Still Split: Principals vote to keep expanded split

Richard Turner
June 14, 2016
George McElroy
June 14, 2016
Richard Turner
June 14, 2016
George McElroy
June 14, 2016

For the second time in six months, Louisiana principals have voted to further separate themselves from private schools for the purpose of postseason athletic competition.

The vote has many, including LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine wondering about what happens next amidst talk that a private-school league is now soon to form.


Principals voted overwhelmingly last Wednesday morning to carry forward Many High School Principal Norman Booker’s plan – the same plan which passed in January at the LHSAA’s Annual Convention. By doing so, principals agreed again to expand the select/non-select split into football, where it already exists, and now boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, baseball and softball, as well.

The proposal carried with 56.5 percent of the 306-principal vote – easily outlasting the four other options presented on the table.

After the meeting emotions were mixed. Applause filled the room as the results of the vote were cast. But others walked out in disgust as the numbers were displayed.


Both sides of the spectrum seemed to agree that there is no correct answer to the problems that are at hand. But the voting majority seems to believe that the easiest solution in the present is to break away and find a way to enforce the rules which are in place – a problem that coaches and athletic directors have long said is the root of the entire problem.

“I am neither for nor against the split,” Terrebonne boys’ basketball coach Derek Szush said. “I am for enforcing the rules. The LHSAA has rules in place that are meant to keep the playing field the same for everyone. Those rules are supposed to be followed and they’re not. … There was simply something that needed to be done. There was need for a change.”

“I think we all agree that if the world were perfect that we’d all be back together,” H.L. Bourgeois Athletic Director and boys’ basketball coach Andrew Caillouet added. “But the problem is that recruiting has gone too far and I don’t think the association can control it anymore. The whole situation is screwed up and I don’t know the right answer to it. No one does. This is just what we’re going with. I don’t know the right answer to anything. I don’t know that there’s a way to make everyone happy. And that’s the dilemma that we all face.”


MORE POSTSEASON TEAMS, MORE CHAMPS

With the passage of the expanded split, high school athletics will be drastically different in 2016-17 – the only such proposal on the agenda that would have gone into effect immediately. The four other proposals that failed would have needed to wait for redistricting in 2017-18 to go into effect – a topic which was heavily debated at the meeting.

The format of the expanded split will raise the number of state champions from seven to 12 in basketball, baseball and softball – a number that trumps the nine champions crowned in football.


Each bracket – from Class 5A all the way down to Class B and Class C will be separated with seven public school titles and five private school titles making up the 12-bracket postseason format.

But many around Louisiana think that having more champs isn’t a good thing – it devalues the honor and prestige of winning it all.

Caillouet has been coaching for 25 years and has been close to the state championship several times in his career. He said he’d rather finish as the runner-up facing open competition than winning a small, uncompetitive bracket that doesn’t feature the best teams in the state.


“I’ve been close and I’ve never won one,” Caillouet said. “I’d rather play everyone. I don’t want to win anything that’s watered down.”

Vandebilt football coach Jeremy Atwell agrees. He said by focusing so heavily on the number of champions crowned, it puts too strong a focus on winning – something that he believes isn’t in the spirit of high school sports.

“We’re putting a value on a state championship and on wins more than anything else now,” Atwell said. “And that’s an unfortunate lesson.”


LEADERSHIP EXPRESSES DISDAIN WITH VOTE

LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine is certainly one of the folks who is unhappy with how the meeting played out.

Bonine wasn’t himself last Wednesday – often looking visibly disturbed by the conversation that was going on as folks discussed the proposals on the agenda.


Usually an energetic leader who gives passionate speeches at these meetings, Bonine stayed sitting for the entire two-hour gathering.

Not once did he take to the microphone to offer his thoughts and/or make a plea to rally together the principals in attendance.

Instead, most of his day was spent staring into a tablet, while discussion was heard.


But after the meeting, Bonine let loose. The second-year executive director let out his frustrations, chastising the principals for their insistence to divide at a time when he believes the association needs unity.

Bonine said he will do whatever he can to make the expanded split work – calling it his duty as executive director to make any plan thrive.

But he wasn’t shy in saying that he has his work cut out for him because of the vote.


“I don’t think it’s good for our association,” Bonine said. “If you look at the brackets, a lot of it doesn’t make sense. Some of the brackets have teams with losing records who will be hosting playoff games. In some of the brackets, there are teams who haven’t won a damned ballgame who will be making the playoffs. It’s bad. That’s not the way it should be done.”

Bonine also expressed concern about sponsorships and the losses of revenue the split may have on the state. At a budget meeting earlier in the week, LHSAA officials said several big sponsors were waited to see voting results before making the decision to renew their deals with the association.

NEW LEAGUE STILL LOOMS IN THE BALANCE


Probably the biggest reason for Bonine’s ire is that passage of the expanded split enhances the likelihood of a new league forming in Louisiana.

For months, it’s been rumored that an athletic cooperative was forming – a secondary league that would give disgruntled schools an opportunity to break from the LHSAA.

The talks have gotten so organized that Paul Rainwater, a former Bobby Jindal chief of staff, drafted a plan, which would see 60 schools form their own association for all major sports.


It’s not likely that the league can form before the start of the 2016-17 school year, but the ball is rolling, according to many powerful names in the private school sector.

John Curtis football coach J.T. Curtis said it’s only a matter of time before the break-off occurs.

“Those talks will accelerate quickly – especially now,” he said. “And that’s unfortunate.”


Atwell said he can’t speak for Vandebilt’s entire school on the record, but he said he, personally, would like to learn more about any potential cooperative leagues.

He said he’d be interested in seeing the school join, assuming it’d fit Vandebilt’s plans. The same sentiment was shared by Covenant Christian Academy football coach Randy Boquet, who said in a text message that he’d be open to hearing about a secondary league.

While waiting to see what comes of the new league, several private schools are fighting back through scheduling with several issuing mandates that their school will not compete against any team that voted for the split.


ONE COMMON OPINION – RULE ENFORCEMENT TRUMPS ALL

Whether public or private, local coaches all agree that this would be much ado about nothing if Louisiana recruiting rules were enforced.

Szush said with the emergence of summer sports, kids are often indirectly recruited by coaches and players of other schools – a dilemma that he said has gotten out of control in recent years and has contributed to some of the frustration by public school principals.


Caillouet agreed and said that the loose enrollment rules of some of the state’s charter and magnet schools have allowed all-star teams to be formed on the playing courts.

“It’s a fiasco and it’s a fiasco that is only hurting one group – the kids,” Caillouet said.

Atwell agreed. He said the current plan punishes the majority for the minority that’s breaking the rules.


He said more stringent restrictions should be made to take the rule breakers out of the game.

“We don’t recruit,” Atwell said. “We coach what we’ve got. We’re failing to recognize that there are public and private schools that still do pay attention to the right things and still do want to do things with class and dignity. I don’t think what we’re doing right now is right. I want something to change.”

But the problem is that folks who want change often don’t a plan that could represent how it’d look.


That’s, in part, why things always seem to find a way to stay the same.

“It’s hard to say what the right answer is,” Szush said. “I guess if it were that easy to come up with, someone would have created it by now.” •

Split Apart


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