Three or Four Classes?---IHSA Officials comment please

[JRutledge]

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

[jritchie]

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

[JugglingReferee]

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.

[M&M Guy]

Originally posted by JRutledge
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

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".

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by JRutledge
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

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.

[Chess Ref]

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.....

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by M&M Guy


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".

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

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally posted by M&M Guy

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".

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

[jritchie]

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....

[Jesse James]

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.

[JRutledge]

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]

[M&M Guy]

Originally posted by JRutledge
After all the money will affect this discussion.

Peace

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.

[zebraman]

Originally posted by M&M Guy


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

[refnrev]

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

[stmaryrams]

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.