VOTING DAY: What’s your plan for GHSA reclassification?
Loading ...Let’s pretend we’ve appointed you to be on the GHSA’s Reclassification Committee. What’s your best plan? Do you like the existing system of five classifications with minor tweaks? Or do you want to go to something more radical, such as expanding to six classifications?
Then there is the idea of downsizing to 3-4 classifications with 6-8 state championships. Teams would play schools closer in proximity in the regular season and schools close in student enrollment during the playoffs (For example, if you had 100 teams in Class AAA, they would play each other in the regular season. At the start of the playoffs, the largest 50 schools would play for the Div. I championship while the others compete for the Div. II championship).
Or you may have a better plan? Please state your case below and back it with facts and opinions why it may work in Georgia.
Note: I don’t get to vote, but I’m really liking the 3-4 classification, with two state championships per class. It would renew some longtime rivalries during the regular season (i.e., generate more revenue).
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73 comments Add your comment
Walker, Texas Ranger
February 22nd, 2011
8:20 am
Private and City Schools should both have their enrollment counted by 2 times. I also like the idea of a classification be success in each sport. If should be like ALTA tennis. If you win in your classification, you move up. If you finish last in your region, you move down.
Walker, Texas Ranger
February 22nd, 2011
8:21 am
Classification by success and It should be, sorry
Another Voice
February 22nd, 2011
8:40 am
All you people bashing private schools should take note: for every kid in a private school, that’s one less kid in your geographically-determined public school. You think your school is overcrowded? Just think wohat would happen if all the metro-Atlanta private schools ceased to exist. You’d pick up maybe one or two of these elite athletes per sport per local school, but you’d have to stretch your classrooms to fit in all the other students, too. Basically, those private schools help your school tax dollar go further. “Quit yer bitchin’.”
sportsfan2
February 22nd, 2011
8:56 am
The reclassification of schools should be done EVERY YEAR vs every 2 years. . AND if a school goes undefeated in their class, it should be mandated that they automatically move to a higher class of competion , unless they are already AAAAA. This would stop the farce of Buford and others from playing in a recreational league vs real competion and see how good they really are.
Eagle 1
February 22nd, 2011
10:34 am
It doesnt matter what classification Columbia is in they will win the championship in basketball. as long as Tahj is the point guard he will win 4 state championship. One of the best point guard in Ga history. Go Eagles
gcs
February 22nd, 2011
11:01 am
The private schools need to have their own classification.
.
cat doc
February 22nd, 2011
11:38 am
Get the private schools out of the whole thing. Their private let them play themselves. Other than that keep it the way it is.
Dawg
February 22nd, 2011
12:02 pm
If you are going to go to a system where you count private school enrollment as 2.5 times their actual enrollment based on the assumption that they recruit, then they need to be allowed to legally recruit. Contrary to popular belief, most private schools do not recruit. A few that do, give those that don’t a bad name.
old school
February 22nd, 2011
12:29 pm
Why not go back to the North and South champ playing for the state tile? That would solve part of the problem.
Keith M
February 22nd, 2011
12:39 pm
City schools with open enrollment should have to play up based on a multiplier system. That system should be based on population of all border counties as well as the county in which the school sits. That would push Buford, Carver and Calhoun up the ranks.
If you do not think that is fair, explain how a school like Fitzgerald High School that gets students from a total county population of less than 20,000 can compete with a school like Buford that attracts athletes from a the whole metro area.
SportsFan31313
February 22nd, 2011
1:24 pm
Old School,
“old school
February 22nd, 2011
12:29 pm
Why not go back to the North and South champ playing for the state tile? That would solve part of the problem.”
I agree with you.
Blitz51
February 22nd, 2011
2:42 pm
Why in the heck are the Executives in the GHSA looking at this when they need to be looking at the HS inside recruiting going on and allowing students to switch from one high school to another utilizing a loop holes. Basketball and Football has become a joke and the head honcho’s just turns their heads and say there is nothing they can do. The State Legilature sure is being quiet about this as well. What about we straighten up and take some real action. Be like some states where HS to HS transfer is automatically 1 year sit out..no appearl. That would make some of these parents who think Johnny is going to get a D1 scholarship because their personal trainer told them so…. Why is there no outcry, Milton, Wheeler, Buford, Gainsville, what a joke.
Southern by the grace of God
February 22nd, 2011
4:13 pm
Legend of Len Barker, February 22nd, 2011, 1:30 am:
You make some very good points and observations.
“If you arranged by geography, you’d likely have Lowndes playing Atco in football. You really, really don’t want that.”
But the thing is that with the conference system you could arrange the conferences anyway you want. You could setup conferences full of big public schools or conferences full of small private schools or conferences full of small public schools. The geographical conferences could have as few as four schools or as many as 12 (or more) from any class they wanted if thats what the members of that particular conference agreed to and the win-loss record wouldn’t count towards whether or not a team qualifies for postseason play because the postseason would be all-inclusive with class only truly counting in the playoffs. In states that do this, the geographical conferences are arraigned anyway the members want them to be as long as they have at least four teams with no real limit on the amount of teams, although I think that the most teams that are in any conference is like 10-12, but the beauty of it is that the conferences aren’t torn up and reassembled every year due to reclassification as reclassification only affects which class a team will compete in postseason play, not regular season. Each school gets to pick the group of schools that it wants to compete with in the regular season according to its unique academic, financial and geographical needs just like college. The choice of what group of schools a school competes with during the regular season isn’t dictated by the state every 2-4 years or when they feel like it. The biggest thing that I don’t like about all-inclusive playoffs is that teams with really poor records that probably shouldn’t be sniffing the postseason (.400 win pct and below, etc) get included, so that “all-inclusiveness” could be tweaked to where teams with the worst records are excluded from postseason play, but I really like the concepts of letting schools arrange their own conferences according to their own needs.
“You also have a major problem in Savannah. Only one or two schools qualify for AAAAA, but the rest are playing up, including Benedictine. Beach, Johnson, even Savannah High are really AAA or less. I have no idea what they’re thinking over there, but I’m sure Camden enjoys it. A lot.”
Oh, I know that they do, specifically in football.
“The recruiting problem is getting worse and the GHSA has done nothing. They demand the coaches provide proof, instead of paying for their own investigations, but even proof doesn’t matter. Nor has it very often. We had proof in the 1980s that a neighboring county coveted a shooting guard. The principal testified. His mother testified. Nothing.”
From what I understand in the past, the GHSA is very hesitant and even resistant to crack down on “recruiting” and transfers because at the GHSA you have a group of people that believe and have even stated that they think that kids should have the best possible shot available at getting a scholarship to college or whatever and there’s a prevailing undercurrent that kids should have the opportunity to escape from a bad program (bad coaching, poor organization, etc) for the opportunity to have athletic and academic success at better programs (better coaching, organization, community support, etc). Another reason that the GHSA probably isn’t going to address transfers anytime soon is the increasing amount of media attention the state has been getting from national outlets as a rising hotbed for football and basketball recruiting. Citing recent nationally broadcast games like the N. Gwinnett-Crenshaw of CA (in ‘10), Lowndes-Northside WR (in ‘08), Camden County-FL team in ‘10 (can remember which one at the exact moment) in football and Norcross-Oak Hill of VA in ‘06, Norcross-Helen Cox of Louisiana in ‘08, Milton-Oak Hill of VA in ‘10 and the Milton game at the Hoops Hall of Fame in ‘10 in basketball as examples, the GHSA has no intention of standing in the way of the increased media attention and fame that Georgia high school athletics receives from schools being able to go out and assemble athletic teams loaded with nationally ranked individual talents. Is it fair? No, of course it’s not fair when certain schools blessed with an abundance of monetary resources are able to go out and darned near assemble rosters full of Division I/FBS talent at the expense of schools that may lack those same monetary resources and community support.
coach55
February 22nd, 2011
4:18 pm
As a coach at an Atlanta City school, I would support moving to 6 classes. As several have stated before the problem would be the travel distances for those schools in the 6A class. All GHSA would have to do is adjust the size requirement for each class. Almost all the regions in AAAA have sub-regions where as zero in AAAAA have them. That alone should send a red flag to GHSA that the numbers need to be adjusted and some of those schools should be bumped up and others bumped down to balance out the classes.
PureEvil
February 22nd, 2011
4:43 pm
Allow major sports like Football Baseball and Basketball to change class while other sports stay in a lower class. For instance Buford Football is a AA football power. They can’t get Flowery Branch or North Gwinnett to commit to playing them yearly to create a rivalry because FB and North G has nothing to gain from losing to a AA school. Buford should be allowed to move there football team up in class to create a competitive balance. Buford never has close games during the regular season it’s a joke. If Buford was allowed to move up to AAA and play in the same region with Gainesville and the other Hall County school or even all the way up to AAAA to play in region with Flowery Branch while the Baseball and other sports stayed in AA. I know it would be complicated but there could be restrictions put on the schools making it rare that it can happen. Make it where the school couldn’t change the region alliance of individual sports more than 1 time every 10 years. Its not right for a school to play in AA in one sport and murder all the competition while all the other sports struggle allow them to play competition on there level.
Old Gold Panther
February 23rd, 2011
3:35 am
After looking at the region map on GSHA.net http://www.ghsa.net/2010-2011-region-alignment-map I have a radically idea that just could work. This idea would include all the teams and would end in 1 true state champion. We have a total of 433 schools in GHSA. We should structure all these schools in 32 regions by geography. This would lead to 12-14 teams per region (13.5 to be exact). Break these regions down into two divisions which would be 6 or 7 teams, also by geography. Now this would be interesting because there would be some of the “BIG BOYS” and the “Smaller schools” in the same DIV breakdowns. But it would lead to some intense crosstown rivalries which is always good. Schools could still schedule 3 or 4 non region games but then would only play schools in their DIV during the reg season. The top team from each division would then play each other for a “REAL” Region Championship and 1 of the 32 spots in a true state playoff. In the end 1 champion would remain! The reason behind this idea is if you look at the map schools could easily be divided into regions and divisions based on geography. Plus the majority of the schools would play schools they are already play now or want to play now. This could work esp. if we are willing to throw out this made up notion that teams can’t compete with others just because of school size. Cook (AA) beat Colquit (AAAAA state runner up) and many other teams can and will compete and beat the “BIG SCHOOLS” Just think of the money the regular season would generate with schools so closely located playing each other every year. Region championship games would generate even more; in a winner take all for a spot in the playoffs. Battles would start to develop between DIV. This would also eliminate long travel in the playoffs at least in ealier rounds b/c quite naturally the early round games would be against regions located close togther. Realignment would be eliminated b/c school size wouldn’t matter; if new schools are built just simply add them in where they geographically fit. I think It would be a very interesting season if done like this.
guwinster
February 23rd, 2011
11:20 am
Adding a 6th classification would almost certainly affect the smaller schools (who can afford travel less) more than the bigger schools. AAAAA is already the smallest class. If all of region 3AAAAA save Camden ever were to drop, there wouldn’t be enough schools left to make AAAAA any smaller. Thus, the extra class would likely take schools from AAAA (which already has the state’s biggest geographical region) and the even smaller classes which are also really spread out in the south.
Topper
February 23rd, 2011
5:08 pm
Legend of Len Barker- Trust me as a Camden fan I would much rather see us facing the likes of Lowndes and Valdosta than Savannah or Groves! I really wish they would make the Savannah schools play where they belong!
SportsFan
February 24th, 2011
8:29 am
Private schools should have thier own classifications in state playoffs.
Regions can have teams from different classification such as Pope 4A plays in the same region as Lassiter 5A but should be within 1 or 2 classification. So if you have a 5 in your region you cannot have a 2. This would cut down transportation costs and insure rivals play. Public schools State playoff would be based on size of school but teams in lower divsion that won the playoff for their classification are moved up 1 classification if not 5A. Everyone gets into playoff but some teams based on ranking or record get at least 1 bye. Teams moved up that do not get to at least the quarter finals are then moved back down the next year.
Durden fan
February 25th, 2011
9:43 am
Gene Durden at Buford has been successful everywhere he has coached. Not only at talent populated Buford, but at his previous two schools as well. Dade is not a metropolis by any stretch of the imagination. Don’t take away the fact Buford may have talent, but those girls work as hard as anyone in the nation.
MtnMama
February 25th, 2011
10:14 pm
I don’t care so much if it’s 4, 5 or 6 classifications…but PLEASE lets split the Public and Private schools in Class A to make it a “fair fight” when it comes to playoff time. Small npublic schools with 400 and fewer students just cannot compete with the “recruiting” that goes on in the private schools. Let them play each other in the regular season….but divide them when you get to playoffs…PLEASE!!
BackToThePast
February 28th, 2011
12:48 am
Why do we have to have this region crossover crap? Go back to the old school way of doing things. Tackle distance and travel first. For playoffs, Regions 1-4 never plays a team from Region 5-8 until the state championship. No one would mind the travel for a state championship game. You would have the South Ga Champion meeting the North Ga Champion for the title.
Hal
April 7th, 2011
6:38 pm
All these people saying to multiply private school enrollment numbers, make them play up, etc. etc… Why do people think all private schools have an unfair advantage? While this would help alleviate the problem posed by schools like Wesleyan, Westminster, Marist, and Darlington, this would be totally unfair to the private schools’ whose status is actually a handicap. I am associated with a class A private school that plays against school like Darlington and North Cobb Christian, and believe me, our private school status has done nothing but hurt us in terms of getting and keeping athletes, while thirs has helped them. It sounds to me like a bunch of people who just assume that all private schools have an abundance of money and great athletes breaking down the door to play for them. This opinion, for some reason, seems to be shared mostly by the “good old boy” set who can only name the few private schools that appear in the papers. Schools should be seperated based on their athletic department’s budgets and, in private school’s cases, the number of athletes on financial aid, into five conferences. Each conference should have a fifth of the total member schools in the GHSA. This way, nobody associated with public schools could complain about private schools always using vast sums of money to their advantage, and nobody associated with private schools could complain about public schools using their often superior numbers to their advantage.