Time for a fresh look at competitive balance

Ohio High School Athletic Association member schools on Thursday voted down a proposal that would have attempted to balance out the competitive nature of sports in the state through a manipulation of enrollment numbers. It was one of nine referendum issues facing school principals, who were charged with handling the voting, but easily the most talked about issue.

This was the third year in a row such a proposal was brought before the member schools. Each time it was tweaked a little more than the last but each time it was defeated by a small margin. This year’s count was 327 against the measure, 308 for it. Just 19 votes separated the sides, which is closer than the 38-vote difference last year or the 29 votes that were the margin in 2011.

That’s why OHSAA commissioner Dr. Dan Ross is more than ready to bring back the committee that for two years worked on the competitive balance issue and have it continue working to find a solution that can best serve the students and the member schools.

It’s why David Rice, superintendent of Wooster Triway Local Schools, is ready to start another petition drive to put the separation of state tournaments for public and private schools on the ballot. Rice successfully got enough names on his petition last year but pulled it off the table seven weeks ago in lieu of this most recent compromise proposal.

But after three failed attempts, don’t both sides need to start asking different questions?

Isn’t there a better way to address this issue than dropping an ultimatum bomb on how kids compete in Ohio?

Is it time for the OHSAA to start taking a harder look at the rules it already has in place and how it administers those rules in an attempt to solve the issues at hand?

“You can’t just give it a month,” said Scott Kaufman, athletic director at Wyoming High School in suburban Cincinnati and a former vice-president of the Southwest Ohio District Board. “The fact of the matter is: the superintendents who put the original petition through are on video saying that a public-private split is not in the best interest of kids.

“Let’s focus on what the appropriate solution is and not continue to threaten a direction that is not in the best interest of kids. Let’s start putting merit and weight into the existing recruiting issue that exist in this state and are getting overlooked and pushed under the carpet. That’s my view on it.”

Recruiting is not a public vs. private matter. There are violators on both sides of the fence. There are also the vast majority of schools on both sides of the fence that play by the rules.

“I don’t think Dave Rice is at all afraid of good, clean, fair competition. It just makes it hard when you feel that battle is a little uphill,” said Cincinnati Ursuline athletic director Diane Redmond, who served on the competitive balance committee with Rice. “It’s our job to make sure we attract student-athletes that meet our academic (standards) but also that our programs maybe attract those types of kids to keep it going. Some years you’re going to be up, some years down in sports. I don’t think it’s about anybody wanting to begrudge people for being good. I think it’s how we go about it. I think this whole new thing was not about where you get your kids from but how do you get your kids?”

Rice said he would like to get a co-sponsor for his petition this time around but will go forward again regardless in calling for separate state tournaments for public and private schools. He won’t pull it off the table this time and he will ask that the same sports that would have been specifically targeted for the competitive balance changes – football, volleyball and soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball and softball in the spring – be targeted for separate tournaments.

“That way the (OHSSA) can’t do away with the other tournaments because there’s not enough teams,” said Rice. “My opinion is that the competitive balance committee now is a waste of time. If the Board of Directors wanted to change this thing, it was so close, just approve it and go on. They put in seven divisions in football without asking anybody’s opinion. If you think this needs to happen then just do it.”
 
Rice was obviously disappointed that this compromise proposal failed. He didn’t understand why people weren’t willing to give it a chance.

Maybe it’s because this proposal and the two previous competitive balance proposals attempted to put Band-Aids on an issue that requires much more serious healing measures.

Kaufman said there are multiple cases of complaints regarding recruiting and other violations that have yet to be ruled on, some that are as much as two years old.

“I don’t care if you find for one school or the other, just rule. There are cases that are over two years old and no one seems real interested in solving them,” said Kaufman. “At least they’re not responding to the schools involved by saying we’re waiting for this litigation or we’re waiting for this answer. They’re just going unanswered, and that’s unacceptable.

“What’s happening is, because they’re not enforcing the rules that are in place, member schools are now in the position of thinking we’ve got to take this into our own hands.”

Mason athletic director Scott Stemple agreed that even if the competitive balance proposal had been adopted, it wouldn’t have fixed what really needs to be fixed.

“I commend the OHSAA for trying to address concerns from a select group, the superintendents from Wayne County,” said Stemple. “I understand the intention, and I know it’s not going to be perfect, but I don’t know that some of the things that they’re trying to address with some of these referendums wholly capture some of the things philosophically that we go by. There is a lot more out there that needs to be addressed than this competitive balance.

“I’d hate to see separation. There are pros and cons to it as well. I still think it’s how things are processed and how bylaws are enforced. I think those are the biggest issues, from my perspective, rather than open enrollment and some of that other stuff.”