics I'm sure will use the above to merit their stance, but I'm all for more kids getting a better chance to experience something that might have been more distant in past years. Maybe this will increase the participation numbers, and if it does, that's good by me. If you give kids a reasonable chance to accomplish something, that might be enough motivation to get them off the couch.
I've run 13 marathons in my life, and 5 ultramarathons. I got a "finisher" medal (participation medal) for crossing the finish line in every one of them......and I didn't feel any less gratification for getting them......and I never won any of those events. Those medals mean a lot to me even to this day.
Teams will still have to survive really good squads by the end of it all.
As a former SEO player, there was always something magical about looking at a bracket and knowing we'd have to survive the river schools to even get a crack at this/that team and if we somehow got by them, we'd share the court with SVSM and probably lose by 40. I still love looking at state wide brackets and how a champion navigated to get to the end.
The move to 7 seems a bit excessive but...whatever. We're always gonna have the old guard that loved yesteryear and "kids today."
