1. The Ohio High School Athletic Association Competitive Balance Plan will begin in the fall of 2017. This is the landmark initiative passed by association members in the spring of 2014 to address “a level playing field” concerning a disproportionate amount of success, specifically state championships, enjoyed by private schools compared to public.
The CBP initially was to begin this fall but was postponed. Its debut will coincide with the OHSAA’s two-year cycle of enrollment adjustment. It will assign a numerical value to each player on every roster of every sport. Those accumulative numbers will determine which division a team will be assigned for postseason play.
Each school — public or private — will declare one feeder school that’s located in its district. A student’s status will be based on if they live in that district or not and how long.
Roster members whose parents have lived in the assigned public school district since that player was in seventh grade: 0 value.
An open-enrolled student who has been in the district since seventh grade: 1.
A football player who lives outside the district in which open enrollment is not offered: 2.
All other players in all other sports who live outside the district in which open enrollment is not offered: 5-6.
The process will begin with the Education Management Information System (EMIS) value for every student. This has been in place since 1989 and defines financial data, demographics, attendance and course info of secondary schools.
“If you’re out recruiting everybody from everywhere, you’re probably going to move up (a division),” OHSAA Commissioner Dr. Dan Ross said.
“An AD in Northwest Ohio said, ‘I don’t mind playing somebody who’s getting their kids form everywhere, but there ought to be some kind of a modification of what division they’re in. I want my parents to look across the field and know they got their kids the same way we got our kids and if they didn’t, there’s a modification in how that occurred.’ That’s what this system is going to do.”
2. A software takeover is the main reason for the delay of the CBP implementation. Two years ago the OHSAA’s software partner Digital Scout was purchased by another company. The OHSAA then partnered with Arbiter Software, a national firm in Woodbury, Minn., that specializes in massive databanks that keep track of such things as scheduling and assigning and paying referees throughout the state.
The switch was necessitated when Digital Scout, the company that ran myOHSAA.org and provided statewide live stats and scores and schedules among other things, was purchased by a video streaming conglomerate. The takeover won’t be complete until this summer but OHSAA already is weaning itself off Digital Scout.
The myOHSAA.org site will end “because the support system isn’t going to be there,” Ross said.
3. Are you ready for some eight-man football?
The OHSAA’s Emerging Sports Committee has looked into this for about a year. Having both eight- and 11-man football in other states is relatively common, but not in Ohio. That might change.
Rural schools, especially in the northwest and southeast part of the state, are especially interested because of declining numbers. It’s not uncommon for those schools to field teams with 20 or less players, which often includes freshmen.
“We’ve had a lot of schools asking about eight-man football,” Ross said.
4. The football state championships will remain in Columbus at OSU’s Ohio Stadium in 2016, then shift back to Stark County and Canton’s Hall of Fame Village for 2017-18. The only hiccup is that was supposed to happen this year, except the Village remains a work in progress.
Village plans are to include a hotel, conference center, youth fields, retail, restaurants and a renovation of Fawcett Stadium. All that would be located near the stadium and would include the purchase of neighboring housing.
There would be one other noticeable difference: None of the title games would be played at Massillon’s Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.
5. Moving the girls and boys state tennis tournaments from Ohio State University on Columbus to the Lindner Family Tennis Center at Mason last fall cut OHSAA’s state tourney expense in half.
The girls state tourney, anchored in the fall, lost $5,601 in 2014 at OSU. That deficit was trimmed to $2,181 in the debut of the Lindner Center. Costs include officials, balls and rental fees.
“For us, that’s a good thing,” Ross said. “We’re trying to get any tournament that (expenses are) in the red to be less red.”
Bonus thing
The OHSAA is on board with rugby-style tackling. This is the method that has long been in place for the sport that features no pads or helmet but plenty of black-and-blue action. It also has been embraced by NFL teams and college powers such as Ohio Sate.
Like Heads Up Tackling promoted by USA Football, rugby-style technique eschews leading with the head to deliver a blow, whether playing offense or defense.
Ross also can do without peewee football.
“If you’re talking about concussions, it’s the culmination of hits from about 4 years old to junior high, that’s a lot of hits,” he said. “I’ve seen kids who wear helmets bigger than they are and they’re doing the hamburger drill. That’s got to go. I seriously think (peewee) football needs to go. Flag football will help. It’s a whole lot less contact.”
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