Competitive balance still has questions

The Ohio High School Athletic Association on April 6 put its best foot forward toward leveling the playing field between public and non-public schools.

For the first time in state history, schools are subject to competitive balance measures that adjust base enrollment figures by using a muliplier for student-athletes who don’t live within a given school district or who haven’t attended a given district for a specific period of time.

The new system goes into play this coming fall.

Will it work? Will it level that playing field? Color me skeptical. More specifically — with all due respect to the OHSAA and the committees who devised the plan — I’d be surprised if we’re not back at the drawing board in a few years in an attempt to achieve competitive balance between the state’s member schools.

There are too many question marks. Too many loopholes. Before we delve into those, let’s address the obvious.

Let’s be honest: The big beef around the state is non-public schools having a competitive advantage because they can draw from a larger area for their student-athletes than public schools, who are bound by their school district’s boundaries from which to draw their student-athletes.

There’s no denying nonpublic schools are dominating on the state level. In the recently completed state tournaments, three of the four state champions in boys and girls basketball were parochial schools.

Go back to the fall sports season, and six of the seven football state champions were parochial schools, as were all six (three boys, three girls) of the soccer champions.

We could get into other sports, but I think you get the idea.

Non-public schools are dominating the tournaments, which is the primary reason behind the OHSAA’s competitive balance measure being enacted.

But there are concerns. For instance: • What is being achieved besides, proverbially speaking, robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Taking a look at football, far and away the highest-profile sport and the one that stirs the financial drink for any school that fields that sport, only shows a power shift — not a solution.

Division II saw Cincinnati Princeton and Cincinnati LaSalle move up to Division I, but it then “inherited” Akron Hoban, Benedictine and Lake Catholic (among others) from Division III.

Division III lost Hoban, Benedictine and Lake Catholic, but gained Dayton Chaminade, Holy Name, Columbus Hartley and Kettering Alter from Division IV.

Every division saw nonpublic schools its members complained about having to play, but simply replaced them with a different group that moved up.

Except for Division VII, only because there is no Division VIII from which to gain.

Even schools such as West Geauga and Chagrin Falls, which dropped from Division III to Division IV, find the sledding rough.

“At the end of the day, we traded Hoban, Benedictine and Lake Catholic for Ursuline, Mooney and Steubenville,” said West Geauga AD Joe Leonetti, granting his school is “thrilled” to go down a division. “Our new division might be even harder.”

The problem for public schools still exists — there are teams in their division with a competitive advantage. It’s just a different set of teams than before.

• How valid are the numbers being registered by the schools?

That’s a good question. Each school is in charge of submitting its own data for each and every student-athlete not only in their high school, but also in their junior high.

That’s because any student-athlete not in a given school since seventh grade is potentially subject to a multiplier.

When the competitive balance measures were brought to life in 2014, OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross said, “I know the committee and board feels very strongly if someone wants to not play well in the sandbox with this, there would be some very severe penalties.”

Policing this is going to be a nightmare.

Fairport AD Mike Mohner is concerned about the statewide accuracy of numbers being reported — not as much because of underhandedness by schools, but because of the process.

“My overriding concern is the integrity of the process,” Mohner said. “We have 790 entities (i.e. school districts) counted on to be accurate. I’m at a small school, and I can tell you that process is very, very cumbersome. There had to be some inaccuracies and mistakes, unintentional, devious or both.

“That’s part of the reason I think competitive balance is unenforcable.”

• Schools very well could legally — and unfortunately — manipulate their numbers by denying student-athletes opportunities to compete.

For instance, say there are 10 players on a freshman basketball team who are from outside the school district and aren’t very talented. They’re supplemental players or just playing sports at the school recreationally.

Schools might find it beneficial to cut those players and save the school’s enrollment figure rather than keep them on the team.

“I could even see schools eliminate their freshman program to get around it. It would be sad, but I could see it,” Leonetti said. “Coaches aren’t dumb. Some might rather cut a freshman program because it would keep them in a lower division.”

Not everyone who plays high school sports is doing so to get a college scholarship.

They could be cut so as to not hurt their school’s enrollment number, which is harsh, but possible.

• The size discrepancy in Division I still hasn’t been addressed.

Granted, that was not part of this competitive balance measure. But the fact remains, St. Xavier (1,532 adjusted enrollment) and St. Ignatius (1,427 adjusted) are still more than twice the size of the smallest Division I school Findlay (617).

Talk about a competitive disadvantage.

“There was talk about the biggest 32 in one division and then breaking down the rest equally by six,” Mentor football coach Steve Trivisonno said. “It made sense. But it didn’t go through because people thought it was unfair those 32 would automatically get into the playoffs based on size.”

But you’d still think those small Division I schools would much rather play in Division II rather than get hammered by big dogs with more than twice the enrollment number.

This will need to be addressed at some point.

• Is separation of public and non-public schools the answer?

Probably not, for a few reasons.

If the OHSAA separated the tournaments for public and non-public schools, the risk of secession by the non-public schools would be very real.

“Let them go. We don’t need them,” is the common response.

Well, if the public schools are worried about high school free agency and recruiting now — and trust me, they are — imagine what it potentially could be if non-public schools were not bound by current OHSAA rules against it. Secondly, last time I checked, the only state tournaments financially solvent were boys basketball and football.

If holding one state tournament per sport is a financial loser, imagine how bad holding two (one public, one non-public) would be? That is if the non-public schools did not secede from the OHSAA.

Who knows? Maybe the OHSAA’s competitive balance measure will work just as it is supposed to when it kicks off this coming fall.

But it would be a shock if it goes off without a hitch. The guess here is significant tweaks will be needed. That might be low-balling it.