Interesting in AL re:AHSAA
- Thread starter Wesson Bulldog
- Start date
^ a couple of paragraphs from the news article.
- the AHSAA was created due to a federal court order? (Ah- googled and it was due to an order in 1968 concerning desegregation efforts.)
- at least half the boards would need to be appointed by various elected government leaders, which would equate to 15 or more members. So the board has at least 30 members.
- 2 of the leaders are in Alabama's Executive and 2 of the leaders are in Alabama's Legislative. Those branches very well could politically conflict(though it hasnt in the last 15 years), so I wonder how the 15 AHSAA board members would be selected if/when the 4 elected leaders are of conflicting parties.
Well this is certainly interesting. At first, second, and third glance- it doesnt seem like something that is being done out of benefit to students. But I am open to someone explaining why it is a good idea. There certainly are scenarios I cant think of, so maybe those are all legitimate reasons to make at least half the AHSAA board politically appointed.
Odd- if the regular season is played together, why not the playoffs too? Privates can be hit with a 1.5x or 1.65x multiplier to determine what size class they should be in for playoffs to help even things out.
And if that wouldn't work, then why play the regular season together?
We've had threads about this before. The multiplier and forcing schools to move up when they are successful have really angered a lot of parents. I previously shared about the school who's girls basketball team success is forcing their boys team to play up way higher than they should be. That's just one example. If you go and look at some of the other sports, it's much worse. There are 2A schools by size who've abandoned sports like tennis because they had a strong class that raised them too high and now they are forced to play 6A tennis with a handful of 8th graders and one upperclassman. Soccer is also really unbalanced. Basically any sport where both girls and boys play.
Your kid only gets one shot at high school sports and a lot of folks have watched their kid's team be unfairly handicapped by rules that allegedly make it fair but have an outsized negative effect on smaller private schools.
Your kid only gets one shot at high school sports and a lot of folks have watched their kid's team be unfairly handicapped by rules that allegedly make it fair but have an outsized negative effect on smaller private schools.
The AHSAA is trying to compromise to keep the Alabama privates from leaving and forming their own group (They would not return to the barely existing AISA)
Pretty aggressive but I guess we can try - how much water do you think we'll have to pump in to fill it up?
Forcing every sport at a school to go up in class due to the success of a single sport at that school is insane.
That is different from just applying a multiplier for any private schools.
If there is a system in place that bases class on sport success, then it should only apply to specific sports within a school. Girls bowling winning state 10 years in a row shouldnt mean Boys basketball has to move up 4 classes.
They don’t do that. They go up by sport. A football team can go up to 4A while the tennis and volleyball teams are in 2A. I think his point is that a team wins a state championship with a senior laden class and then they go up a classification in the next realignment and the group of younger players who aren’t as good are playing in a higher classification than they should.
Thank you for clarifying.
He said that a boys basketball team had to play up multiple classes because the school's girls basketball team was successful, so it sounds like he is mistaken.
As to your point, I would hope there would be a multi-year analysis for teams that should move up or not- so small schools arent subject to what you describe just because there was 1 year of great success. Like a 3 year rolling average or something.
But if a team is forced to move up due to their prior year's success, I would think they would also be able to quickly move down after one year, if they struggled due to young players.
So its one season of not having success at the state level(they could still play similar sized teams/conference teams during the regular season) and then they move back to where they should be based on ability.
The AHSAA reclassifies every two years. If you get moved up or down, you’re there for two years until the next reclassification.
I don't know what the right way is. I do know that the MAIS is about to implode, and what they are doing is amongst the dumbest things ever pursued in organized sport.
I tend to believe that a performance promotion system would work best in Mississippi if the privates ever mass join the MHSAA. Jackson Academy volleyball, Jackson Prep baseball - those are two examples where I think they could be competitive and possibly win MHSAA 7A year in and year out. But there are examples where a school has a talented class that will not be competitive if they move up.
An enrollment index would be tough to push in Mississippi because there are private schools that are already in the MHSAA that have not been subject to that in the past.
Maybe the answer is fewer classifications. Instead of 7, go to 3. Some states still have one class.
Class III: 32 largest schools (currently 825+)
Class II: 64 next biggest schools (currently 370-824)
Class I: everyone else (currently 369 and under)
Of course that's less playoff teams, less champions, less money for the MHSAA, and we can't have that.
I tend to believe that a performance promotion system would work best in Mississippi if the privates ever mass join the MHSAA. Jackson Academy volleyball, Jackson Prep baseball - those are two examples where I think they could be competitive and possibly win MHSAA 7A year in and year out. But there are examples where a school has a talented class that will not be competitive if they move up.
An enrollment index would be tough to push in Mississippi because there are private schools that are already in the MHSAA that have not been subject to that in the past.
Maybe the answer is fewer classifications. Instead of 7, go to 3. Some states still have one class.
Class III: 32 largest schools (currently 825+)
Class II: 64 next biggest schools (currently 370-824)
Class I: everyone else (currently 369 and under)
Of course that's less playoff teams, less champions, less money for the MHSAA, and we can't have that.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah that could be tough for some teams when it comes to state level play.
It's not every sport. It's sport specific. But it crosses gender lines because of travel. So if your girls tennis team wins state several times in a row, it doesn't matter if your boys team is awful, they must move up with the girls. Also, when those mini-Serenas graduate, you stay up. So if your daughter is middling at tennis but there are superstars a few years ahead of her at Slapout Christian Academy, she better get ready to play the best of the best and get her head beat in by Mountain Brook High because that's what's gonna happen when they graduate.
If you're going to have a promotion system, it needs to be for 1 year only and you get relegated back if you finish last in your division. And it needs to be only the one sport that got promoted. If your boys and girls basketball team get put in different classes, they can still schedule boy-girl doubleheaders at their discretion.
Surprisingly, there are a couple “bad actor” public schools that have been the benefit of a surge of “transfer” students who just so happen to be students athletes. In Alabama, you can attend another public school out of your district and pay “tuition” or is you have a bonfide move, you can also play. Some schools/boosters are paying for apartments to give these star athletes an address to list as their home even though they don’t live there. There is now a task force to look at how many transfers each school is getting, but the worry is that the AHSAA is going to make a rash judgement and split public and private. Alabama is apparently the only state that double punishes private schools with a 1.35 student multiplier AND competitive balance.
Here is info on Arkansas' Competitive Equity Factor - they do not have a index - private schools are auto bumped up one class, so they are double punishing private schools as well.
www.si.com
Non-public schools, or private schools, already are elevated one classification. The Competitive Equity Factor could elevate a school one additional classification for earning 10 competitive balance points over a four-year period, which includes:
4 -- state championship
3 -- runner-up in a state championship game
2 -- playoff victory
1 -- conference championship
Points are not cumulative and the most points a team can earn in a season is four.
Teams also can be dropped a classification for earning two points or fewer. @patdog, this is even better than your last place relegation. One playoff win or less in a four year period and you drop down.
Arkansas’ new Competitive Equity Factor will level playing field between public and private school programs
The Competitive Equity Factor utilizes a formula for determining whether a non-public school has been overly competitive in a sport in its assigned classification over a four-year span.
www.si.com
Non-public schools, or private schools, already are elevated one classification. The Competitive Equity Factor could elevate a school one additional classification for earning 10 competitive balance points over a four-year period, which includes:
4 -- state championship
3 -- runner-up in a state championship game
2 -- playoff victory
1 -- conference championship
Points are not cumulative and the most points a team can earn in a season is four.
Teams also can be dropped a classification for earning two points or fewer. @patdog, this is even better than your last place relegation. One playoff win or less in a four year period and you drop down.
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What brand gov is he? Lot of sudden desire for government to have their nose in everything. Odd.
I like relegation. Would love to see it start happening in some form in the US. Not many things I want from Europe...
It is interesting to see how high school sports are handled from state to state.
Here, and elsewhere too, the class a school or team is in has no bearing on who it plays during the regular season. We have tournaments where 1a and 5a schools are competing. And tournaments frequently feature 2a to 4a schools. Even weeknight games and matches can be 1a vs 4a or whatever other mix- the schools schedule against other schools regardless of class size for each team.
If a school program wants to play higher level competition, then they seek it out before each season when schedules are set- weeknight and weekend tournaments. If a school program wants lower level competition, then they seek that out at the same time.
Here, classification is only causally related to talent level. Many 2a programs are significantly better than most 4a or 5a programs in many sports.
Once state regional competition starts, that is when classification matters. But besides the last couple weeks of the season, a school's class size is basically irrelevant.