Expansion Vote Thursday

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EuclidandViren

Well-known member
NEWS RELEASE – Ohio High School Athletic Association

Executive Director Doug Ute


www.OHSAA.org | twitter.com/OHSAASports | facebook.com/OHSAAsports


For Immediate Release – Feb. 14, 2024

Contact – Tim Stried, Director of Media Relations, tstried@ohsaa.org


OHSAA Expansion Proposal Will Go to Board of Directors Thursday

Details announced for using new formula to determine the number of divisions in each sport


COLUMBUS, Ohio – Doug Ute, Ohio High School Athletic Association Executive Director, has announced that he will make a proposal to the OHSAA Board of Directors on Thursday (Feb. 15) at the board’s regularly-scheduled February meeting to amend General Sports Regulation 17, which determines how many tournament divisions should be used for each sanctioned sport.


The proposal follows months of discussion with the board and six recent regional meetings with member schools in each of the OHSAA’s athletic districts. The board could approve all of the proposal, none of the proposal, certain parts of the proposal, or delay all or parts of the proposal to a future meeting. For any parts of the proposal that are approved, the board will also determine the year of implementation.


The proposal affects the sports of soccer, girls volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball. The board will continue to discuss additional sports, noting several recent meetings regarding track and field.


“Ohio is the fourth-largest state in our country in terms of the number of schools, but in many cases, our number of divisions don’t reflect that size compared to smaller states,” Ute said. “Any time you can give more kids the opportunity to have a postseason tournament run and get their communities engaged and excited, that’s a good thing, and we don’t believe that having more state champions waters down the significance of winning a championship. This proposal is membership-driven in terms of the feedback I’ve received since becoming the executive director in 2020 and I have been talking about this concept with our board for almost a year now. The majority of the feedback we received from the regional meetings that we just completed was positive about expansion.


“This proposal finally addresses the enrollment disparity in Division I and Division II, where the largest schools are sometimes three times larger than the smaller schools in the same division,” Ute said. “We anticipate expanding the number of divisions will be a revenue-neutral change, so this is not driven by money. We will certainly need to restructure the tournaments and add host sites, etc., which will take time and work by our staff, district athletic boards and member schools.


The proposal does not include any expansion to the football postseason, which is already at seven divisions. In addition, any changes to the current deployment of the Competitive Balance process would need to be voted upon by OHSAA member schools during the annual referendum voting process.


Each year, the Board of Directors would still have final authority in determining how many divisions to be used that school year, but the proposal calls for the following scale to be used to guide the board’s decision on the number of divisions for girls volleyball, football, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, however note that the sports of lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey and boys volleyball would not change from their current division numbers:

199 or fewer teams: 1 Division

200 to 299 teams: 2 Divisions

300 to 399 teams: 3 Divisions

400 to 499 teams: 4 Divisions

500 to 599 teams: 5 Divisions

600 to 699 teams: 6 Divisions

700 and more teams: 7 Divisions


For girls volleyball, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, the largest 64 schools would be placed into Division I. The next largest 64 schools would be placed into Division II. The remaining schools would be divided as evenly as possible into the remaining divisions. The OHSAA already does something similar to this in football, in which the largest 10 percent of schools are placed into Division I and the remaining schools are divided evenly in Divisions II through VII.


The proposal does not call for a change to the formula that the OHSAA uses for individual sports to determine the number of student-athletes required for team designation, which includes five in bowling, five in cross country (who score for their team at the district tournament), four in golf, three in girls gymnastics, seven in swimming and diving, four in tennis, nine in track and field and seven in wrestling.


The proposal calls for the following number of divisions to be used for individual sports:

200 or fewer teams: 1 Division

201 to 450 teams: 2 Divisions

451 to 700 teams: 3 Divisions

701 and more teams: 4 Divisions


OHSAA member schools vote to determine any changes to the bylaws or constitution via the referendum process each spring. Member schools also vote for representatives for their District Athletic Boards, who are then selected to serve on the State Board of Directors on a three-year term. The Board of Directors are then charged with reviewing and approving the General Sports Regulations on behalf of the OHSAA membership. The OHSAA General Sports Regulations do not go to the member schools for voting and are posted at: https://ohsaaweb.blob.core.windows.net/files/Sports/GeneralSportsRegulations.pdf


If the increased number of divisions is approved by the board, the OHSAA will announce structural and dates changes for future state tournaments at a later date.



Tim Stried

Director of Media Relations

Ohio High School Athletic Association

614-267-2502, ext. 124 office

tstried@ohsaa.org

www.OHSAA.org

www.Twitter.com/OHSAASports

www.Facebook.com/OHSAASports

614-267-1677 fax

4080 Roselea Place

Columbus, OH 43214
 
 
The proposal affects the sports of soccer, girls volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball. The board will continue to discuss additional sports, noting several recent meetings regarding track and field.

The OATCCC voice has been heard. We will see if anything more comes from this voice.
 
For Immediate Release – Feb. 15, 2024
Contact – Tim Stried, Director of Media Relations, tstried@ohsaa.org

OHSAA Board of Directors Approves Expansion Proposal
Soccer, girls volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball adding divisions starting in 2024-25

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After months of discussion and meetings around Ohio to gather feedback, the Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors unanimously approved a proposal Thursday morning to utilize a new formula to determine how many divisions will be offered for postseason tournaments. The change affects OHSAA General Sports Regulation 17 and will result in girls and boys soccer now having five divisions, while girls volleyball, girls and boys basketball, softball and baseball will all have seven divisions. In those sports, Division I and Division II will only include 64 schools.

The new divisions will go into effect with the fall of 2024. The board will continue to discuss additional sports, noting several recent meetings regarding track and field. There are no changes to the number of football divisions, which is already at seven. In addition, any changes to the current deployment of the Competitive Balance process would need to be voted upon by OHSAA member schools during the annual referendum voting process.

Doug Ute, OHSAA Executive Director, praised the board’s decision as a step toward to level the playing field of OHSAA tournaments.

“It’s the right thing to do for the student-athletes who have been competing at this disadvantage,” said Ute. “For too long, the largest schools in our divisions have been so much larger than the smaller schools in the same division, which has resulted in many schools accepting that they realistically have little chance at making a run in the tournament. In some of our sports, there have been more than 200 schools competing for a state title in that division, which is significantly more than what most other states do, and what we do in many of our own sports.

“We know that there is a lot of work to do in the coming months to prepare for additional divisions this fall,” Ute said. “We have already started working on the details to accomplish this, but one thing we know for sure is that having two or three more state champions in these sports doesn’t water them down or diminish winning a state title. And we anticipate that this new format will be revenue neutral, since every school makes the tournament already.”
 
Noting several meetings regarding track and field.

I believe this is a nice way diplomatically to please constituents by saying we hear you, but we are not acting on the issue.
 
So girls cross country (472 teams) and wrestling (465) are moving close to dropping to two divisions. Since 450 teams is the cut-off from 2 to 3.

This should end any discussion of possibly having 5 divisions. No way will OHSSA going to consider that after making this announcement.
 
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CC Track Fan said:
So girls cross country (472 teams) and wrestling (465) are moving close to dropping to two divisions. Since 450 teams is the cut-off from 2 to 3.

This should end any discussion of possibly having 5 divisions. No way will OHSSA going to consider that after making this announcement.
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I can’t see them shrinking wrestling.
 
I would think (hope) that the OHSAA and the board of control would use common sense for these numbers or some group would be able to educate them to enlighten their thinking on these number so girl's CC and wrestling would lose divisions.... if the number disparity is really their concern. We also need to continue to inform coaches and school personal.
Both wrestling and girls cross country have 100+ schools that sponsor teams for those sports but, do not have the required number to compete at the district level to be considered a team. Many of these schools DO have the required number on their rosters, but, for whatever reason, do not enter some kids. This past season there were probably close to 40 schools in girls cross country (and boy's CC too for that matter) that had 5 or more on their team during the regular season but did not finish 5 at the District. In some cases, 1 or 2 from a team may drop out or get injured during the district race so they only finish 4 (or less) team members. Other times someone gets injured, or miss the bus, prior to the race so they can't compete at the district.... Just look around at a District race and notice how may kids are in a boot, some of those kids are from schools who didn't have 5 finishers in the race. Still, others have 5 plus team members, but only enter those who can compete as the coaches (or AD) do not even know that 5 must finish the district race to be considered a team.
 
True. But I do believe at a recent OHSAA board meeting they discussed this subject. The conclusion of dropping down was not a possibility. OHSAA wants to keep the current structure in place for these sports.

As for runners in XC to make a full team. We used to do the ghost runner scoring system.

Why has this scoring gone by the wayside? As long as a team had 3 finishers they would score. Many states use this system. This is really important for leagues and conferences in my opinion for small school districts. This allows every team to have a finishing score.

I would argue in team sports like soccer and basketball sometimes teams do not finish with 11 players in soccer and 5 in basketball. You could see this with Red Cards and fouling out. This year in football I watched a game dilapidated by injuries only use 10 at times.

Using a ghost running system validates the schools and give them a team score. But this is a bigger issue because OHSAA defines XC and track as individual sports with tennis, golf, swimming, and wrestling. They do not validate them as team sports according to their rules. In order to achieve this status OHSAA would have to change the definitions. OHSAA believes that the best will qualify regardless of the team status. Which is inherently not true.
 
Every state surrounding Ohio – High School Athletic Associations only requires one athlete in Track & Field to count as a school having the sport as they can place as a team in the District, Regional and State Championships. There are around 100 plus schools in Ohio that would be counted if the one athlete rule was used. A few years back, Warren JFK won a Boys Division III OHSAA State Track & Field Championships but the OHSAA didn’t include them as a school having a team since they had fewer than 9 boys on the team. They still took home the trophy…
 
runohio said:
Every state surrounding Ohio – High School Athletic Associations only requires one athlete in Track & Field to count as a school having the sport as they can place as a team in the District, Regional and State Championships. There are around 100 plus schools in Ohio that would be counted if the one athlete rule was used. A few years back, Warren JFK won a Boys Division III OHSAA State Track & Field Championships but the OHSAA didn’t include them as a school having a team since they had fewer than 9 boys on the team. They still took home the trophy…
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Are you questioning the wisdom of OHSAA decisions of the past? :banana: :p :stirthepot:
 
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