State Government Defeated in Attempt to Control State Association

[Mike Simonds]

Wow, sounds like a tricky situation.

Over here, on the main island there are two separate leagues: one for private schools and one for public. The public schools are formed in three divisions.

On each of the smaller islands, the public and private schools compete in the same league.

State Play-offs are run by a private organization called the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. They get funding from big companies, etc. If schools want to participate in the play-off system, they have to agree to abide by the rules of the HHSAA. There are currently two divisions in football: small school and big school (there is a somewhat arbitrary, at least to me, method for determining small and big school status and it seems to be left up to the individual leagues to determine this with final approval by the HHSAA). The board of directors of the HHSAA is made up of various representatives from both private and public schools and state school system administration.

So far the state government has stayed out of high school and other sports, except for the official assault bill which had good support but was tabled for this legislative session.

[Edited by Mike Simonds on Apr 16th, 2005 at 10:17 PM]