Will we get to 4 divisions

 
1908-1920 - No divisions (classes)
1921-1970 - 2 Classes
1971-2020 (?) - 3 Classes / Divisions
2020 (?) - 4 Divisions

If 2020 is the last year with 3 divisions, it would follow the historical pattern after the establishment of divisions in 1921.
 
It seems to me that if we are locked in to two days at Jesse Owens, 4 divisions is going to be hard to pull off. I used to not think that was the case, but after such a delayed Friday evening this year, 4 divisions would have been nearly impossible to complete.
 
What is the contingency plan for a longer weather delay now? If there would have been another cell come in on friday and another 2+ hour delay would they have competed until 1:00 am?
I do know that Louisvile won the DI girls softball title on Sunday due to a weather problem in Akron on Saturday. I would think that Jesse Owens would be available on Sunday as well.

I have seen a schedule for 4 divisions over two days that Starts at 8:30 am (1st event) and is done by 8:30 pm each day. However, IMO there needs to be a plan for weather delays either way... if there is not a plan in place already.

it's nice to know that the lights at Jesse owens track work so well for track, and if they adjust them a little, it's a great place for a night meet. In fact, what happened this year may make it easier to add a 4th division because they were able to have such a good meet under the lights.

portale lights may need to be brought in for field events, but that is not a big problem except for the $.
 
We were told that the Principals and AD's voted for 4 divisions by about 80%. The OHSAA shouldnt go against that strong of a vote. Its BS that they cant come up with a schedule for this crap.

Sorry but the wheelchair stuff has to be moved away from this event for it to happen. Also, they can speed up stuff in the semi finals. THey arent needing time for awards that day. THe 2nd day can be shortened by alot. Rotate officials, if you are going to have 8,000 of them, then assign them break times. The hour break between divisions is a waste of time.

As for weather, I know that Finishtiming would likely have Sunday as the backup (Chatfield doesnt have anything going on that day)
 
No 4 divisions next year

I talked with a member of the OHSAA (who will remain nameless) and said the biggest reason there will not be 4 divisions next year is that there is not strong support from the coaches association in the form of having any plan that everyone can agree on. Not necessarily dead in the water but it needs some work.
 
Won't many of the same problems with scheduling and officials also
exist at the district and regional levels.
Also more likely for coaches to have to be at two places
Will there really be any noticeable difference in D3 and D4 Tournaments?
 
Won't many of the same problems with scheduling and officials also
exist at the district and regional levels.
Also more likely for coaches to have to be at two places
Will there really be any noticeable difference in D3 and D4 Tournaments?

You arent adding teams, just spreading them out. At the District level you would run D1-2 sites together and 3-4 together.

The number of meets and nights wouldnt change.


As for the post about the coaches association....thats BS.
 
You arent adding teams, just spreading them out. At the District level you would run D1-2 sites together and 3-4 together.
At the Regional level, I would think you would run D1/D3 on Wednesday/Friday and D2/D4 on Thursday/Saturday (or vice versa). This is for the same reason that D2 is R/S now while D1 and D3 are W/F...it allows coaches whose boys and girls are in different divisions to attend both meets. And actually, they could start alternating which divisions go which days if they wanted to. For Districts, the schedules would be up to each DAB to figure out.

The number of meets and nights wouldnt change.
The number of meets would certainly change. You are adding 16 district meets and 4 regional meets when you add a division.
 
Won't many of the same problems with scheduling and officials also exist at the district and regional levels.
At districts, most likely. I don't know about other areas, but District managers in this area beg for officials right up to the week of the meet. There just aren't enough officials for all the meets that need to happen that week. They might be able to do things like schedule two divisions of finals on a Saturday at the same site. That would help, but then you run into issues if the weather doesn't cooperate.

Also, finding suitable host sites with management that is willing to take the job is an issue.
 
As for the post about the coaches association....thats BS.


Perhaps so, but it's an argument I have heard before. And if that's the excuse being used to limit divisions (or anything that might advance our sport), it's worth noting.
 
Perhaps so, but it's an argument I have heard before. And if that's the excuse being used to limit divisions (or anything that might advance our sport), it's worth noting.

Agreed. The purpose of a coaching association. Would be to promote the sport. Not advocating for 4 divisions wouldn't be good
 
It seems to me that if we are locked in to two days at Jesse Owens, 4 divisions is going to be hard to pull off. I used to not think that was the case, but after such a delayed Friday evening this year, 4 divisions would have been nearly impossible to complete.
We just need to do it in two separate locations then...the State of Washington has 5 divisions and they just have two locations for Track...one for XC.
 
We just need to do it in two separate locations then...the State of Washington has 5 divisions and they just have two locations for Track...one for XC.
With COVID still going on wouldn't this be just the perfect opportunity to start this? 4 divisions and separate locations for state championships seems logical at this time.
 
I don't understand the desire to break the meet up in different sites. From a spectator's point of view, and also having coached numerous athletes at the State meet with moderate success years ago, I always enjoyed watching the multiple divisions when I wasn't busy. A great deal of excitement was in the overlapping as one division was warming-up while the previous division was concluding. Breaking the meet up into separate site takes away all of that, and frankly I think makes for a far poorer one. Not to mention having to have multiple sets of officials at separate sites. Total waste. If it can't be done near Columbus, then rotate the meet around the state to big facilities that can.
 
If it can be done at one place...great. However, right now the divisions are unfair. Division 1 pits 700 student schools verses 2800 student ones. The most important thing is making the divisions fair. If a big (yet much smaller state than Ohio) like Washington can have 5 divisions then Ohio certainly can figure out a way to get it done.
 
If it can be done at one place...great. However, right now the divisions are unfair. Division 1 pits 700 student schools verses 2800 student ones. The most important thing is making the divisions fair. If a big (yet much smaller state than Ohio) like Washington can have 5 divisions then Ohio certainly can figure out a way to get it done.

That I agree with completely. I coached at a school with 600 students (single sex), and we were up against a school (mixed) with 4000. Not exactly on even terms, so we had to punch above our weight...which we did.
 
I think we get through this season first before worrying about a 4th division. If all the schools participated at the District Level we would probably already be there.
 
If it can be done at one place...great. However, right now the divisions are unfair. Division 1 pits 700 student schools verses 2800 student ones. The most important thing is making the divisions fair. If a big (yet much smaller state than Ohio) like Washington can have 5 divisions then Ohio certainly can figure out a way to get it done.
The cutoff for D1 is 287. I feel for the d1 teams that are close to that number or even a couple hundred away from that number. Its totally unfair. You might have a team once every 10-15 years that might compete as a team with those big d1 schools beyond districts, but you won't consistently be competitive every year.
 
With COVID still going on wouldn't this be just the perfect opportunity to start this? 4 divisions and separate locations for state championships seems logical at this time.
OHSAA isn't in a great position right now to expand its tournaments if it's not certain to generate additional profit. Spectator limitations would make it difficult to turn a profit. Those limits need to increase. The vaccination process still has a long way to go before we get there. Also, it's not just an additional state meet we're talking about here. Another division = 16 more district meets for the various District Boards to operate + 4 more Regional meets for the OHSAA to operate. Lastly, I agree with psycho_dad in that we should worry about getting through this season first. I'm somewhat worried that we see a few less "teams" at the district level this spring which won't help the cause. I'm not against having 4 divisions in some form (i.e. I'm not necessarily in favor of each division having 25% of the teams), but now isn't the best time to implement it, IMHO.
 
I still see it being an issue if they divide the schools by 4. D1 will still have a huge gap. They need to do something where D1 is like Football 600 and up. If that's only 60 schools, so be it. Something like 1-150 D4, 151-300, D3. 301-600 D2, 601+ D1 ... D4 would be very close to D3 now. D3 would be very close to D2 now. Then really only D4 would compete against schools more than double their size, but I don't see how you avoid that.
 
My idea will never get traction due to OHSAA wanting to keep divisional alignment of all sports as close to the same as possible. The most equitable alignment in my eyes is 4 divisions with a return to A, AA, AAA, AAAA. 2A & 3A would have many more teams but they would be schools with similar numbers.
 
They may divide into 25% (numbers) initially, but I would quickly propose that it be split with the top 10% In DI, then DII, DIII, and DIV each with 30%.
That way it is "clear-cut" every two years when they do the counts. There will still be would still be about 75-80 schools in DI and they maybe able to eliminate the Distict Meets for DI and have about 20 schools at each "REGION".... that would eliminate the need for more officials for District Week and should not overburden the official supply at regionals.
ALSO, I would propose that the number used to be classified at a "TEAM" is track and field be moved from 9 (as is now) to 4 so that we would probably keep to 750+ schools having a team at the district meet. The rationale for picking 4 is because a relay TEAM has 4 and you can win a dual meet with only 4 scoring with every event full....as well as any meet. IMO it should only be one athlete for a school to count as a team because one athlete can score "team points", but you need at least 4 to score at least 69 points to clinch in a dual meet team win as I'm not sure the OHSAA would agree that 1 athlete make a "team".

Anyway... there will be no changes in that direction for this year. In fact, there will probably be no "at large" qualifiers to the state meet this year if we can't use Jesse Owens AND will likely see three different sites - one for each division. We will see, as one thing COVID has taught us all is that hardly nothing like this is "for sure".

stay healthy.
 
Paying no attention to which schools have what is considered a "team" and which ones don't, these would be approximate cut-offs if schools were divided evenly among 4 divisions, using the enrollment figures taken in October 2018. I wouldn't be too fixated on the exact cut-off numbers. Instead, I would focus on the range within in each division:

Girls:
DI: 380 and up
DII: 221-379
DIII: 140-220
DIV: 139 and below

I am not going through the 2019 district results to determine exactly who had a "team" and who didn't, so some assumptions had to be made here. However, you get a quick sense of what 4 divisions would look like with each division having 1/4 of the "teams." When creating the current divisional assignments, the OHSAA considered there to be 649 girls track and field "teams." That would mean about 162 per division if split evenly. I made the assumption that the largest enrollment schools in DI all have "teams" and went down the column until the count reached 160 to 163 schools. I also made the assumption that no school with less than 50 girls is considered a "team," and I also assumed that many schools from 50 to 140 also did not count as "teams." In reality, the high end of DIV could be slightly lower as would the cut-offs for the middle 2 divisions. Again though, I think this exercise offers a fair sense of what an even distribution would look like.


Boys:
DI: 382 and up
DII: 226-381
DIII: 145-225
DIV: 144 and below

When creating the current divisional assignments, the OHSAA considered there to be 681 boys track and field "teams." That would mean about 170 per division if split evenly. I made the assumption that the largest enrollment schools in DI all have "teams" and went down the column until the count reached 170 schools. I also made the assumption that no school with less than 50 boys had a "team," and I also assumed that many schools from 50 to 144 also did not count as "teams." In reality, the high end of DIV could be slightly lower as would the cut-offs for the middle 2 divisions. Again though, I think this exercise offers a sense of what an even distribution would look like, but don't be too fixated on the actual cut-off numbers.

4 divisions with an even distribution improves the enrollment disparities at both ends, but disparities would still exist. I would also worry that the smallest division would lose some of its competitiveness due the split. I also must point out that not every school's situation would improve from having a 4th division. Yes, you might have less athletes to contend with, but if I'm a 150 boy school, and I was competing against mostly smaller schools in DIII under the current system, how eager should I be to compete as 1 of the smallest schools in a 4-division set-up? The same can be said for a 250 boy school competing in DII.
 
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I still see it being an issue if they divide the schools by 4. D1 will still have a huge gap. They need to do something where D1 is like Football 600 and up. If that's only 60 schools, so be it. Something like 1-150 D4, 151-300, D3. 301-600 D2, 601+ D1 ... D4 would be very close to D3 now. D3 would be very close to D2 now. Then really only D4 would compete against schools more than double their size, but I don't see how you avoid that.

100% agree that the starting point should be to separate D1 similar to the football example that has worked.

XC for 2021 is 308 athletes for D1
Track for 2021 is 287 for D1

Celina has 308 boys.
Mason has 1299 boys.
Mason has more 4 x the number of boys compared to Celina. Or a more staggering figure 991 more boys.

But these figures are only for 9,10,11 grades

Celina actually has about- 102 boys per grade or 410 total boys from 9-12 grades.
Mason actually has about 433 boys per grade or 1732 total boys from 9-12 grades. Mason has 1322 more boys in their high school than Celina.

Mason has more boys in their freshmen class than Celina has in their entire school by 22 boys.

Mason has more kids quarantined at any given point than Celina has in their school system.
 
100% agree that the starting point should be to separate D1 similar to the football example that has worked.

XC for 2021 is 308 athletes for D1
Track for 2021 is 287 for D1

Celina has 308 boys.
Mason has 1299 boys.
Mason has more 4 x the number of boys compared to Celina. Or a more staggering figure 991 more boys.

But these figures are only for 9,10,11 grades

Celina actually has about- 102 boys per grade or 410 total boys from 9-12 grades.
Mason actually has about 433 boys per grade or 1732 total boys from 9-12 grades. Mason has 1322 more boys in their high school than Celina.

Mason has more boys in their freshmen class than Celina has in their entire school by 22 boys.

Mason has more kids quarantined at any given point than Celina has in their school system.

1000% agree. Don't even add more Divisions if you aren't going to fix Division I.
 
Divisions should be divided by numbers of students in a school that make them competitive with each other, not based on even distribution of schools within a division. If 90% of the schools have a population of say 150-250 boys or girls, then those 90% should be in that same division. Outliers like Mason should belong in their own "super division" with schools with over 600 athletes in a given sex. Absolutely RIDICULOUS dividing by even distributions.
 
Divisions should be divided by numbers of students in a school that make them competitive with each other, not based on even distribution of schools within a division. If 90% of the schools have a population of say 150-250 boys or girls, then those 90% should be in that same division. Outliers like Mason should belong in their own "super division" with schools with over 600 athletes in a given sex. Absolutely RIDICULOUS dividing by even distributions.
Completely made up numbers.

So, A division of 30 schools competing for a state championship in one division. A division of 100, 150 in another and 400 in another. How is that fair?

So a kid in the Super Division has 59 kids to compete against and kids in the other divisions have 199, 349 or 799 kids to have to go against.

Super Division has 2 meets. Other divisions have 7, 10 and 27 meets. 3 of the divisions might have teams traveling all over the place.

If you can go through and come up with logical divisions based on criteria that is easily sorted, then go through the enrollment figures on OHSAA and show us how the divisions would look. I'm not going to do it because if you start splitting hairs, then why not start looking at Socioeconomic factors, eligibility numbers etc.

The OHSAA is not going to do something that is not clear cut and easy.
 
So, A division of 30 schools competing for a state championship in one division. A division of 100, 150 in another and 400 in another. How is that fair?

So a kid in the Super Division has 59 kids to compete against and kids in the other divisions have 199, 349 or 799 kids to have to go against.

The OHSAA is not going to do something that is not clear cut and easy.

On your first two statements, yes, that is fair. At least far closer to fair than a school the size of Celina competing against a school the size of Mason.
The kid in the super division may have more kids from the the 30 schools to compete against than kid in a division of 200+ that are much smaller schools. I know you have noticed at the D1 depth of talent in a XC race which comes primarily from the mega schools. Maybe counting the number of students from each division rather than schools would be a more equitable and clear cut & easy. We both agree that OHSAA will not act on anything that presents problems for them in any way.
 
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