High School class systems in your state

Virginia has three classes, but there are classes within the classes for football, so there are six state champions:
Group AAA, Division 6 (the biggest schools)
Group AAA, Division 5
Group AA, Division 4
Group AA, Division 3
Group A, Division 2
Group A, Division 1

Private schools and public schools don't mix. The various private school associations have their own state titles.

Here's where it gets interesting. The VHSL has a power-point system, which rewards teams for playing up and penalizes them for playing down. Good stuff, you'd think, until you realize that some of the districts, like the ones in our area, are mixed classification. So in our AA district, half the teams are Division 4, the other half are Division 3. In our A district, two are Division 2 and three are Division 1. So the top Division 1 team in that district really didn't get penalized for finishing third in the district, because its two losses came to the two Division 2 teams. (That team went on to win the Group A-1 state title.)

The top four teams in each region (Northern, Northwest, Central and Eastern for AAA; I, II, III and IV for AA; A, B, C and D for A) make it to the playoffs based on power points. District champions get automatic bids, but since you may not have an automatic bid from a district because no Group A, Div. 1 team won a district title, it becomes even more confusing).

Dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen.

 

In said state, I once covered a girls basketball sectional where 5 of the 6 teams were ranked in the top 15 or so statewide (4 in the top 10, 1 getting votes, IIRC). First game could have been the state title game, No. 1 vs. No. 4, an absolutely amazing game. And yes, the unranked team, which had won about 3 games all year, had a bye. Biggest crock of shit I had seen up until that point.

 

I think the breakdown by percentage is 30-30-20-20. Enrollment is roughly 0-300, 300-700, 700-1700 and 1700-up. Right now there are two classes 0-750 and 750-up.

There hasn't been a school from the 0-300 bracket win a boys basketball state title since 1998, but in girls basketball it's been only 3-4 years. In boys bkb, I think four of the last five titlists are from the smaller end of the large-school class. Plus, instead of eight schools in each class qualifying for state, only four in each class will. So more schools really aren't advancing to state.

It will ruin basketball in Illinois like it's been ruined in Indiana. You would have thought the Illinois people would have learned from that.

 

Ah, you were talking about basketball.

The motivation for that is whining suburbanites, upstate and downstate, who can't handle the current system. So, like everything else in the entitlement era, they simply change the rules.

 

Exactly, just lower the bar and ruin a playoff system that draws the largest crowds of any prep basketball tournament IN THE COUNTRY. The "I" in IHSA must stand for "idiots."

Football is a joke in Illinois, too. Six classes was fine. Eight has diluted the field and made it easier for private schools to dominate the playoffs.

High school sports are getting further away from being legitimate athletic competitions and closer to being juice-box-and-a-medal youth-soccer festivals.

 

Pennsylvania schools are split into four classes: A, AA, AAA and AAAA and the state is split into 12 districts -- 6 in the East and 6 in the West. District boundries are determined by county lines, which makes things easier by looking at a map, and harder for just about everything else. For instance, District 4 covers several rural, mountain counties in the north-central part of the state. There are many A and AA schools, but only one in AAAA -- Williamsport High. District 1 takes up the four suburban counties around Philadelphia and has several AAA and AAAA schools, but only a handful of A and AA ones.
Power points are used to determine seeding in the playoffs, which could take 16 schools (such as District 3), or four schools (District 11). Each district can determine how big their playoffs are, as long as it fits into the overall state playoff schedule.
Still with me? Good.
Now if a school such as Williamsport has the right amont of points, it can get into the tournament by playing through a neigboring district -- District 2 of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. Of course, there are handful of District 2-AAAA schools, so to have a meaningful tournament, Diststrict 2 is paired with District 11 (Lehigh Valley) in a "subregional." My paper's style, if Williamsport participates, is to call it the District 2/4/11-AAAA subregional. And if Bethlehem Liberty meets Easton for the championship, it's simply the District 11-AAAA championship.
Nice and easy, eh?
And because there the number of AAA and AAAA schools aren't balanced between East and West (suburban Pittsburgh isn't growing as fast as suburban Philly), some Eastern schools are forced to play in the Western half of the bracket. This actually happens in most sports. Two schools from the Philly burbs played each other for the AAAA boys basketball title not too long ago.
BTW, all private schools are in this mix, too.

 

Football is a joke, because the top two classes are basically the Chicago suburban championships. Who cares? I think East St. Louis might be Class 7A, but they're about it.

Private schools are given a "multiplier" to their enrollment, thus bumping all teams up a class in whatever sport. The original plan called for the multiplier to apply to schools with larger enrollments (ie the Joliet Catholic's, Providence Catholic's and Mundelien Carmel's of the world). But after the Catholics bitched, the IHSA responded by applying the multiplier to ALL private schools, which means the smaller private schools downstate surrounded by corn and soybeans instead of urban sprawl are getting royally screwed.

Personally, I think the first system was the best, because the suburban Chicago private schools have an advantage drawing from a 30 mile radius in an area as big as Chicago. The private schools downstate... not so much.

The change to four classes is going to kill basketball. I have no idea why they'd want to fuck with that. As it is, the road to Peoria is tough. Damn tough. But that's the way it should be. Making it to state means something in Illinois, because you've got to navigate a hell of a field to get there. Carver Arena sells out (or comes damn close to it) every one of the four sessions, AND THE GAMES ARE TELEVISED STATE-WIDE! People don't have to flock to Peoria, but they do.

When Carver is half empty, maybe the IHSA will have learned a lesson. But I doubt it.

 

There's still a possibility Illinois won't adopt four classes. The IHSA approved it only by a vote of its board, not its member schools. A lot of schools are honked off about it, so it's likely to be voted on this fall. I give it about a 50-50 chance of being rejected.

 

Alabama does whatever Dan Washburn wants because he's a good ole' boy... If football needs a few more 6A teams, we'll just throw more up there and trim from everyone else... What? You can't compete in other sports in 6A? That's jest too damn bad.....

Fucktard

 

Yes, but after you've been away for a while and see how screwed up other places (cough, cough, Georgia) are, it looks like a Swiss watch factory.

 

In Massachusetts, there are three or four divisions in most sports. Teams that have at least a .500 overall record, at least a .500 record against schools from the same division if most of the schools in their league are in higher divisions and any school that finished first or second in its league qualifies for the postseason. In every sport but boys lacrosse, there are no power ratings. Seedings are done by overall record with coin flips breaking ties.
In hockey, there are four tournaments. Division 1A is the top 10 schools in the state selected and seeded by a committee. The bottom four seeds in that play play-in games with the losers going into the Division 1 tournament. The eight remaining teams play some sort of pool play/round-robin tournament that is kind of complex and I don't fully understand how it works. In hockey the divisions are done more by strength of program than by school size. There are small Catholic and suburban public schools playing in the higher divisions and large city school playing in the lower divisions. Also, except for two or three Catholic schools, all of Central and Western Mass. is in the lowest division.
Football does not have state championships. There are six Super Bowls between divsions winners in Central and Western Mass. In Eastern Mass. the league champions play each other in semifinals on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, with the winners playing each other in seven Super Bowls on the following Saturday.

 

In football, Florida breaks down into six classes, 6A to 1A with the two smallest divided into two subclasses, 2A and 2B and 1A and 1B. 2A and B came to life after coaches in the smaller 2A schools complained about a huge gap in school size between them and the bigger 2A schools. 1A and B came to life so that the state's smallest schools could have football teams.

Teams play for district titles, with the district champion and runner-up making the regional playoffs. District champions are home for the first round and runners-up are on the road. Matchups are determined by geography, so the District 12 champion plays the District 11 runner-up and vice versa.

For the other sports, it depends. There could be six classes in basketball, four classes in tennis, two in golf and the list goes on.