VOTING DAY: What’s your plan for GHSA reclassification?

How about going old school? Go back to regional, sectional, state playoffs with one class for each sport. Whatever we do, I think we need to move back to geography being the first decider instead of size. Maybe splitting the state into regions and then dividing those regions by size. It will be interesting, that is sure.

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At first glance I would say that 6 classifications would be the way to go. It does not however correct the biggest inequity in the current system and that is the rural A and AA schools having to compete with the uber private schools in metro Atlanta and other large population centers.

All you have to do is look at the Directors cup the last 2 years and you will see that a private school won in every classification except AAAAA where there are no private schools. Marist is playing up 2 classifications and has won the directors cup something like 7 years in a row. St. Pius and Woodward finished 1st and 2nd in AAA and they are the only private schools in AAA. So think about a Lincoln County or a Seminole County with 400 students competing against the Weslyans and Landmark Christians.

The GHSA must fix this for these schools to have any chance to compete. As it is now they have created pay and win system. Maybe with 6 classifications you could have a under 500 classification that would alleviate some of this.

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Six classifications. Count enrollment at private schools as 2.5 times actual numbers.
A = 500 and below
AAAAAA = 2500 and above

Divide the rest of the schools in the 4 remaining classes.

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Musa has the right idea: private schools are able to recruit and dominate. There needs to be an effort to enforce parity with public schools that have to work with what they’re given.

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Go to 6 classifications. I’m near a small school (about 600 high school students) where there is talk about them moving up a class. They just got drilled all basketball season by the private Christian schools who go out and recruit. This school needs to remain at the smallest classification. If it takes 6 to accomplish, then so be it.

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In addition, the issue of scholarships offered to players for private schools should be addressed. Our school doesn’t have the resources to offer scholarships and get beat by teams who do offer them. I think that there should be some type of limit for each sport played.

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The GHSA has to do something about schools that allow anyone to enroll (private schools, city schools.) The evidence is overwhelming against the fairness of a small rural school being in the same classification as a Buford or Wesleyan. Whatever happens, these schools must be forced to play up, at least in some sports.

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Until all schools are allowed to have “Open Enrollments” there will never be true equity in athletics. Those schools whose citys/counties restrict them by assigning zones, will rarely if ever be able to , on a consistent basis compete those “Private and/or those schools who are allowed to pull players in from all over the state.

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GMB pretty much said it all. I like the 5 classification system best, but it does need some adjusting. It’s kind of funny that Swearington did not address the biggest concern as to why fans are complaining about the current set up. The teams in A and AA are at a big time disavantage to the city schools ie Buford and a few other city schools that control their numbers in order to stay in the smaller classifications and has a much larger population base to cherry pick as to whom they allow into their schools. If the state were to mandate open enrollment into these city schools then the problem would take care of inself. If these schools refuse to have open enrollment which they have a right to do, then they should be made to move up in classification.

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Start with some new faces on the reclassification committee and the entire executive committee for that matter. Many have been on there for years. Some new ideas and thoughts are needed but the GHSA has historically been a closed shop. Geography will have to be factored in without Swearingen’s selective enforcement of the isolation policy.

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While private schools probably do have a slight advantage and some city schools like Buford have advantages too, not sure their is a way to completely fix that problem. maybe a multiplier (1.25) or similar would help that.

I am not sure going to six classification fixes the biggest problem . I think the biggest problem exist with balancing some regions. I must admit that AAAAA with the exception of having the Savannah schools in it is pretty fair. Sure the population disparity is large in some cases, but realistically it doesnt impact the quality of the overall class.

I would prefer it stay at 5 classes with a minimum enrollment of 2000. And the remaining schools placed into the other 4 classes. But those 4 classses would have 16 regions. This would eliminate some of the travel concerns that teams face who have to play full region schedules. It would allow most schools to schedule at least 3 or 4 non region games against close rivarly schools. For instance Region 6-AAAA played a full region schedule. That eliminated any chance of seeing Stephenson or MLK vs Sw Dekalb Mays vs Washington Marist vs St. Pius. etc. These games not only generate more interest but also increase gate receipts.

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All hail the mighty and all knowing Jimmy Dorsey. As always with him, it’s all about football and nothing else. He has single handedly ran off very good coaches of other sports who were more successful than his precious football team was- just look back at cross country, basketball, or track to name a few. No reason that school hasn’t won more state titles in other sports!

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My previous post has seemingly gotten caught in the filter.

Early County is going to Laney this weekend. 220 miles and no direct route between the towns.

Once upon a time, schools were less than 2,000 kids. But at some point in history the entirety of the metro area seemed to thing that mega schools were the way to go. DeKalb County is closing Avondale. Avondale? Avondale! It’s a very solid Class AA school. Once upon a time, Atlanta had solid public school representation in most classes, from Roswell’s B to Brown’s AAA. I think the first blow was the closure of Sandy Springs. Then DeKalb started opening huge schools, such as Henderson.

Metro Atlanta created its own mess. They still have the shortest travel times and most resources and *they’re* complaining?

You made your bed. It’s unfair to rural Georgia. It’s even more unfair for anyone outside of the metro if you go to six classifications. If you want to fix the system, scale down your high schools.

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Whichever way they go it really just means that South Georgia is going to get screwed again.

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Calhoun is the master of recruiting in AA.25% of the kids who attend Calhoun High School dont live there. 90% of that 25% are athletes.

They have kids from Floyd.Gordon,Whitfield,Murray and Bartow counties.

No one else in 7aa has a chance.

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Six classifications really hurts individual sports like Wrestling. Realistically, whichever current option being discussed that the GHSA decides to adopt still does not solve the North GA vs. South GA problem in terms of travel come playoff time. Any plan they come up with needs to address both geography and size as well as trying to accommodate the different issues in each sport the GHSA sponsors. Granted this is quite the monumental task, but I think one universal solution is not the best path for the GHSA to take if serious changes are going to happen. Give a solution that accomodates the major sports that most schools participate in (Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc.) and allow the sports with more unique challenges (such as wrestling) to establish their own classifications as they deem best for competition. I know thats how its done at least in Pennsylvania. 6 or even 8 state champions in football doesnt seem too bad, but 6-8 individual state champions in 14 different weight classes in wrestling makes absolutely no sense.

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@yo………camden and bradwell can both join the lowndes/valdosta region and let the savannah schools drop down to AAA where they belong

or easy solution, divided the classifications based on geographic location, that would help minimize the travel expense

http://www.youtube.com/thatjohnanderson

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@Musa – I like your idea 6 classifications and a multiplier for private schools. Probably should go back to 1.5 like it was prior to 2009.

Multiplier – There was a multiplier in place (famously called the Tom Murphy rule) 3 years ago but was dropped by the GHSA because of political pressure. The GHSA is going to be very reluctant to re institute this rule.

City Schools – City schools like private schools are also a problem. Schools like (Columbus, Cartersville, Gainesville, Carrollton, and Calhoun) definitely have an advantage. They can accept tuition based students outside of the City limits. In essence making them a quasi private school much like magnets or charters. I am not sure how to fix this. As new laws are enacted each year allowing more school choice for families this is only going to get worse. The GHSA is not going to touch this one.

Scholarships – I have seen many people mention this on this forum and others. Private schools are not giving athletic scholarships per SE. They are suppose to be need based. I said suppose to be. However under a new state law private schools are allowed to form scholarship funds that parents donate money to and then deduct a portion of the amount donated from their taxes. So thanks to our wonderful legislature private schools are now taking public school tax dollars and giving it to needy students (right). This new law is only going to make things worse in the lower classifications as there will be more money than ever for scholarships (athletes ) and greater disparity.

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Let’s get rid of all the sports and just focus on academics. With the shortage of money and teachers being furloughed and the school year being shortened it may be time to let the kids play at recreation departments or on AAU teams and the schools could get out of the sports business. That is the only way the playing field will ever be leveled and we could get away from the recruiting that goes on by the city schools like Carrollton, Calhoun, Buford, etc., and the private schools.

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@John – That is partly true. It is not very practical though in the rural parts of the state. Lets say you live in Wilkes County but want to go to Lincoln County high school. First there must be space available and at many of these small schools there is not. Second you are going to be driving an hour or more each way. Almost all of the City schools that are successful are located in large population centers where a student may actually live closer to a school in another district. Third I can tell you from experience that the school systems must have an agreement in place for this to happen. Fulton County schools got sued by Atlanta Public schools for admitting APS students. Fulton lost the case in State court because they did not have an agreement with APS. This case was decided in August of last year.

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@I don’t like the way it is now…how do you explain that’s some schools like Marist are playing 2 classes above their level which should even the playing field.this was seen when they played chatahoochee in the state playoffs which has twice as many students.

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johnny to good…a classification of 2500 and bigger would only leave Lowndes and Camden in the south. The rest are all smaller except possibly Colquit, but I think them also. So you would have a classification made up of 2 south Ga. schools and metro Atlanta.

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The close to fairest solution that I could come up with would be for the GHSA to realign all schools in the state into conferences arranged by geography with no regard for class and make the playoffs all-inclusive, meaning that during the regular season, schools would play in conferences made up of all classes with their closest geographical neighbors with no worry of qualifying for the playoffs because the playoffs would be all-inclusive with champions being decided and crowned in each of six classes. In this system, the size of school and classification would only matter in the playoffs not in the regular season. This would mean that schools of dramatically different sizes enrollments might play in the same geographical conferences during the regular season, but would compete with other school of similar size and enrollment in an all-inclusive playoff. It should also be noted that smaller schools with similar enrollments and a similar academic and funding make-up, like small private schools, for example, could elect to play in the same conference granted they were relatively geographically close to each other. I readily admit that the all-class regular season and all-inclusive class playoff system isn’t the most desirable setup, but it’s probably the closest to fair that can be found in a state such as Georgia that is an ongoing tale of two of two states with sometimes dozens of new schools opening up yearly in an area with large schools on seemingly every block in Metro Atlanta and North Georgia and little, if any, yearly population change in an area with only a few large schools in South Georgia. One big positive with all-class, all-inclusive playoff system is that reclassification would only affect the playoff class you compete in, not the regular season conference, meaning that groups of teams could stay in a fixed geographical conference for as long as they like and not have to be reclassified into different regions every two years because of normal swings in enrollment, giving more schools the opportunity to build long-term rivalries amongst the same group of geographical neighbors instead of being switched off into a new and different group of foes every two years.

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Should keep the classification, but have city of aps schools play aps schools if you are within 285 you should play teams withing 285

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Savannah area schools play UP for basketball reason and track and field. Savannah area schools usually have somebody to rank high in basketball year in and year out. This year seems to be an exception. I do expect some schools to put together a decent football team at some point. I’m all for an APS classification, that will bring lots of talent back into the city, especially to my Astros over at Douglass. Boy we have been struggling a lot here lately. Our running back left for Stephenson, might know his name, Mike Davis….Yeah that’s him. That’s just a dream for an APS class by itself.

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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.

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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’.”

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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

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Get the private schools out of the whole thing. Their private let them play themselves. Other than that keep it the way it is.

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Why not go back to the North and South champ playing for the state tile? That would solve part of the problem.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!!

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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.

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