http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/04...50415048.shtml


I find it funny that a State government would even consider legislation to overturn a decision made by a sports association. At the end of the article, there is a comment made that the state is also considering forming a panel to discuss the feasibility of forming a new alternative state association.

The Governor of Illinois has already stated that he will send State employees home on "furlough" if he can't get a budget increase he wants. Now the state legislature is talking about getting involved in sports. Personally, I doubt it ever happens, but I sometimes wonder about the thought processes of some of our elected officials.

Sounds like a mess. Here in Texas, the private schools (TAPPS) are not associated with non-private schools (UIL). Sometimes the two will play each other but they are not in the same division and the games are just "exhibition". They both have their own playoff system. If they were sorted into the same divisions then the private schools have the advantage because they can basically go out and recruit while the non-private schools cannot.

In Nebraska this last fall, 5 out of 6 football champs were Catholic with a Catholic school losing in the semifinals of the 6th class. I don't think we have this on the horizon but it has been discussed in our state assoc.

Also, Nebraska was considering the multiplier of 1.35 instead of 1.65 if I recall correctly. Football was predominately "controlled" by the private schools, and basketball was quite influenced by their presence as well. The other sports don't seem to have that problem.

This is how my state works. Two seperate leagues.

We are already going down the slippery slope since UIL put 2 of the privates into UIL starting the 2003-04 school year, except football which they started this past season. In fact, Houston Strake Jesuit just won their district's UIL golf title.

[Edited by TXMike on Apr 16th, 2005 at 07:03 AM]

Hawaii high school football.
 

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]

In Washington last year out of the 24 teams that made the semi-finals in the six classifications only 3 were private schools. This follows pretty close to previous years average.

Minnesota has no multiplier and really doesn't have a problem. We have 6 divisions (we are the "Let's give everyone a trophy state") and rarely does a private school compete for the State FFootball Championship in any of the divisions.

REPLY: In NJ, public schools and private schools play each other during the regular season because they're often in the same conferences. But come playoff time, the state association has set up separate private and public groups so never the twain shall meet once the regular season ends.

In Wisconsin, there used to be 2 athletic associations. When I attended High School, there was WISAA for the independent schools, and WIAA for all public schools and short of an exhibition game here and there we rarely played each other. Recently (maybe 5 years ago) WISAA was rolled into WIAA and now we have 1 association. There has been rumblings for a multiplier, but nothing firm as yet. Each WISAA school asked conferences in the WIAA to be allowed in during the process, and now most play in a WIAA conference. Some remained independent, but still play all WIAA schools for tournaments.

Independent/Private schools are usually well represented in the tournaments. I think since the combination occurred there has been at least one state champ in one of the divisions that used to be a WISAA school.

Dallas Jesuit made the playoffs in football and basketball (obviously boys) and are going for the trifecta in baseball. They have a three game lead for a playoff spot with 4 remaining.

What the UIL basically did was tell private schools, "yes, you can compete in UIL, but you will be forced into the highest classification." Jesuit and Strake Jesuit had no choice since the Catholic leagues either disbanded or kicked them out years ago.

The recruiting thing is overblown.

In Tennessee we have two divisions, private and public. If a private school elects to participate in the public division a multiplier is used to assign them into a classification. The public schools have 5 classifications in football and 3 in all other sports and the private schools have 3 classifications in all sports.

Seems to be working fairly well with only some minor grumbling.

The private schools due to small numbers travel in excess of 200 miles for many games. While the public schools will travel no more than 50 or so for regional games.

Missouri considered two division but with desegregation bussing programs we had some school districts with many athletes living outside of their boundaries so the argument of getting kids from outside the district did not hold up. There is only one division for each sport with up to six size catagories. Single sex schools have a x2 multiplier. i.e., 1,000 boys-only equals an enrollment of 2,000.

Nebraska does the same with single sex schools. Double their number for classification purposes. That's why the multiplier was a sticky issue. It was tantamount to double doubling, even though the multiplier would have only been 1.35 (if I recall the number right). But the effects would have been really interesting. We have 4 schools that are single sex, and 2 of them are already in the biggest class. It would have affected the other 2 schools more, as they would have to move up a class, and they're not even dominant in their own classes right now.