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I love high school sports. I wouldn’t do this job if I didn’t.
But like anything else, they’re not perfect and there are a lot of lingering problems I’m seeing around the state of Louisiana that can use a fix.
The Louisiana High School Athletic Association has a couple problems right now – issues that have become prevalent in recent weeks – especially for local teams.
These are hot button topics. A lot of people will read this column and disagree with my thoughts. But still yet, plenty others will agree – almost an even 50/50 split. That’s why getting remedies to these situations have been so difficult and also why principals and athletic directors around the state are so unhappy.
I think it’s time the LHSAA to put up or shut up regarding districts. It’s time we both value their existence and make those games significant. Or it’s time we get of them altogether and do something else.
You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
The current formula doesn’t work.
Everything in Louisiana athletics is based on power points. You get a certain amount of points for a win and then you also get points based on how many wins your opponents have.
So, obviously, you can see that playing quality competition matters and is important.
But that’s where the disparity comes in.
In the current format, district play literally doesn’t matter – at all. Winning the district championship earns a team an automatic playoff berth, but let’s be real – every district champion is already in the Top 32 to begin with, so whoppity doo.
The unfairness comes in that because teams cannot choose who is in their districts, they are often hurt by being forced to play substandard opponents in district games, which hurt power points and limit a team’s ability to make the postseason. In leagues with multiple rounds of district play, it’s even worse. You might be stuck playing four or even six games against teams that will earn you almost no points.
On the flip side, there are leagues around Louisiana that have all teams with 15-20-wins. That allows those teams an unfair advantage because if everyone in the league wins a handful of those games, they will all shoot through the charts and get tons of points to make the playoffs – all because of how a map has been drawn in their area.
That’s not right.
The LHSAA needs to either come up with a way to make district games matter or they need to vote to end them altogether.
It’s not apples to apples.
You shouldn’t force teams to play multiple games against other teams they wouldn’t want to play.
That’s unjust and unfair.
Just ask coaches around the state. I tweeted this idea last week and got dozens of comments from coaches who agree and said they think a change needs to be made to fix the problems with the current system.
Now, let’s talk about player eligibility and transfer students.
The LHSAA voted many moons ago to split its schools for postseason competition with public schools on one side and private schools on the other. The original split was just for football, but has since expanded to include other sports, as well.
The assumption at the time was that because private schools had looser boundaries, they had an advantage toward getting players, which created a competitive advantage.
That’s true, to an extent, but I’m here to tell you that the problem lies in rule enforcement and the LHSAA’s absolutely terrible policies regarding transfer students and eligibility.
In the past 2 years, I’ve seen far too many kids leave one school, transfer to another school five minutes away and become eligible right away to compete.
In the past 2 years, I’ve seen far too many kids start an athletic season with one team, transfer mid-season and finish the season with another team – without having to sit out a day.
I am not cold-hearted. I understand that there are certain situations where people may need to move and that kids shouldn’t be heavily punished for that.
But let’s be real.
This is free agency.
Look around locally at the instances of this happening.
There’s always a common thread, isn’t there? The transferring players always seem to be transferring out of a program that’s historically struggled and into a program that’s historically flourished – a direct violation of LHSAA rules which say that a player must sit out for one year if leaving for athletic reasons.
Yet, those rules are not being enforced locally because it’s a “legitimate move” – as legitimate as any move from one side of Houma to the other can be.
That’s not right.
In other states, to fix this issue, athletic associations have ruled that any transfer to a school within 75 miles of a player’s initial school will result in an automatic one-year ineligibility period.
I think that sounds about right.
It’s too easy to move two streets over, claim that you’ve made a life-changing “legitimate move” and then become eligible at the basketball powerhouse program around town.
It’s also too easy to intentionally enroll in certain middle schools to try and bypass boundary rules to go to one high school over the next.
The LHSAA is asleep at the wheel regarding how and why these things are happening and enforcement of this kind of stuff would make athletics more competitive than any “split” ever could.
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