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Competitive balance proposal voted down; schools eye options

Another vote to separate public schools from non-publics seems to be eminent next year.

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By Kyle Nagel, Staff Writer Updated 8:30 AM Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The state’s principals voted down a proposal meant to even the competition between public and private high schools Tuesday, but the issue could come up for vote again as soon as next May.

By a margin of 332 to 303, principals defeated the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s highly debated Competitive Balance Proposal. The proposal, approved for member vote by a 28-member Competitive Balance Committee last year, would have used boundary, socioeconomic and tradition factors to help determine a school’s appropriate division in eight team sports.

The proposal was a compromise meant to avoid a direct vote on separate state tournaments for public and private schools, but such a vote could happen in 2012. Dave Rice, superintendent of Triway Local Schools in Wayne County, said he and other superintendents in that area “are probably prepared” to move forward with a petition to place a referendum on next year’s ballot to create separate public and private school tournaments.

The Wayne County superintendents began the events that created the Competitive Balance Proposal that was voted down Tuesday. Last year, they studied the frequency of private school state championships (45 percent of those played) and surveyed statewide superintendents about their possible support for separate state tournaments.

According to the Wayne County group, 72.5 percent of those who responded said they would support separate tournaments.

Rice said Tuesday afternoon his group would likely meet before the end of the month to discuss the petition possibility.

“We’ve talked about doing another quick survey of the superintendents to gauge where they’re at now,” Rice said. “I want to try to do something that people feel is better than what we’re doing now, and that’s a legitimate concern.

“This vote was so close, which might indicate a lot of people out there who seriously want something else.”

Some private school officials have said they would consider breaking from the OHSAA to form their own association if separate tournaments are approved.

“I think next May we’ll be voting on separate tournaments,” said Chris Hart, the Alter athletic director. “We were warned that would happen.”

The OHSAA also could form another Competitive Balance Committee to consider other possibilities.

Aside from the defeated proposal and separate tournaments, the committee discussed two other possibilities last year. They included:

• Ensuring public and nonpublic teams face one another in regional or state semifinals to guarantee a public school in the regional or state final, whenever possible.

• Placing public and non-public schools in the same divisions, but with enrollments measured only against their peers. For example, if a public school were in the top fourth in enrollment of public schools and a private school were in the top fourth of enrollment of private schools, both would be in Division I in a sport with four divisions.

“We believe this would have been a fairer way to assign schools in team sports to their tournament divisions,” OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross said in a statement. “We also stressed to the membership that this was just a starting point for change since a companion OHSAA Sports Regulation would have allowed the Board of Directors to make modifications over time as a standing committee on competitive balance made recommendations.”

However, that possibility of modification without more voting might have turned some voters negative. Some feared that, given the power to adjust how much each factor increased or decreased the athletic count, the OHSAA’s committee would make significant changes without member consent.

Others didn’t like that the proposal could move smaller, successful public schools to higher divisions. Coldwater, for instance, likely would have become a Division IV school in football, moving up from D-V. Eric Goodwin, the Coldwater athletic director, said his main concern was football as the state’s only sport that requires qualification for the postseason.

Last season, Coldwater was the state’s runner-up in D-V, but the Cavaliers wouldn’t even have qualified for the postseason in D-IV because their conference includes mostly smaller schools.

“I’m glad this didn’t pass, but does something need to be done? Probably,” Goodwin said. “But it’s not just public schools, and it’s not just private schools. It’s both.”

Most interviewed about the topic in the past month said they believed the issue wouldn’t end with this year’s voting results. Most agreed that the competitive balance issue is more discussed now than any time in recent memory, making more action in the future likely.

“There’s a lot more buzz about the entire deal,” said Darnell Hoskins, the Thurgood Marshall boys basketball coach. “It’s getting a lot more attention.”

Contact this reporter at  (937) 225-7389 or knagel @DaytonDailyNews.com.