SPLIT EXPANDS

History was made on Friday morning at the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s Annual Convention.

Louisiana principals voted by a 60 percent majority to expand the state’s public/private split to include all major sports – an item that will be activated on July 1, 2016, and will be in place for the 2016-17 school year.

The move was historic, and it’s another loud statement from the public school majority that they don’t think the playing field is level when competing against private institutions.

The sports that will now be separated in the playoffs include football, boys’ basketball, girls’ basketball, softball and baseball.

Before the vote, just football had used the split, which has been a controversial, hotbed topic around Louisiana since its activation.

But now that the principals have spoken, LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine said it’s time for the association to try and unite and rally around the system voted into place.

“I’ve been given the plan, so now it’s my job to make the plan prosperous,” Bonine said. “There’s going to be some debate and discussion, but we have to make it work. We have to find that give and take and that common ground, and this is what was decided upon, so we have to now unite and roll with it.”

The decision to split is not the move Bonine wanted principals to make – at least not yet.

Throughout the LHSAA Annual Convention, which started last Wednesday and ended on Friday, the executive director said publicly that he wanted principals to table all playoff proposals so that he and his staff could further study the issues to find a long-term solution.

At the opening of the meetings, Bonine made one more plea, asking that action be deferred 12 months to the 2017 convention.

Bonine was hired 11 months ago, and has spent a lot of his first year “observing” how the LHSAA functions.

“I had a lot on my plate,” Bonine said. “Admittedly, right now, I have a clearer focus, and can better look at these issues and hear the debates so that we can come to a long-term solution that serves everybody.”

But principals didn’t respond to that plea, opting to take immediate action. They refused to table proposals for four playoff plans until next year, and placed them on the final meeting for the agenda.

The vote finally came after an interesting morning.

In his opening address, Bonine likened the LHSAA’s annual convention to the Super Bowl, touting that it is the biggest day in the association’s year. He said that high school athletic associations around the country had their eyes on Louisiana, touting that the decisions made in the meeting would be impactful around the United States.

“The NFL’s big game is next week. Today is our big game,” he said. “Today, we have the eyes of the country looking at us. Today, our actions – your decisions – will speak very loudly toward our future.”

Then the so-called Super Bowl got started with a fumble. The electronic devices principals used to make their decisions malfunctioned, causing a delay of more than an hour. After repeated attempts to fix the machines, principals agreed to cast ballots electronically, then do a roll call vote if the results were close.

The split vote wasn’t close enough to need a hand count, but before ballots were cast, tense words were spoken by those on both sides.

The proposal was placed on the agenda by Many High School principal Norman Booker. In explaining his reasoning for the item, he said his purpose was not to split the LHSAA, but instead, to allow it to come together.

“We just want a fairer playing field,” Booker said. “We want this association to be as strong as it can be – as impactful as it can be.”

After the debate, Lakeview principal William Hymes took the microphone and chose his words carefully. In about an eight-second address, he said he whole-heartedly agreed with the split expansion.

Lakeview has gone deep in the boys’ basketball state playoffs, each of the past few seasons, but has been eliminated by private school powers in each year.

“I’ve waited for two years to vote on this,” Hymes said. “I can’t wait to push that button.”

He did – a vote of yes. One of 182 principals to support the measure. A total of 120 votes were cast against the split.

By passing the split expansion, all three other playoff proposals were automatically thrown off the ballot.

Applause filled the room, as the vote tallies were shown, though it’s not celebrated by all. Longtime John Curtis football coach J.T. Curtis said he speaks for all private schools in saying that principals made the wrong decision.

Curtis said he feels the split is unfair to private institutions, and the principals rushed to make a decision against Bonine’s advice.

“We needed more time,” he said. “It’s a shame. We preach unity, then vote for further division. It’s not good.”

LOCALS DISCUSS THE SPLIT

Local coaches aren’t overly in favor of the split, though many concede that until recruiting violations are seriously implemented, it’s probably the best solution.

South Lafourche football coach Dennis Skains has said multiple times in the past few seasons that he’d support Louisiana going back to its old system where all schools were together. Skains said he thinks the real problem isn’t public versus private, but is instead, rule breakers versus schools who comply.

“I wish it were all together,” Skains said during last football season when asked about the split. “I really do. I think the problem stems from a lack of enforcement. I think if the emphasis were on taking the problems out of the game, we would be able to find a solution that works for everyone.

Hahnville High School basketball coach Rick Spring agrees. Spring, who shares a district with Terrebonne, H.L. Bourgeois, Thibodaux and Central Lafourche, said the issue isn’t separation, but is punishing rule breakers.

Spring said there are countless private schools in Louisiana who do things the right way, and are treated unfairly by being separated. The Hahnville coach said having additional state champions creates doubt among both players and coaches at the end of the season – something that he believes is unfair.

“If I win the State Championship here, and, let’s say, Brother Martin, wins on the private school side, we’re going to wonder forever about who might have won that game,” Spring said. “The kids are going to wonder. The fans are going to wonder. I think we just need to enforce what’s on the books, and follow what’s already in place.”

Local private schools agree.

Vandebilt Catholic athletic director Margaret Johnson has long been an opponent of the split. So, too, is Terriers football coach Jeremy Atwell, who said he thinks it’s unfair to break apart rivalries and spread out playoff brackets because of administrative rules.

Athletic directors and principals will meet throughout the spring and summer to discuss how to align and the new plan.

Administration’s No. 1 task will be structuring State Championship weekends for the newly split sports. Both basketballs, baseball and softball are contractually obligated to play their championship games at selected sites in the state. With there now being more classifications and double the state champions, the calendar and timing of those games has to change.

“It all needs to be ironed out. It all needs to be discussed,” Bonine said. “But this is the plan we have, so my job is to drive the car to where the principals selected the GPS to go.”

OFFICIALS GET RAISE

One issue at the meetings that generated a lot of headlines the agenda item to lock in a pay raise for four years to the state’s referees.

At LHSAA-sanctioned area meetings, some principals and athletic directors expressed concern about the raises, stating that it was hard to justify giving anyone a raise in the current tough economic climate.

At the beginning of the meeting, Bonine said it was “vitally important” that principals passed the raise, and it did with flying colors, generating more than 90 percent of the vote.

A total of 258 principals opted for the raise, while 23 voted nay. With the raise now officially on the book, the threat of a work stoppage has been avoided until the 2020 season.

Schools are currently paying the enhanced rate, which was agreed upon before the start of the 2015-16 school year. But because that happened in August, it was never formally voted on and put into the books.

Bonine and LHSAA Assistant Executive Director Keith Alexander said the vote was a huge win for the LHSAA, touting that a work stoppage and/or free market for officials would have been a ‘nightmare situation.’

Alexander said that with the raise in effect, the LHSAA will now also budget dollars to give referees elite-level training and evaluation throughout the year.

At the Top 28 last year, Bonine hand-removed an official from the floor at halftime of a championship game, citing poor performance.

“We want our top people calling all of the biggest ball games,” Alexander said. “We take pride in what we do, and we want to make sure that all of our crews are best prepared to handle the sporting events going on around our state.”

‘We just want a fairer playing field. We want this association to be as strong as it can be in the future.’

Norman Booker Many High School principal

Louisiana High School Athletic Association Executive Director Eddie Bonine gives his address at Friday’s LHSAA Annual Convention. Principals voted Friday to expand the split.

CASEY GISCLAIR | THE TIMES

Now that the public/private split has been expanded, softball is one of the sports that will now be split in postseason play. Vandebilt and E.D. White will now play only private school opponents in postseason.

FILE