About this series
Cox Media Group Ohio reporters examine the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s Competitive Balance Proposal. We take an in-depth look at the main issues surrounding a debate that could dramatically change the makeup of prep state tournaments.
Today: An overview on the competitive balance issue and how it came to a vote.
Monday: The boundaries issue is a point of contention among private and public schools.
Tuesday: A look at the socioeconomic issue.
Wednesday: Many schools feel they would be punished for winning with controversial tradition factor.
Thursday: After the vote, the next flashpoint could be inequities in Division I football.
The Competitive Balance Proposal
The OHSAA’s Competitive Balance Proposal would increase or decrease a school’s enrollment number, creating an “athletic count,” based on boundary, socioeconomic and tradition factors. How the count would be determined:
Boundaries
1. Non-public schools with no boundaries: add 10 percent of enrollment
2. Non-public schools with limited boundaries: add 8 percent of enrollment
3. Public schools with statewide open enrollment: add 6 percent of enrollment *
4. Public schools with adjacent districts open enrollment: add 4 percent of enrollment *
5. Public schools with no open enrollment: no change
* Indicates that this percentage will not be applied to public schools with open enrollment if their net number of open enrollment students is negative (i.e. have more open enrollment students leaving the school than coming into the school).
Socioeconomic
The number of free lunch participants within either the high school (if exact data is provided) or school district multiplied by 10 percent equals the number to be subtracted from enrollment.
Tradition (last four years)
1. Appearances in a regional final: add 6 percent of enrollment
2. Appearances in state tournament: add 8 percent of enrollment
3. Appearances in state final: add 10 percent of enrollment
Note: The highest percentage would be used for each individual year
There was no climactic moment in the public-versus-private debate in Ohio high school sports.
There was a regularly scheduled meeting.
“We were just sitting around one day talking about other things,” said Dave Rice, superintendent of Triway Local Schools in Wayne County, a member of a small group that could trigger an unprecedented change in Ohio’s high school sports landscape.
“We ended up talking about private schools. We needed to find out if we were the only ones complaining about this.”
They weren’t.
That meeting in the fall of 2009 led to a statewide survey regarding possible separate state tournaments for public and private schools and will trigger in a vote, beginning this week, that could create a wholly unique method for assigning tournament divisions.
In the next two weeks, principals from the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s 831 member schools will decide the fate of the OHSAA Competitive Balance Proposal, which would use school boundaries, socioeconomic factors and winning tradition to calculate competitive levels.
Tournament divisions are now determined strictly by enrollment. Under the proposal, schools’ “athletic counts” would increase or decrease the enrollment numbers based on the area from which they draw students, their number of free lunch participants and their appearances in regional finals or above in the previous four years.
The proposal would affect eight sports: football, boys and girls soccer, girls volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball.
Like any discussion of the public-versus-private issue, feelings are intense. Public schools are uncomfortable with private schools’ ability to mostly draw students from anywhere. Private schools don’t like defending themselves against accusations of recruiting.
Dan Ross, the OHSAA commissioner, said the purpose of a 28-member Competitive Balance Committee that formed the proposal in response to the Wayne County superintendents survey was to identify why students go to what school and what opportunities they have there.
The OHSAA hoped to avoid major changes (especially separate tournaments), even though it felt changes were needed, Ross said.
“We did not want a tectonic shift,” he said.
But either way, a shift could be coming. Even if this proposal fails — and dozens of interviews conducted by Cox Media Group Ohio reporters suggest it will — the Wayne County superintendents or another group could petition for a vote on separate tournaments.
The vote — the mailed ballots are due by May 16 — is the next step in a decades-old issue, and it has caused as much conversation as ever about whether and how public and private schools should compete for the same state championships.
“I learned a lot from those folks,” said Rice, who served on the Competitive Balance Committee. “There were a couple folks from private-school backgrounds, and I would tell you to this day I admire greatly those people being honest about there being a problem.
“Nobody really wants to come out and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem.’ Nobody wants to jump on the bandwagon of there’s really only one fix. But I appreciate them saying, ‘Yeah, I can see where this could be viewed this way. How can we put a system in place?’ ”
Previous votes
The competitive balance issue is not new. OHSAA members first voted on a proposal brought by officials from Orrville and Triway Local Schools to separate public and private state tournaments in 1978. It failed 637-122.
Fifteen years later, in 1993, the superintendent of Manchester Local Schools in Akron, Marco Burnette, approached the OHSAA about changing the way it decided its divisions for public and private schools.
Rebuffed, Burnette used the petition route to place a bylaw referendum on the ballot. It failed, 482-240 (one abstention).
“You can’t imagine the mail we got,” said Jim France, the Manchester football coach since 1971 and principal since 1976. “What’s really funny is, as time has gone on, more and more people have said to me, ‘When are you gonna put that up again?’ ”
It happened in the fall of 2009, when the 10 superintendents from Wayne County researched state champions and found that from 1999 to 2010, private schools won 45 percent of 616 state titles. The group sent a survey to all Ohio superintendents asking if there was competitive balance in the OHSAA and if the superintendents would support separate tournaments.
Of 319 responses, 67.3 percent said they saw imbalance and 72.5 percent said they would support separate tournaments. The Wayne County group presented the results to Ross, who agreed to form a committee that would study the issue.
One of those asked to serve was Ken Baker, the associate executive director of the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators. As a former superintendent of the St. Marys City School District whose son quarterbacked the football team to a Division III runner-up finish against Cleveland Benedictine (a private school) in 2004, Baker has experienced the issue up close.
Baker was part of another committee that reviewed possibly tinkering with football divisions several years ago. The group did not produce a proposal. This time, he said, the Wayne County group brought the statistical research to drive action.
“I think if you asked my son or his teammates today if they would’ve preferred to be a public school champion, they would say no,” Baker said. “But this isn’t going away.”
Committee formed
Ross formed a group to study the issue he hoped would represent the state. It included six officials tied in some way to the OHSAA office, nine superintendents, four principals, three high school athletic administrators, one coach and three long-time state athletic observers.
They met for the first time in April 2010. By May, the group broke into four subcommittees, which would study a different theory on creating more balance.
One group studied separate tournaments.
Another studied pairing public and non-public teams in regional or state semifinals to ensure a public school in the final, whenever possible.
Another studied placing public and non-public schools in the same division, but with enrollments measured only against their peers. For example, if a public school were in the top fourth in enrollment of public schools and a private school were in the top fourth of enrollment of private schools, both would be in Division I.
Another studied a formula that would increase or decrease enrollment numbers, which became the proposal up for vote.
The OHSAA Board of Directors approved the referendum item in January, making it one of 15 on the ballot for voting that begins today. Results should be announced May 17.
“I think everyone on the committee would say, ‘Is there an issue here? Yes,’ ” Ross said.
The positives
Of the four possibilities considered, the current proposal had several elements committee members liked.
First, it includes factors that affect every school, not just public or private schools. The data used to determine the calculations — tournament results, free lunch participants, school boundaries — are independently verified.
Plus, included in the language is the creation of a standing committee to monitor and possibly modify the percentages used. It would determine if, for instance, the tradition factor should count more, or the school boundary factor should count less.
Some showed concern that the percentages could change if the proposal is approved, giving power to modify divisional standards without another vote.
But supporters said because it’s still unclear exactly which schools would be affected by how much — the new standard could be put into place as soon as the 2012-13 academic year and would affect between 10 and 15 percent of the state’s schools, Ross said — changes could be necessary.
“Kind of like Harbin ratings,” said Jeff Jordan, director of finance program services for the Ohio Department of Education and a Competitive Balance Committee member. “That has changed over time to deal with concerns. This can do the same.”
Success punished?
Rob Moorman, the St. Henry Local Schools superintendent, attended Delphos St. John’s before the small Catholic school was a football power, and long before it raised ire by winning the Division VI football championship game 77-6 against public school Shadyside last December.
When Moorman attended, its best sport was basketball, and the football team was regularly beaten. Then the community later increased its passion for football, and the football team started winning.
During his time on the Competitive Balance Committee, Moorman stressed to his colleagues that the public-versus-private issue isn’t about boundaries or recruiting, but instead about school and community buy-in to the sport.
“How do you judge the competitive spirit of your kids and their parents?” Moorman said. “How do you create a quantitation for that? Because that’s why teams are successful.”
Critics of the proposal say the factors won’t solve discomfort. Their main focus is the tradition factor, as many view it as a punishment for success.
Ross, though, said the committee was trying to address how students choose schools. Many families moving to an area will seek a program with athletic success, which he experienced while superintendent in Pickerington with the powerful Pickerington North girls basketball team, he said.
“There isn’t one main aspect that people don’t like,” said Jeff Hobbs, the principal at Fort Recovery High School and a member of the OHSAA Principals Committee. “So if you go back and try to change one thing to make it work, I’m not sure you can do that.”
The fallout
Regardless of how the vote goes, the issue won’t die in mid-May.
If the proposal passes, Ross said he hopes to address more competitive balance issues — including the enrollment disparity in Division I and team and individual sports not included in the current proposal.
A committee to address the D-I issue would be formed as soon as the fall if this issue passes, Ross said.
“I think it’s a great start,” Ross said. “It’s not an ending point.”
If the proposal fails, many feel a petitioning effort would lead to a referendum for separate public and private tournaments as soon as next spring. Such a petition would require signatures from principals of at least 75 member schools, including at least five from each of the six OHSAA districts.
Some fear private schools could break away to form a separate association. Protecting against that, many feel a possible separate tournament proposal would include a provision that if public schools play private schools in the regular season, those private schools need to be OHSAA members. That could hinder the private schools’ ability to fill their schedules.
“That’s something we have discussed and that we would certainly look into,” said Chris Hart, the Alter athletic director and girls basketball coach, of a possible separate association.
“The concern there would be that I think there’s a — I don’t want to use the word threat — we are aware of the fact the OHSAA in turn may then prevent non-OHSAA members to play members.
“They’re kind of holding the last card.”
Either way, the issue will take its next step later this month. While discussion will continue, the public-versus-private debate will have at least reached the membership for a vote, supporters said.
And not because of any one incident or game result, but because enough Wayne County superintendents realized at a regularly scheduled meeting that they were upset, said Rice, the Triway Schools superintendent.
“In some private school sectors, we’re probably public enemy No. 1,” Rice said. “For public schools, we might be Mount Rushmore. I think public schools want to see (separate tournaments) voted on.
“If it loses, go away and have at it. But the issue isn’t going away.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389 or knagel@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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