Track and Field Divisions?

t&fwarrior

New member
Just wondering everyone's thoughts on 4 divisions for track and field. I know there is a similar post but it kind of got off topic. Looks like the OHSAA has a board meeting on 9/1 and 9/30 and a previous article says the OHSAA will release spring division alignments in September. I'm guessing if they are going to do anything it would be at this meeting?

https://www.ohsaa.org/news-media/articles/ohsaa-fall-sports-divisional-breakdowns-announced

I've emailed the OATCCC and they stated 4 divisions was still one of their top priorities in discussions with the OHSAA.
 
 
Lexington girls now D2, that will have big impact on D2 state meet.

Defiance boys and girls flip flop. Girls now D1 boys now D2.
 
Oakwood boys miss D2 by 1 boy … 284 vs Mason’s 1300. Ridiculous! Message this sends me is that the OHSAA could care less about fairness in track and field.
 
Its crazy to think that a school with 276 enrollment can compete with another at 1251. Maybe once in 30 years, maybe 40. Almost 1000 more students!

I really wish the OATCCC would take a more agressive approach with the OHSAA. This has been going on far too long where the OHSAA marinates on it and puts it off. The OHSAA obviously doesn't care and is not in it for the athletes/ schools that want to compete in a fair environment.

Also the ADs in these small schools need to step up the pressure. If this was happening to football they would be looking at litigation. The OATCCC does not have the muscle to push the OHSAA in the right way. I'm tired of so many these people saying they care but don't do anything about it.
 
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Its crazy to think that a school with 276 enrollment can compete with another at 1251. Maybe once in 30 years, maybe 40. Almost 1000 more students!

I really wish the OATCCC would take a more agressive approach with the OHSAA. This has been going on far too long where the OHSAA marinates on it and puts it off. The OHSAA obviously doesn't care and is not in it for the athletes/ schools that want to compete in a fair environment.

Also the ADs in these small schools need to step up the pressure. If this was happening to football they would be looking at litigation. The OATCCC does not have the muscle to push the OHSAA in the right way. I'm tired of so many these people saying they care but don't do anything about it.
I agree, if I was a coach and/or AD they almost need to have some sort of boycott (I realize you can't do it) or some type of larger protest. Getting this into the media will create some movement more than just us talking about how crazy unfair this is.
 
Oakwood boys miss D2 by 1 boy … 284 vs Mason’s 1300. Ridiculous! Message this sends me is that the OHSAA could care less about fairness in track and field.
This really won’t change much with a 4th division. There are a relatively small amount of those super big schools. The smallest schools in D1 will always be much smaller than the mega schools, even with another division. People will still complain.
 
This really won’t change much with a 4th division. There are a relatively small amount of those super big schools. The smallest schools in D1 will always be much smaller than the mega schools, even with another division. People will still complain.
I agree that there is no way to make it perfectly fair even w/ a 4th division. If the goal is really combat enrollment disparities, then 4 divisions probably is not enough (Do not misinterpret this to mean that I'm advocating for 5 or more divisions here). With the distribution of schools sizes within Ohio, 4 divisions would be an improvement, but there will still be schools competing against other schools in their division that have more than double the enrollment.

If and when a 4th division becomes a thing, the best attempt would be to do like football and make DI a super division of only the top "X" number of enrollments or make DI any schools w/in "X" number of the highest enrollment (number of schools in DI would potentially vary from cycle to cycle). Then, split up the remaining schools into the other 3 divisions in the manner that we've been using for years. Then again, if and when a 4th division happens, I may not care one way or the other. I'm pretty close to that point now.
 
Oakwood boys miss D2 by 1 boy … 284 vs Mason’s 1300. Ridiculous! Message this sends me is that the OHSAA could care less about fairness in track and field.
Message it sends to me is that coaches and schools don't care enough to put teams on the track and field at the District.
 
Its crazy to think that a school with 276 enrollment can compete with another at 1251. Maybe once in 30 years, maybe 40. Almost 1000 more students!

I really wish the OATCCC would take a more agressive approach with the OHSAA. This has been going on far too long where the OHSAA marinates on it and puts it off. The OHSAA obviously doesn't care and is not in it for the athletes/ schools that want to compete in a fair environment.

Also the ADs in these small schools need to step up the pressure. If this was happening to football they would be looking at litigation. The OATCCC does not have the muscle to push the OHSAA in the right way. I'm tired of so many these people saying they care but don't do anything about it.
I dasagree. The OHSAA has added extra teams to qualify to state in CC and added the extra qualifiers for Track and Field as well. It is on us, the coaches and schools, to have enough "teams" at the District to trigger the automatic 4th division. Force them to have to by the bylaws and not just because. It's just as unfair for a school of 30 to compete against a school of 130. Don't hear crying about that. Pressure would be put on by number of teams.
 
I dasagree. The OHSAA has added extra teams to qualify to state in CC and added the extra qualifiers for Track and Field as well. It is on us, the coaches and schools, to have enough "teams" at the District to trigger the automatic 4th division. Force them to have to by the bylaws and not just because. It's just as unfair for a school of 30 to compete against a school of 130. Don't hear crying about that. Pressure would be put on by number of teams.
I get what you are saying but to get to the magic 750+ schools that will take 100+ more boys teams at 150+ girls (don't know exact count as can't find summary and don't want to count up teams). That is not happening particularly with more schools adding lacrosse.

Plus if it is mostly smaller schools getting 9 to districts that were not before but not getting to the 750+ teams that will drive the D1 cut-off even lower to around the 250 range.
 
It's just as unfair for a school of 30 to compete against a school of 130. Don't hear crying about that. Pressure would be put on by number of teams.
This is not even a good comparison in relation to the D1 unfairness in so many ways that I am not going to get started with it.

The OHSAA could easily change the magic number of participants to constitute a team to 4 like the OATCCC has presented to them multiple times to add the number of teams but they refuse to do so. This is even after the OHSAA saw Withrow win a team state title with only 4 athletes on their team.
 
This is not even a good comparison in relation to the D1 unfairness in so many ways that I am not going to get started with it.

The OHSAA could easily change the magic number of participants to constitute a team to 4 like the OATCCC has presented to them multiple times to add the number of teams but they refuse to do so. This is even after the OHSAA saw Withrow win a team state title with only 4 athletes on their team.
It still boggles my mind how you can win a team title when you don’t field what counts as a team at district. OHSAA: Sorry, 4 athletes are not a team. Also OHSAA: Here’s your team championship trophy. 🤷🏽‍♂️
 
FYI, A few years back, I coached a cross country team which had 63 schools with more boys than my school running D II and because of combined enrollment with 62% girls we had to compete in DI for three years.

Also, every State boarding Ohio only requires one athlete to count as having a track & field team as one athlete can score thus having a team score. A few years ago Warren JFK won the DIII OHSAA Track & Field title with only 7 boys on their entire team.
 
I know this is CC but same thing is happen in track. Today's meet at Spencerville had 20 teams in this girls race but only 7 had enough runners to score. Sad that so many schools offer the sport but can't get 5 kids out.

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The National Federation requires 5 in cc (thus team score) but only 1 for track as one person can score.
 
I know this is CC but same thing is happen in track. Today's meet at Spencerville had 20 teams in this girls race but only 7 had enough runners to score. Sad that so many schools offer the sport but can't get 5 kids out.

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That meet above is not alone. At one of the meets I was following the first weekend, 60 teams participated in the 4 HS races (small and big school for each gender), and only 32 had enough finishers to score a team. The meet had a significantly higher percentage of teams scoring in each of the previous 2 years (45/66 in '21, 43/54 in '20). I didn't look past 2020 because the meet results were in a format less conducive to quickly counting the number of non-scoring teams.
 
I'm confused, you want more divisions, but also complaining about low numbers? Sounds like adding more divisions isn't the answer especially in cross country, and in a sport like track a couple special athletes can win a state title, so is the rule then going to be only teams that qualify 5 or more athletes can score for a team title? Again I get lower numbers hurts a regular season invites, but a bunch of average guys doesn't equate to a state title
 
I'm confused, you want more divisions, but also complaining about low numbers? Sounds like adding more divisions isn't the answer especially in cross country, and in a sport like track a couple special athletes can win a state title, so is the rule then going to be only teams that qualify 5 or more athletes can score for a team title? Again I get lower numbers hurts a regular season invites, but a bunch of average guys doesn't equate to a state title
The two are indirectly related.

Lower numbers hurt because less “teams” supports the OHSAA’s position that a 4th division is not needed. Not enough teams (and losing more by the year) to justify more divisions, they’ll say. Meanwhile, the enrollment disparity issue, which is the basis for the argument for a 4th division, goes unchecked.
 
Cross country is not and has not been considered by any organization to change to 4 divisions. You can not win any meet without at least 5 and can’t even score as a team in any meet. Track and field has and is being considered and has been proposed to go to 4 divisions in Ohio. By the OATCCC, by the OHSAA, (different comittiees). You can score “team points” with only one person and occasionally win state titles with 1 person. Can not win a dual meet, district meet or conference meet with only one. However, you can win a dual, conference or league meet with only 4 athletes. And… it takes 4 to make a relay “team”. Using 9 as a number to be considered is simply arbitrary by those who do not understand the sport. Either using other spring sports (baseball/softball) to determine a number or by using the number of events (17) and thinking that 9 will cover more than half the catagories (like wrestling) not realizing that most track athletes do more than one event while wrestlers can only do one weight class. NOTE: if the number were 4 athletes to be considered at “team”, Ohio would have more than the 750 schools to have 4 divisions. But…. The four diviosions would be split with about an equal number of teams like the other sports with 4 divisions (baseball/softball, basketball).
 
I completely understand how it works, this is what makes track different from other sports, you bring up wrestling, and you can totally win a state title with 4 athletes example monoreville several years back, but you cant win a dual, sectional or district. What makes track different is being able to compete in four events. It would be great to make things more equal, having a split for D1 schools. I think the current environment financially is what is driving this decision, and the lack of officials across all sports. Football is having to move games from Friday to Thursday and Saturday, and our conference just raised ticket prices to $8 for all tickets to allow us to pay officials more. Our cross country meet also charged to get in. More divisions more meets should not be the priority now. The overall health of high school athletics should be the concern, before it all goes away and we are only left with club teams, and only kids with the talent or financial backing will be able to experience athletics.
 
Addressing the size disparity in D1… are the mega-schools winning a vast majority of the state titles? I haven’t noticed that but I could be wrong.
 
Addressing the size disparity in D1… are the mega-schools winning a vast majority of the state titles? I haven’t noticed that but I could be wrong.
It is not necessarily the very largest schools winning every year, but if you look at the winners and runners up in D1 the list tends toward the largest schools. It is even more telling if you look at the top five teams year by year.

I know a college professor/runner/track&XC parent who is working on a paper analyzing the effect of school size on cross country. I have seen an alpha version of his analysis and it is very clear that school size is a huge factor. No one is arguing, for either sport, that having a big school is a sufficient condition for having a good team. But it is pretty clear that it is a dominant factor.

I coach at Coffman, which is ranked somewhere in the mid 30s in school size for boys, a little over half the enrollment of Mason and mid 40s with half of Mason's enrollment for girls. Taylor's enrollment is proportionally much closer to ours than the bottom schools are to the top schools in D1. In the last dozen or so years, how many years did Taylor have a track team that could beat Coffman's for boys or girls? Not very many. Same thing with XC. I would NEVER argue that I am a better coach or that we have a better coaching staff than Taylor. We have a lot more students.
 
Jesus how much of an endowment is this professor getting to write a paper on a study that more athletes to pick from improves your chances of getting elite athletes, here I will save you the time of reading the paper,,,,it does
 
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