Ed Domsitz admits he’s a little bewildered by it all.

The Alter High School football coach will be watching with great interest as schools in the Ohio High School Athletic Association vote on the controversial Competitive Balance Proposal, which has been touted as a way to level the playing field between public and nonpublic schools.

Included in that proposal is a tradition factor wherein schools’ enrollment numbers, or athletic counts, could be increased based on the most recent four years of postseason advancement. The higher the count, the better the chance of being in a higher division.

When people at Alter hear that, they take notice.

“That’s the part I have the greatest difficulty with,” Domsitz said. “We could conceivably add 70, 75 boys if this passes. We’ve only got so many live boys in our school.

“I say give me 70 more boys, and I’ll bet I can find five good football players in that group,” he added.

That, of course, wouldn’t be the way it works.

The Greater Catholic League Knights, who have made three straight Division IV state appearances and won titles in 2008 and ’09, already are figuring to move up to Division III next season based on raw enrollment numbers. If competitive balance passes, there is a possibility that Division II will be in Alter’s football future.

“I don’t know where they got the four years — if you would take the last two years, that would be more reasonable,” Domsitz said. “The kids in our program now had very little to do with our program in 2007.

“If you take the tradition factor out, there might be a little more support around,” he continued. “I don’t have a problem with a level playing field, but give me a level playing field. Kicking me up one division, I can probably deal with that. We were in the Division III state finals in 2006. But kicking me up two divisions? Come on. That would be pretty wild.”

The current proposal covers the sports of football, boys and girls soccer and basketball, girls volleyball, baseball and softball. In the past four years, public schools have won 64 state titles in those sports. Private schools have won 60, although the totals are somewhat skewed because public schools have won all 16 softball titles contested since 2007.

The tradition factor doesn’t discriminate against public or nonpublic schools. If you advance to the regional finals or beyond, your athletic count is going up.

OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross concedes that the tradition factor is the least popular element of the Competitive Balance Proposal (the other parts are socioeconomic and school boundary issues).

He knows schools think they’re being punished for being good with the tradition factor. But he insists that’s not the intent.

“When you try to identify how kids go from one place to another, tradition is part of that decision,” Ross said. “Those kinds of programs will draw families in. If we’re looking for factors that affect how students choose where to go, we have to consider that.”

His point: The tradition factor doesn’t just measure success. It also measures how attractive a school is to student-athletes and their parents.

It sounds like a reasonable rationale ... to some people. The view from successful programs is a little different.

Punish winners?

Hamilton Badin’s baseball program has been to the Division III state tournament the past three seasons, losing in the title game in 2008 and ’09. If the proposal passes, the Rams might be headed back to Division II.

Badin has had D-II success in the past, so the possibility of moving up doesn’t bother veteran coach Rick Kunkel. What bothers him is the idea behind the Competitive Balance Proposal in general and the tradition factor in particular.

“Why should there be anything that says that a team has to play up just because they’re better than most teams in their division?” Kunkel said. “That’s entitlement stuff again. It’s ridiculous. That’s against everything this country is about.

“Why would you do that?” he continued. “So every little Johnny can play for a state championship? Well, they’re still not going to win. Get better, that’s what I tell them. They can’t give me a logical reason for it other than trying to patronize the teams that are bad.”

In Kunkel’s view, the athletic have-nots want a better situation without doing anything to earn it.

“All it amounts to is jealousy,” Kunkel said. “If it’s about recruiting, then enforce the recruiting rules. Everyone wants to reinvent the wheel because one person makes a mistake. Don’t punish everybody by the faults of a few.”

Alter Athletic Director Chris Hart, who doubles as her school’s girls basketball coach, said football, girls basketball, boys soccer and girls volleyball could be pushed upward by the tradition factor.

“With the way it’s written now, the other two factors wouldn’t really jeopardize where we are division-wise,” Hart said. “How can we feel, then, that we’re not being punished for being successful?”

Fenwick is still savoring the Division III state title it won on the volleyball court last November. But reaching the state tournament twice and the regional finals once in the past three years could have the Falcons on the move to D-II if competitive balance becomes the rule.

“From what everybody is telling me, we’re moving (up if it passes),” Fenwick coach Yoon Ha said. “So be it. I just don’t bat an eye. We already play one of the toughest schedules around. We could go all the way to D-I and it wouldn’t change what I do.”

Ha is all about raising expectations and working to get there.

“I coached at Troy and Springboro, and I never looked at it like, ‘What is Ursuline doing? What is Alter doing? What is St. Ursula doing?’ ” Ha said. “You’ve just got to work harder. Figure out what you have to do to get better and work your butt off.

“The thing I don’t like about this whole thing is, I heard this proposal is the first cut,” he continued. “When is the formula going to be right? When the team that is complaining gets to the state finals?”

Public perspective

At its core, the Competitive Balance Proposal is designed to help public schools compete on a more proportional basis against nonpublic schools.

The tradition factor, though, hits every program that consistently wins in the postseason, and the reaction among public schools hasn’t been as enthusiastic as expected.

Tucked away in the rural northwest corner of the state is Edgerton. The Division VI Bulldogs are in a region with a private-school football juggernaut, Delphos St. John’s.

Edgerton is winless in three trips to the playoffs. Last fall, St. John’s put a 73-21 beating on the Bulldogs.

“It’s tough,” Edgerton Athletic Director Matt Ripke said. “We bring 34, 35 kids from grades 9 through 12 for varsity football. At Delphos, they’re in the 80s or 90s.”

Still, Ripke said his school is taking a long look at its vote on the Competitive Balance Proposal.

“Around here, we have primarily smaller public schools,” Ripke said. “There is somewhat of a feeling that it would help. But there’s a lot of unknowns about what the OHSAA could do after the fact. How is the Board of Directors going to change things if it does pass?”

Anna is a public school that would see its girls basketball count altered by the tradition factor after winning the Division III state crown in March. That bump won’t be enough to send the Rockets into D-II. Indeed, the Anna girls are very close to dropping to D-IV.

But Rockets coach Jack Billing is like many of his counterparts. He said that increasing a program’s athletic count because it’s successful probably isn’t the best path to follow.

“We need to keep the public and private schools together,” Billing said. “I want to play the best competition we can play. In girls sports, it doesn’t matter as much what your division is. If you can play, you can play.”

Billing believes the nonpublic schools eventually will break away from the OHSAA, even if that leads to the association forbidding its members from playing the defectors in regular-season games.

“What’s going to keep the private schools from going out of state and playing 35 games?” Billing said. “Kids in rural areas would probably stay where they are, but I think you’d see more AAU/JO kids in the cities. AAU already hurts some programs.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2194 or rcassano@coxohio.com.