If those that live in Illinois have not noticed there is a PowerPoint presentation about possibly expanding from two classes to 3 or 4 classes in most sports. I just wanted to see what others thought about this if you are from Illinois. If anyone else has a comment about how this works in your state (outside of Illinois of course) comment as well.

Peace

they are talking about doing this in kentucky too....right now everyone is in the same tourney!!!! The are talking about going to a class system (A,B,C,D) OR (A,AA,AAA,AAAA) LIKE OTHER STATES DO!!!!could be interesting discussion whether to do this or not!!! 4 state tourneys instead of 1

We have such a system in Ontario.

The grades are AAAA, AAA, AA, and A. We call them quad-A, triple-A, double-A, and single-A.

Schools sit within a tier based on the student population of the school.

I've been to many finals, reffing some and watching others. The semis and finals are quite often good games. Each class has 16 officials - so each year 64 do the girls and 64 do the guys. Some refs get to do both.

However, in Ontario there is/was a huge push to have female refs. At the girls tournaments, 50% of the refs had to be female. I think they are relaxing that stipulation now though.

I have heard this is being serioulsy considered after having been discussed for several years. Strictly from a personal, selfish standpoint it gives officials (and schools) more chances in the post-season. So instead of having 4 tournaments and champions (boys' small and large school, and girls' small and large school), there could be six or eight tournaments, with six or eight possible champions, and more chances as officials to go farther into post-season. So is that a good thing? Honestly, I'm ambivilent. Maybe it gives a school who would've lost in the super-sectionals now a chance to win their class. But I also think it diminishes somewhat the value of the championship if there are more of them. It starts to turn into boxing (without Don King). How many different heavyweight champions are there? And then, who cares?

From an officiating standpoint, yea, I want to do post-season, and eventually, a championship game. But I'm not as excited about it if "everyone's doing it".

Oregon just restructured the classification system from 4 classes to 6 classes. I think it was unnecessary given Oregon's population. In fact 14 of those with enrollment numbers in the 5A class have opted to play up to 6A (where there were only 32 with enough enrollment).

I thought the 4 classifications were adequate and 5 would have been sufficient.

CLASS 6A (1521+) 46 Schools
CLASS 5A (851-1520) 40 Schools
CLASS 4A (401-850) 41 Schools
CLASS 3A (236-400) 37 Schools
CLASS 2A (116-235) 41 Schools
CLASS 1A (1-115) 82 Schools

It looks like they were shooting for about 40 schools per level and/or having no school with more then 2x the number of students as any other school at the same level.

The whole thing was pushed for my some of the medium large schools who wanted a better chance of winning championships (never mind that the championships were just often won by some of the smallest schools in a classification).

I do think some classification system is justified. There is on way a school of 100 kids should have to compete against a school with 2000. That shool with 100 will likely have at most 1 player that could even make the varsity team at the large school.

Classifications
 

California is going to have seven levels next year. I haven't spent much time looking at it yet. An area I have a concern with is the privates vs publics in playoffs. It bothers me that the privates, with their small populations get to beat up on the publics of similar population. In Girls VB right now DIV 5 is dominated by small Christian schools. They should just have a private schools championships. They get to recruit. Some publics may recruit but it is not as prevalent as the privates. In BB the D4/D5 levels have become the private school championships. So if you a smaller school you make it to the state tourney , run into a "similar" sized school-who just happens to have 3 players getting D1 schloarship offers. Your little school hasn't had a D1 player in any sport in years. So all of you Oak Hill Academy fans-I am not impressed. Also De la sally fans-you got to recruit and come up with a Norcal allstar team-not impressed. End of rant and Rave.....

I do not know about that. It sounds like all they are going to do is change the classification of what you would work not the number of officials. So the same officials will still work the playoffs (speculation by me on what I saw on the PowerPoint) they just would work a different level of the playoffs. It appears they would just shift things around and have the same officials working "deeper" into the playoffs. Now I have no idea what will change, but I do not see it opening that many opportunities.

It seems to me Indiana was hurt when they went to multiple classes and it hurt attendance. It sounds great to great to have more state finals but it might not make as much money as it would if it stayed the same. Having 8-10 thousand people at a Super-Sectional site might go down considerably if they add more classes to the mix. After all the money will affect this discussion.

Peace

We've had a population-based class system (A - AAAAA) in Utah for as long as I've been aware. The multiple champions issue really isn't an issue. Perhaps it would be in a state that moved to this format for the first few years, but not for long. In such a system, a school competes every year against other schools in its same class and you begin to think of the world in terms of those schools. You're aware that there are other state tournaments going on too, but generally only one matters to each school.

Sure, there are sometimes debates about whether a smaller school would have beaten a larger school. This year in Utah there's talk about whether the 3A state football champion would have beaten the 4A and 5A champions. But as far as I can tell, nobody feels cheated to not have an overall champion. And it provides ready fodder for good-spirited debate. ;)

As far as diminishing the "...value of a championship...," what is the value of a championship? If a person wants to become the best heavyweight boxer on planet Earth, then the fragmentation of professional boxing titles is a serious issue. Of course these contenders are usually adults, and the point of their pursuit is to obtain the fame and fortune afforded a world champion.

But what of the student athlete? For most, the opportunity to play for their school is a notable acheivement. If they make it to state, that becomes a significant and fulfilling event in their young lives. Should they win, well that's bragging rights for a whole lifetime. Are these athletes somehow diminished, do they feel a sense of loss, do the multitude of state champions feel any less a champion because other champions also exist? I think the answer is no.

Sure, we may never have another Milan, Indiana (the school the movie Hoosies was based on). But we'll always have the Jamaican bobsled team :)

What i don't like is here in kentucky we have our football in classes A-AAAA and then it comes to basketball season and everyone is thrown in together...makes no sense to me to have 4 football state champs and 1 basketball state champs.. i think that is one reason they are looking to changing the basketball tourneys....

Physical safety concerns are good reasons for classification in football.

Indiana's overall state tournament basketball attendance last year was over 300,000 less than the last year of single-class basketball (1997). I'd gladly ship three of our classes to Illinois, so we could get back to a real tournament.

I do not think that adding classes to basketball or any other sport would be that beneficial. We have two classes and that works just fine. All you have to do is win about 5 or 6 games and you will be a state champion. Everyone in our state plays in the playoffs. I just do not see the benefit of playing fewer games to win a state title. Unless you reduce the number of schools that can play in the playoffs, I really do not see the point of breaking up the current system.

Oh well, either way we will deal with it. I have just heard there is not much support for a change.

Peace

[Edited by JRutledge on Nov 23rd, 2005 at 03:36 PM]

That about says it all, doesn't it? More schools hosting tournament games, bringing in more gate receipts and concession money, then the IHSA gets to sell more State Championship t-shirts, television time, etc., on down the line. So, of course the decision is driven by money.

Again, I was looking at it from strictly a selfish point of view as an official. Those considerations will be well down the list when the IHSA determines the change. But it just seems from my point of view that if there are more champions, and more championship games, working those games loses a little of its current luster.

Not to me. Here in Washington State we have several classes (B, 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A). Next year they'll be adding a C tournament. I worked a state championship game at the 1A level 2 years ago and it was the highlight of my short officiating career. The B and 1A tournaments often draw huge crowds while our 3A and 4A tournaments are much more sparsely attended.

Z

Having lived in Central and now Southern Illinois, I think the class system would be good. IMO A & AA just isn't enough.

Ohio has had multiple classes which change depending on the sport and the number of schools participating.

Football has 6 divisions. Some sports like soccer and lacrosse have fewer.

We have 8 Classes for Football. All other sports have just two.

Peace

Some sports have only one class, Jeff. I forget the specific requirement, but if fewer than, say, 1000 schools participate in a sport, it has only one class.

Sorry, I usually am not thinking of Water Polo and Bowling when talking about sports. ;)

Peace

JRut,

If not mistaken, you work football in IL as well, right? Has that opened up more opportunities for you or others to get downstate for one of the many championship games? I think the selection process for BBall officials to work championship games will go pretty much unchanged, as long as they continue to use the "Top 15" list for selection. If you get the games on merit, maybe some of the officials on the bottom of the list get the shot at the lower level games, but the were still rated among the highest in the state.

My two cents is that IL should keep what they have going. In fact there is a pretty good contigent in MO especially on the St Louis side that would love to see MO model IL's system because we feel it in the end it makes for much better basketball.

Ours is so watered down to five classes and has what roughly half the population of IL?

Of course it will never happen but makes for a good conversation on the fanboards over here.

One thing that does not make sense to me though in IL is you go all the way thru the state playoffs which is IMO is pretty rigourous by most state HS standards (hence why I like it)and then you get to the final 8 and you play the 1/4s one day and then play the semi's AND finals on the next day? Can anyone in IL explain that? Is it a travel thing? Shouldn't they just take the final 4 to state? or again a travel thing?

One other thing is that IL seems to promote its basketball more than MO. I remember when I was a kid where I grew up we had a big antennae and we could turn it north and get TV out of Quincy, mainly for Football Cardinals games as they were never sold out, but back on topic, one other thing we could get was IL HS basketball, I think it was like the sectional maybe supersectional out of Peoria. Here in MO the only TV cast that I know of is the 5a finals.

Edit: for sp and content




[Edited by eyezen on Nov 25th, 2005 at 01:47 PM]

Football is a different animal all together. All championship games are played on the same weekend. That would not be the case if they went to a 3 or a 4 class system. If you look at there PowerPoint Presentation, the 8 teams during the state finals weekend would semi-final teams and then the championship games on Saturday. So they would have the same number of officials working the games. The main thing that would change is all those officials would actually work a championship game.

Also I am not sure what the Top 15 list has to do with who works the playoffs. There are more factors to who works the playoffs than who is on those Top 15 lists.

Peace

I have no idea. The only explanation I can think of is that the schools do not want to have their kids out of school more than 1 day. Also they avoid Sunday so no one can say they are playing on a religious day. I would agree that they should somehow figure out how to break that up and play the semi-finals and championship on separate days.

Peace

I still haven't had time to read this yet. Too many things to do over break I guess. Hopefully I'll get to read it next week when things settle back down.

Re: Classifications
 

This is tired old complaint. Everytime some school does well over time, they're accused of recuiting (esp. if it's a private school). It's even thrown at public schools that repeatedly do well.

What seems to be forgotton is that there are far more private schools that don't do well.

Additionally, many of these high-performing private schools (and public schools) petition to play up to the next classs (or even higher).

Does any one ever consider that when a team does well it will naturally draw good players. Being a private school or a public school in an open enrollement district just means that they don't have boundaries to adhere too...making transfers easier.


If it were such an unfair situation, the privates would win a lot more of the championships. The one most accused of recruiting here does win championships but not at a frequency that is suspect when considered without emotion.

Re: Re: Classifications
 

There is no such thing as "open enrollment" in school districts here. If you go to a public school you have to go to schools in your district. Even in some districts you might have 4 or 5 different high schools and you cannot just go to whatever school you like. Your enrollment in a public school is usually based on where the district lines are drawn based on your address. As it relates to IHSA enrollment rules, you might be allowed to enroll to a school, but you will not be able to play sports if you violate certain rules for transferring. I can attend any private school I like, but I might not be able to play sports.

Peace

TJones 1 ----PUHLEEAASSEEE
 

TJjones.
Example . Private girls school enrollment say 600 , public school enrollment say 600. Both girls teams compete at same level but the privates recruit and also have the advantage of having 2x as many girls as the publics.

Just because its a tired old complaint doesn't make it any less of a legimate complaint.
The private schools in my area dominate the lower divisions-no if , ands or buts about it. I haven't ever heard of one pleading to move up. why would that be ?????
In our neck of the woods those schools that recruit win...privates get to recruit and offer "tuition waivers". Nice term for we will pay you to come here. Heck even the "charter" schools are starting the recruiting. 2nd year of existence and we have one working on sectional titles already in Girls and Boys BB.

Re: TJones 1 ----PUHLEEAASSEEE
 

Have they looked into adjusting schools classes based on gender enrollment? i.e. all girls schools of 600 would be considered to have 1200 students?

There is already a provision for schools that are single gender schools to be considered in a higher class. For example St. Joseph High School where Isiah Thomas attended and was featured in the movie Hoop Dreams. That school was an all-boy's school with around 400 students. They were always considered a Class AA school (big schools) and they played won a State Title in 1999. So there were already policies in place to deal with private schools like you suggested. The problem is you have schools like Driscoll Catholic and Montini Catholic that are not gender specific but have only about 400 to 500 students’ total. According to the current system these schools are Class A schools by pure enrollment. Then this year IHSA came up with a private school multiplier that brought a lawsuit with many Cook County private schools to hold off the new policy. The discussion of more classes has come out of this debate that has been going on for 20+ years.

Peace

Here is an article about the the multiplier
 

http:///sports/highschool/cs-051128i...hool-headlines

<b>IHSA competitive balance proposal headed to a vote
The Associated Press

November 28, 2005, 6:28 PM CST</b>

Illinois high schools will decide over the next month whether to adopt new rules to level the playing field between public schools and private schools that critics argue are winning a disproportionate share of state sports titles.

An Illinois High School Association commission Monday approved a vote on a proposal that would promote competitive balance by multiplying the enrollment of private schools by a factor of 1.65 for purposes of placing them into classes for state championship tournaments.

Voting by the IHSA's 751 member schools begins Tuesday and runs through Dec. 28, said Marty Hickman, executive director of the Bloomington-based organization. He said results will be announced Dec. 29.

The so-called multiplier would apply to all private schools, unlike a rule adopted by the IHSA in March that only imposed a multiplier on private schools with at least 450 students. The IHSA agreed to let that rule expire this month to settle a Cook County lawsuit filed in September by 37 private schools.

Several of those schools were bumped from Class A to Class AA under the rule. They argued the multiplier penalizes teams for success and puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

The settlement required a binding vote by members to settle the ongoing dispute between private schools, which can draw student-athletes from up to 30 miles away, and public schools, with their tighter, locked-in geographic boundaries.

Under the settlement, schools submitted nearly a dozen new proposals to the IHSA ranging from separate tournaments for public and private schools to banning multipliers altogether. The proposal headed for a vote was chosen by the IHSA's Legislative Commission, comprised of 35 principals and athletic directors from around the state.

If approved, Hickman said the new multiplier would take effect in February, in time for basketball and other spring sports tournaments. He said he doubts any new multiplier proposals would surface soon if it fails.

"I think the board is more than willing to let the membership resolve this through a vote," Hickman said.

Private school officials said they, too, are pleased that members -- not just the IHSA board -- will settle the dispute.

"At least we got it to a vote and that's what we were asking for from the beginning. However it comes out, we'll live with it," said Dennis Litteken, principal at Breese Mater Dei.

Still, Litteken says the latest multiplier proposal is unfair because it applies to students who live blocks from his school and not just those from miles away. He said private schools should not be penalized for drawing students who live in their local public school district.

Dan Sharp, athletic director at 12-time state football champion Joliet Catholic, predicted the multiplier will pass because public schools account for more than 80 percent of the IHSA's members.

While the latest proposal would have the same impact on Joliet Catholic as the IHSA's old rule, Sharp fears the new multiplier could hurt smaller private schools because schools with fewer than 450 students will be affected.

Hickman said the new multiplier would have little more impact than the old one in two-class sports such as basketball, but could move some schools up in the IHSA's eight-class football tournament.

He said the multiplier would have more impact if the IHSA expands its current two-class sports. An advisory vote is scheduled over the next month on adding classes in some sports, including four classes for boys and girls basketball.
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press

Missouri - single gender schools are doubled and then the multiplier (1.35??) gets added (I don't think there's any single gender public schools?) for enrollment purposes.

The multiplier is what's controversial in MO andI'm sure in states across the nation that use it or contemplating it.

Doubling the enrollment of single gender schools is common sense, I'm surprised to hear it's not the case everywhere.

[Edited by eyezen on Nov 28th, 2005 at 11:11 PM]