Issues with Ohio high school CC and T&F

as an Ohio coach at the D3 level, I say who cares. Combined enrollment is better.

What would I do if my girls team went to regionals at tiffin and my guys team went to Troy? I am the only coach, and this holds true for a lot of programs.

And people can complain about it not being fair that some bigger schools are in lower divisions. Who cares? If you're the best, you'll beat the best.

you have an assistant pricinpal, an athletic director, a principal... pretty sure that they would have to fall into that category to help out... ohio makes adjustments for the 20 or 30 teams that this affects, only to hurt 700 other teams potentially... makes no sense...

This seems to be a good solution..1) Base divisional assignment on single gender enrolment – but allow a school to move either of its cross country teams (boys’ team or girls’ team) up to the higher division team so they can run together (but don't force a school to move out of their "normal" single gender enrolment divisional assignment.

If your girls were in this District would you think the same?? As a result of combined enrollment creating disparities which would not occur if single gender enrollment figures were used (like all other OHSAA sports), there was one district 88% of the girls Division III teams qualified for the Regionals while in another district 25% of the girls Division III teams qualified for the Regionals.

What about this issue - Is there a Title IX issue if a school does not have appropriate coaching for both teams (school did not add a coach when they started girls cross country). Is there a Title IX issue when a school says they don't want to spend the money to send their girls to their appreciate "Normal" Divisional District assignment. The above two reasons were the main issues for a few schools to push thru combined enrollment even against the wishes of the Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches.

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Isn't having only one coach more of a local issue and not a State issue.. Again the best solution would be the one at the top of the page...

Is this a good breakdown of diving teams

Girls

DI - 183 teams

DII - 173 teams

DIII - 147 teams

What about this comment - Boys cross country and girls cross country are two different sports - Is it Fair and Equitable to treat cross country different than all other OHSAA sponsored sports

Letsrun fans - take a minute and ask the people in charge of the OHSAA why they are treating cross country different than the other 23 sports they sponsor and it looks like it has caused more problems than it solved.

Also, why don't they count all track teams in Ohio not just the teams with 9 or more athletes? Note. A team the OHSAA doesn't even count as having a team won a State T&F team Championships this season.

dross@ohsaa.org

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dgabor@ignatius.edu

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dhill@caldwell.k12.oh.us

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jsheets@laca.org

sstirn@loganhocking.k12.oh.us

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bfrankart@lb.noacsc.org

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abixler@anna.k12.oh.us

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martint@gjps.org

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William.nye@neomin.org

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reevess@wcsoh.org

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walt.skaggs@omeresa.net

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jsnyder@lincolnview.k12.oh.us

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oiaaa.brucebrown@gmail.com

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bgullen@steubenville.k12.oh.us

Ohiocoach6 wrote:

as an Ohio coach at the D3 level, I say who cares. Combined enrollment is better.

What would I do if my girls team went to regionals at tiffin and my guys team went to Troy? I am the only coach, and this holds true for a lot of programs.

And people can complain about it not being fair that some bigger schools are in lower divisions. Who cares? If you're the best, you'll beat the best.

This.

Most states base divisional assignments on combined enrollment. It just makes sense. And let's be honest, is there REALLY a big difference between the way it's done now and the way it was before? You would think the male/female ratio is going to be pretty similar for any given high school after all, which means the only difference would be when a school is already close to the border.

The bigger question, in my opinion, is why does the OHSAA treat the other 23 sports differently? Why aren't all the schools in the same classification for all sports?

For the poster that mentioned that classifications could be based on gender but with the option of moving up to match the boys classification: wouldn't that create a significant disadvantage for poorer districts compared to more wealthy districts? The poorer district might not be able to afford that second coach to separate the programs, but the wealthier district probably could; in that scenario, the poorer district doesn't really have the option to stay at a lower classification and, according to the rationale of this thread, would be forced into a disadvantage because of that fact while the richer district could bypass the issue.

Just be like 90% of the other states in the nation and base divisional alignment on the combined enrollment. It just makes sense.

In Ohio there are teams with 300 girls or boys in the school competing against schools with over 1200, four times their size.

The girls and boys going to different regionals could happen to 20 schools IF they both made it to regional. I think 2014 would have had 6 if there were separate enrollment. There were many solutions offered by the coaches association including altering regional time schedules so the coach would attend both with his or her teams, choosing to move both teams to the larger division if that one day is such a hardship, and many more. Instead the state chose to make the playing field very slanted to accommodate a few complaining superintendents who did not want to pay for two buses one day of the year. There was a boys team pulled to division 2 from division 1 by a low number of girls and another boys team pushed to division 2 from division 3 by a large number of girls. So, a division 1 team was competing against a division 3 team.

I do not coach, but in my part of the state the division 3 girls had 9 teams with 8 advancing to regional while other parts of the state had 18-20 teams with 4 advancing due to using combined enrollment. My nieces team advanced with a 5th runner over 30 minutes.

The problem is the big schools don't care because it doesn't affect them and the others like the guy earlier in the thread are happy because they get rid of the best competition and have far fewer teams overall in division 3.

It is a shame when people allow XC to be treated different, then they complain when there is a different situation involving the same disrespect. I don't coach and sent a letter, but most will not.

This issue doesn't bother me, and actually nothing about Ohio high school athletics "bothers" me, but a bigger issue in my mind is that there are a handful of "mega" schools that have a decided advantage when it comes to team titles.

Ohio has just 3 divisions, and the largest division (Division I) has some schools with enrollments that are as much as three times that+ of other Division I schools.

According to:

http://ohsaa.org/members/hsenroll15.htm

:

* Mason High School in Mason, OH has 2.646 students - Division I

* Zanesville High School in Zanesville, OH has 684 students - Division I

Mason, Centerville, St. Ignatious and St. Xavier (boys only for both), and a handful of others are so much larger than most of the Division I schools that they just have to reload every year. It takes a rare down year by one of those and a rare very strong year by a non-mega school for a non-mega school to have a shot. You can't just say, "do the training" either, because you need a strong 5 to win a title, and a team with 80 boys on the roster has a big advantage over one with 17.

Those mega schools I mentioned have good coaches and good programs, but the number of team titles they have is definitely influenced by shear numbers.

Seems odd that a community that once had a single high school that now has 2 or 3 high schools is at a disadvantage when both or all 3 are in Division I, but if they had just had the room to add on to the original high school to make it a mega school, they would be able to legitimately compete for a state team title every year.

Oh well...not everything in life is fair. Ohio would do well to add a 4th or even a 5th division though.

Massive difference in school sizes: That's obviously going to happen regardless of how the cut-offs are determined, because the issue is the number of classifications. Whether the classifications are determined by gender or by overall enrollment, you're going to have very big schools competing in Division 1, and there simply aren't that many big schools compared to the number of more "average" sized schools.

Traveling to different regionals: The system needs to plan for those possibilities, and not penalize those teams that find themselves in those situations. That's more of an inequity than schools towards the top/bottom of the classification having an usual gender imbalance.

Number of schools in an area being different in different classifications: What do you expect? Some areas have less population, others have more. Some districts tend to have bigger schools, some prefer smaller schools. That and more happens across the nation. The only way you could avoid that is if there was only one classification, which would be an even bigger issue on your first point than it currently is.

I agree, it is a shame that people allow XC to be treated differently than other sports. So, why are there different numbers of classifications for different sports?

Prior to combined enrollment it took about 370 students to be in the largest division with the mega schools. It now take 310. This affects about 50 schools. Division 1 is primarily schools of 800 and larger so including schools of 310 is a huge disadvantage.

Traveling to different regions is a one day problem for a handful of schools. The solution, combined enrollment, negatively affects many, many more. State officials actually let it slip that the real reason was a few superintendents did not want to pay for two buses on the same day, one time.

Population has nothing to do with the unequal representation. It is due to combined enrollment. There are many schools in my part of the state that have boys teams but not girls teams, but due to combined enrollment, the girls are treated as though they have teams. Our district has 24 boys teams, but the same schools have only 9 girls teams. Due to combined enrollment our district is treated as though they have 20 girls teams. Really silly! My nieces team had to beat 15 teams that did not actually exist. This would not happen without combined enrollment.

Why does it matter why there are more divisions in other sports? People have shown the state that they don't care that cross-country is treated differently and poorly by accepting combined enrollment. That is the real danger and why people should bombard the state officials with questions about combined enrollment. Once they can treat the sport differently, poorly, and without logic it will carry over to all parts until numbers dwindle and they can get rid of the sport all together.

The main question is why is just one sport being treated different than all of the other sports in Ohio. I like the suggestion - if it is a problem because of only one coach or they say they don't want to spend the extra money sending the girls team to a different location...then let the school decide if they want to move up the lower division team. Don't force schools to move and don't treat one sport different because you say you don't want to spend the extra money (when they spend money for exhibition competition).

What other States do is fine - but don't do combined enrollment for one sport and not the other

Also how fair is it to have a "normal" Division III team move up and a "normal Division I school move down and compete against each other in Division II?

How fair is it to have the top two Division II teams in the State be able to move out of DI and take those awards from the real DII schools?

How fair is it to have 60 plus teams with more boys running in DII and Yet make a team with only 267 compete against a team with over 1200 in the DI race?

Treat all of the sports in OHIO the Same!!

Why do you assume that they added more schools to the largest classification simply because they combined enrollment? One has nothing to do with the other.

Division 1 and Division 3 are going to have the widest ranges of schools, because they include the "outliers". That's pretty obvious - Schools of 2800 students are going to have an advantage when there are only, say, 15 other schools with at least 1900 students. Likewise, schools with only 5-10 students are going to be at a disadvantage when they compete in a classification made up of schools between 50-200 students. That's always going to be the case, and just because the classification is determined by the combined enrollment rather than gender-specific enrollment has nothing to do with that issue. If you want schools of more similar size to compete against eachother, then you have to further limit the number of schools in each classification, meaning you add more classifications. Separating boys and girls by enrollment makes no difference.

Traveling to multiple destinations for the same program/coaches/parents is a problem, particularly when there is only one coach. That means that those coaches would have to choose which meet to attend and which meet to forgo - a pretty serious problem if a team is trying to qualify for state, or even give their kids the opportunity to continue their season as long as they have qualified for the next level. Likewise, parents having to decide which son/daughter to go isn't exactly a great situation either. It may only happen once a season, but it's a very significant problem that doesn't need to even be an issue in the first place.

Population has quite a bit to do with unequal representation. A county with a student population of 50,000 is going to have less kids than a county with 500,000 students. Likewise, a county where most high schools have enrollments between 100-400 students is going to have fewer representatives at the Division 1 level than a similar sized county where most high schools have enrollments between 500-900 students. The only other reason for uneven representation, which you mention, is that some coaches might be more successful at building a boys program than a girls program at the same high school. That's an issue you should take up with your local AD if you are really concerned about it, as obviously a coach's first job is to have a team in order to compete.

It matters how many other divisions there are in different sports if you want XC to be treated the same as other sports. If there are, say, 8 divisions in football and 1 division in XC, then the teams are being treated differently in those sports. For one, there are 8 state champions in football versus 1 in XC; for another, more similar sized schools are competing against eachother in football than in XC (and isn't that the source of frustration in this thread, unless it's just to complain about a change whether it was for the better or not?).

In other words, all along Ohio has treated cross country differently than other sports. Why the outrage over yet another difference, when this difference does more good than bad (and is far less unusual nationwide)?

OH? Did you read the article?

OHSAA BYLAW 2 — CLASSIFICATION AND ORGANIZATION – Section 1 — Classification of Schools 2-1-1: Classification and representation to tournaments will be calculated every other school year. The classification will be calculated in a school year beginning with an even numbered year for use in the next two school years. Boys’ classification shall be determined by the total number of boys enrolled in grades 9-10-11. Girls’ classification shall be determined by the total number of girls enrolled in grades 9-10-11. Once the above number is determined, the divisions are divided equally based on the number of divisions.

Here is another OHSAA Bylaw which could help in dealing with the issue of having only one coach for both cross country teams... BYLAW 3 — ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL 3-2-2: "When a male coach is assigned to a girls’ team, an adult female (non-high school student) should be present at the contest. When a female coach is assigned to a boys’ team, an adult male (non-high school student) should be present at the contest." Thus, if a school doesn’t have at least one person to represent each gender (one for the boys’ cross country team, and another for the girls’ team if the coach is a male), then that would seem to be a violation of the Bylaw, which should be a local school board issue, and might possibly be a Title IX concern.

Ohio requires the same number of teams per division. When they use girls teams on paper that don't actually exist they are almost all coming from division 3. This inflates the number of division 3 teams by about 70 pushing that many up to division 2 and that many from division 2 to division 1. That is the reason it took 370 students to be division 1 prior to combined enrollment and 310 after.

I won't go much further as you simply don't seem to get it, but it is a complicated mess. Saying there are going to be outliers does not justify adding more and more teams to the largest divisions and allowing the smallest division to compete with far less teams.

The problem for less than ten coaches was fixed by the coaches association without combined enrollment. If a school does not have coaches or does not want to travel is their issue, not the state. The state bowed to a few complaining superintendents and made the divisions anything but fair and equitable.

Population has NOTHING to do with combined enrollment. The burden of having a competitive team falls on the schools, not the state. However, the division housing most of these non teams are the ones benefiting so many don't want what is right for the sport, only seeing a chance to advance with below average teams.

There is nothing good in this other than sub par coaches hoping for an advantage due to the pool of quality competitors shrinking.

Treat all sports the same or the sport will continue to get singled out and unless you are football or basketball it will not be good for the athletes.

ohio guys great insight to the real issues.....

Flagpole is right, XC/TF needs 4 or 5 divisions in Ohio (football has 6). It's ridiculous that a school with an enrollment of 310 is expected to compete against schools with 1,000+ kids.

Football in Ohio has 7 divisions for about 700 schools...and about 110 girls playing football in Ohio

4 divisions would be nice..but just treating cc like all other sports would be better...

They could fix the issue of runners competing at the same time at different places by running the district and regional meets on Friday for division 2 and Saturday for 1 and 3. They do that for t&f. (except the central district).

I haven't been able to watch one of our two track teams the last couple years at regionals.

Great points ohio guy. Not fair to treat one sport different than the rest...I plan to write a letter today to the board...