Survey from OATCCC concerning the creation of 4 divisions for Track and Field

The_Rocco

Active member
Doug Joy, the OATCCC president just emailed all OATCCC members concerning a survey about having 4 divisions. Here the info (the table in the email didn't convert correctly to this thread so I took it out):


I wanted to inform our membership that a survey will be coming out this week in regards to track having four divisions (from the OHSAA).....it is extremely important that you talk to your athletic directors, and superintendents about voting positively to this survey. This survey will help determine whether we get the four divisions. I have provided some stats that support our case for the four division proposal:



This data shows:
1. Girls T & F participation is the highest in the OHSAA, and boys T & F is second to football.
2. Both boys and girls T & F participation have increased over the past 4 years.
3. Both boys and girls T & F have more participants than the five sports that currently have 4 divisions (boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball).



B. NATIONAL COMPARISON STATS (source: NFHS)
1. Ohio is the 7th most populous state and has the 2nd highest number of participants in track and field nationally, but 31 states have more athletes participating in their respective state meets than does Ohio.
2. Ohio has a 4.27 % participation rate in terms of the number of participants in the state meet itself compared to the total number of participants in the sport. This ranks Ohio as the 47th lowest state nationally.

C. “UNIQUENESS” OF TRACK AND FIELD: TEAM DEFINITION
1. The OHSAA defines a track team as a school which has 9 members participating in the district track meet. In 2017, there were 685 schools that entered 9 or more athletes at the district meet, yet there were 784 schools in the state that entered athletes at the district level. Schools with less than 9 district participants can still enter many of the meet’s events and score at the district meet.
2. In 2018, there were approximately 779 boys schools and 771 girls schools that were assigned to a district meet by their district board. (source: OHSAA District Board Websites) The total number of schools that sponsor track and field, and enter the district tournament is very similar to the number of schools that participate in tournaments which currently have 4 divisions: volleyball (786), girls and boys basketball (789 and 790), softball (749), baseball (763) .
 
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There have been State T&F Champions with a team roster of fewer than 9
I know. Withrow comes to mind. They won state and are not even in the team counts. The oatccc has a lot of reasons to even lower the number participants of a school to count as a team to justify maybe even 5 divisions.
 
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Trotwood-Madison 1984 - One-woman wrecking crew by the name of LaVonna Martin (1992 Olympic Silver Medalist 100mH).

The state meet program has a listing of single-athlete, team-winning athletes of the past.
 
I still remember hearing the announcer at the end of the Division III State T&F Championships in 2015 say “Warren JFK with only 7 boys on the roster and 4 boys here today won the Division III title”
 
As of now, it’s not even the number that qualify to the state meet OR the number on the roster. If the team does not have 9 athletes competed at the district meet, the do not count as a team. There ARE some schools that have 9 or more on the team that do not take 9 kids to the district meet for one reason or another..... if the kids can’t score or qualify; due to the first district day being on a school day; whatever. Just tell your ADs /principals that you’d like track to be on the same level at baseball/softball (both have 4 divisions).
 
Another question is how are you going to divide up the 4 divisions? I have heard 2 ways: divide the total schools by 4 equally OR take the top 10% and make them one division and divide the rest by 3, much like football, I believe. Wouldn't the second option be the most fair?
 
Another question is how are you going to divide up the 4 divisions? I have heard 2 ways: divide the total schools by 4 equally OR take the top 10% and make them one division and divide the rest by 3, much like football, I believe. Wouldn't the second option be the most fair?

I would agree with this model. It works well in Football, but football has 7 Divisions and not 4, so it might need to be more like 15-20%.
 
Since they are trying to put in line with sports with similarities (4 divisions, number of schools with the sport, spring sports, etc) I would think they would keep it in line with baseball/softball.
 
A few years ago I went through all the Cross Country and Track and Field championships to look at which teams win. How big they are etc...

What I found is that D3 and D2 have some good balance. Woodridge is probably skewing that in CC the past Decade and a half, but they are closer to dead center of the D2 numbers.

The smaller D1 to middle of the numbers D1 schools do not get their share.

When I Divided the numbers into thirds like they do now and then took the D1 third and divided it in half to make the 4 divisions, it seemed to be pretty fair and give those schools in the lower half of D1 a chance against each other. It also seemed to make sure that the gap from bottom to top of the division was less than or just about double. Nothing you can do about D3. Some schools are just so small.

That would be my proposal. Instead of straight 25% in each division, I would go D3 = 1/3, D2 = 1/3, D1A = 1/6 and D1 = 1/6
 
What I've heard, the OHSAA is only looking to divide every division by 25%. I hope they don't but still it would be ALOT more fair for teams than what it is now.
 
What I've heard, the OHSAA is only looking to divide every division by 25%. I hope they don't but still it would be ALOT more fair for teams than what it is now.
Besides the small/medium Div I schools, who does not have it "fair" now. Just curious.
 
Besides the small/medium Div I schools, who does not have it "fair" now. Just curious.
There will still be D1 teams that are twice the size as the small D1 teams, but at least it should negate the schools that are over 3x smaller than lets say Mason.

Besides D1, the other three divisions will be more appropriatly with schools that are closer to their sizes. There will be around 170 teams in each division instead 228, lowering the range from the biggest to the smallest schools.

This is my guess because I dont have the time to crunch the numbers (so correct me if I'm wrong): D1: 360 and above, D2: 359-240, D3: 239-110, D4: less than 109
 
I think another problem with dividing them in 25% is how many schools in D4 will field a team?? If you have 25% in D4 and they are schools with less than 109, as example may or may not be right, how many of them can/do field teams?? That is why taking the top 10% off the top for D1 then dividing the rest in thirds makes more sense, IMO.
 
Although I agree that having it weighted at the top (DI) may be more equitable for track and field teams, That would not make it equitable compared to other "like" sports. ie baseball/softball, basketball, volleyball. Now, if they weighed all those sports like that then the OHSAA , who are not really "track" people, would have a more drastic change.

Gatornation, As far a smaller (D4) schools goes, the 25% would be for schools that already field "teams", so the number of schools that field teams would be about the same. As of now, it is those who enter 9 members at the District Meet. So, "how many schools in D4 will field a team?.... Roughly, The same as DI, II and III. Just as baseball/softball are presently
 
I hope the move to 4 divisions happens. It would be in keeping not only with more equitable opportunities for kids and monies for OHSAA, but would be in step with the growth in Ohio population, and thus the growth of divisions within the State Meet format.

State Meet Format:
1908-1920: No Classes
1921-1970: Two-Class System (there was a brief third class (Class C) competition from 1926-1928.
1971-Current: Three-Class/Division system.
2021 (?) - : Four Division system
 
Having spent most of my coaching at a school with 575 boys and lumped with D1 I understand the challenge of the disparity in the sizes of schools mid-bottom of D1. I think the error occurred when OHSAA went to divisions with equal numbers of schools instead of divisions of similar sized schools. Four divisions of similar sized schools following the A, AA, AAA model seems like it would be much closer to equal than 25% per division. I know this will not be followed and is not even in the conversation mostly due to unequal numbers of schools in each division. I think it takes OATCCC united with a plan pushing it relentlessly to OHSAA. I don't think it will happen and track & XC will get whatever OHSAA decides with little thought other than to mimic other sports.
 
I'd be concerned with the logistics of postseason meets, especially the state meet.
The state meet would either have to start much earlier and end much later each day if it stayed a two-day event, or go to three days.
I also think you'd see the meet do away with having the at-large bids and using all nine lanes if the OHSAA goes to four divisions.
 
The state meet would either have to start much earlier and end much later each day if it stayed a two-day event, or go to three days.
They could schedule a fourth division in a two day schedule. The problem would be if there was any delay at all, they'd have trouble. A couple years ago we were in that lightning delay for several hours. The D1 4x400 semis were pushing the local noise curfew.
 
I'd recommend a 3-day meet:

Thursday
3-8pm - Running Prelims - Division 4 & 3
3200m runs - All divisions
Field Events - Division 4 (All) & 3 (HJ/SP)

Friday
9am-2pm - Running Prelims - Divisions 2 & 1 ; Field Events - Division 3 (PV/LJ/DT) & 2 (HJ/SP)
3-8pm - Running Finals - Divisions 4 & 3 ; Field Events - Division 2 (PV/LJ/DT)

Saturday
10am-3pm - Running Finals - Divisions 2 & 1
Field Events - Division 1 (All)

My 2 cents.

FYI - As a footnote, the conduct of the 3200m on a non-final day is NOT new. This has been done in the past. It makes a 3200/1600/800 very doable, and will free-up some distance guys in case they are best utilized on a 4x400m final.
 
Unfortunately I do not see the state track meet being at Jesse Owens much longer. I have heard rumblings that the OHSAA does not really like paying $100,000+ bill to Ohio State to use the facility.
I do agree with the need for 4 divisions, Even in D3 currently the span between small D3 and big D3 is pretty large. Not as large as D1 but still substantial.
 
Just some thinking out loud here...

I agree with the concept of 4 divisions and lean toward a breakdown with approximately equal "enrollment" in each division... the theory being that an individual would have about the same proportional opportunity to advance to the next level regardless of division.

Rounding in the interest of tournament structures would put either 64 or 72 teams in the large school division and reduces the disparity between the largest and smallest DI schools to about 2:1.

The next difficulty becomes setting up an equitable tournament structure. For example, in a DI population of 64 schools, 24 would be located in the previous SW region (Cin, Day, Spr), 16 in the previous NE region (Cle, Akr-Can, You), 21 in the Central region, but only 3 in the previous NW region.
Expanding to 72 teams results in regions of 25/18/24/5 which would permit fairly equitable advancement opportunities of 5/4/5/1 (all close enough to 20%), although the prospect of only one advancing from the NW seems the most likely to leave out a deserving someone. Perhaps this is where the next three best marks as qualifiers would be useful for T&F. For XC, perhaps the next closest team finisher(s) advance, that is; a team finishing one point out of an automatic qualifying spot would qualify to move on before team(s) finishing 2,3,4 or more points out.

Redrawing the regional boundaries isn't very helpful since the larger schools are (obviously) concentrated in the higher population areas... any attempt to balance the competition would require some teams to travel a significant distance. Reducing to 3 regions, means the Toledo schools would be the ones perpetually experiencing the long bus rides prior to competition...

Perhaps a "semi-states' structure, fed by sectional/districts would work better, combining NE&Central, SW&NW or NE&NW, Central SW...

And of course we need to go through the same thought process for D2, D3 and D4, but I'll have to leave that to someone else. It was time-consuming enough to put 72 stars on a powerpoint Ohio map.

Anyway, it's kinda fun to think about...
 
Have you contacted anyone from OATCCC or have they contacted you for input? From the outside they do not seem to think outside the box. I give my friends in the association an earful every time I can to tap into the ideas and thoughts of those out there "who do not have something to gain" by doing it a particular way. There still seems to be a lot of "what will benefit me the most" pushes toward divisional alignment issues. Whether your ideas are valid or will or will not work, it gives more ways of potentially attacking the issue.
 
Have you contacted anyone from OATCCC or have they contacted you for input? From the outside they do not seem to think outside the box. I give my friends in the association an earful every time I can to tap into the ideas and thoughts of those out there "who do not have something to gain" by doing it a particular way. There still seems to be a lot of "what will benefit me the most" pushes toward divisional alignment issues. Whether your ideas are valid or will or will not work, it gives more ways of potentially attacking the issue.
No I haven't. Happily, still engaged primarily in the XC season. Anyone here who feels like the thoughts are worth passing on... have at it.
 
Unfortunately I do not see the state track meet being at Jesse Owens much longer. I have heard rumblings that the OHSAA does not really like paying $100,000+ bill to Ohio State to use the facility.
I do agree with the need for 4 divisions, Even in D3 currently the span between small D3 and big D3 is pretty large. Not as large as D1 but still substantial.
100k is crazy but par for the course with OSU.

I would suggest going to either 2 or 4 sites. D1 and D3 Wed and Fri and D2 and D4 Thur and Sat. That way schools that have boys in girls in two divisions can go to both.
 
What I have heard: the plan is to have state at different sites for each division or have d1-d2 at the same venue and d3-d4 at a different venue. At each venue d1 would run a race, then d2 (ie. d1 4x800 girls then d2 4x800 girls). It would help athletes that double up in distance events to have more rest time between their races.

OSU will not be used. I believe they are thinking of similar venues that they presented in May when they thought there was a chance we could have a state meet.
 
100k is crazy but par for the course with OSU.

I would suggest going to either 2 or 4 sites. D1 and D3 Wed and Fri and D2 and D4 Thur and Sat. That way schools that have boys in girls in two divisions can go to both.

That's a tremendous failure on OSU's part. Why would you not want to make a deal to make certain that the State Track Meet was at Ohio State? For the prestige of the university and great recruiting/exposure for your track program.

Cutting the cost, or even it costing the university money is well worth not having the meet there at all.

I'd say 4 sites.
 
That's a tremendous failure on OSU's part. Why would you not want to make a deal to make certain that the State Track Meet was at Ohio State? For the prestige of the university and great recruiting/exposure for your track program.

Cutting the cost, or even it costing the university money is well worth not having the meet there at all.

I'd say 4 sites.
I agree. OSU will not even let their own student in the Running Club use Jesse O with them renting it from OSU.
 
Make a deal for Welcome Stadium again.


Highly unlikely. As a result of the multiple scandals involving Dayton Dunbar OHSAA has more or less banned DPS facilities from hosting tournament events. That's why the Regional meets were taken out of Welcome a few years ago.
 
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