By GARY R. RASBERRY and TOM HAINES
sports@dailystandard.com
More teams will get a chance to win state championships starting next school year.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association voted to expand the divisions in several sports starting with the 2024-25 school year.
The unanimous approval by the association's Board of Directors on Thursday means sports like basketball, baseball, volleyball and softball will go from four divisions to seven based school enrollment numbers. Soccer will go from three to five divisions. Football, which has seven divisions already, is not affected. No decisions were made about sports like track and field, cross country, tennis and golf.
Per the proposal, the largest 64 schools in terms of enrollment will be placed in Division I, the next 64 will go to Division II and remaining schools will be divided as equally as possible into the other divisions. The number of divisions will depend on the number of schools competing. Sports with 199 or fewer teams competing will be in just one division while sports with 700 or more schools competing will have seven divisions.
"It's the right thing to do for the student-athletes who have been competing at this disadvantage," said OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute in a press release issued after the vote. "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."
Opinions from local athletic directors were varied.
"I guess I'm old school, but I miss the days when there were 3-4 champions in a sport. It was tough to get," said Coldwater's Eric Goodwin. "This will make it a little bit easier - I'm not saying we're going to get them - but it will be easier with more divisions. I haven't weighed the pros and cons. There's good and bad."
For Celina athletic director Derek Wenning, who noted he had to look more at the numbers, the expansion could be a help in some sports and a hinderance in others.
"For (boys) basketball, that puts us in Division III, where we'd have to face the Lima Seniors and Sylvania Southviews. It's going to hurt us a bit," said Wenning. "That right there is kind of mind-boggling, like 'What do we have to do to be successful?'
"Girls-wise in basketball, we'll be the tip of Division IV. We're kind of in the middle. I talked to (Wapakoneta athletic director) Brad Rex. They're going from Division I to Division III (in basketball). He said it would help them and might hurt us. It was in the back of my mind, but the biggest thing is it will hurt us a bit."
There was concern from some that the proposal was made by the nine-member Board of Directors and not presented to the schools via the annual referendum held in May.
"I can't say I disagree (with the expansion), but I wish we could have voted on it or expressed our opinion," said Goodwin. "It was already a done deal before they began talking to us."
"I think this is a big change in the system … I would've liked to see the schools be able to talk about it," said Marion Local's Koenig. "Obviously you'd have the Division I schools really for it, and then, I'm not sure it wouldn't have passed with a vote. As someone said, some messages today on social media, it's going to give our kids more chances to compete at the state level. It's going to offer more communities some excitement. Those are good things."
Koenig had hoped some change would be made for track. The Flyers' boys team is the defending Division III champion.
"I really wish they would've considered track and field. They kind of put that on the back burner, and track and field is one of the most heavily-participated sports," said Koenig. "Not to include that, or even cross country a little bit - I think they could've worked with that a little bit better too, really looked at those. They said they'd look at that later. We'll see what later means."
"I'm still baffled they haven't looked at track, cross country or even golf," said Wenning. "Sports where numbers are ridiculous. In cross country, our boys will be okay, but they'll be in Division I."
The OHSAA will determine changes in dates for state tournaments and any structural changes in formats at a later date.
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