The stupidest thing your state high school association allows to happen

Interesting. I only moved to Missouri for this job so I didn't know all the history before I came here; however, looking at our archives I can tell that Missouri at least did the four-team district thing for at least as long as Kansas has done it (I think.... I'm actually not certain. You could very well be right. I know MO has at lease been doing it since the mid-80s).

I do know that Missouri only started letting two teams per district in about two, three years ago. I know this because one of the main schools I cover won the Class 5 championship in 2007 and that was the last year under the old system. They were 9-1 that year, then made the playoffs again the next year with a 6-4 record and somehow still got a first round bye in the playoffs.

IMO, it actually makes LESS sense for for Kansas to let so many teams in, since Kansas has MAYBE half the schools that Missouri has.

That brings up another question about Kansas I've always wondered: Why do they have so many "combined" championships? I mean, they have one called "1-2A" for football, then "3-2-1A" or whatever for track, and so on. Why not just combine them into one for the purposes of that sport? Do they just do that to even out the classes and make them as close to equal as possible? I guess I'm confused as to how they arrive there. I'm so used to Missouri having different classes for every different sport. I guess that's actually an anomaly.

 

Missouri schools don't even HAVE to join conferences. There are some schools— big ones, GOOD ones— that are independents in every sport. And some— thinking of the Jeff City Jays here— are football powerhouses.

 

In fairness to the MAIS, they've gotten caught in this situation in the middle of a two-year redistricting cycle. They'll probably go from eight districts to six for Class A from 2011-2013, when they redo it this winter. It's an awkward situation, but keep in mind, too, that those same schools playing eight-man football still play varsity basketball. So you might have a four-team district for football, but it's seven or eight teams in basketball.
I agree, though, that the two-team district that will be around next football season is ridiculous.

 

It's because there aren't enough schools in the lower class competing in that sport. I think the Kansas rule is that there have to be at least 24 schools in a class competing in a sport before that class can have its own championship. On a technicality, they are combined; they're competing for one trophy at state. It's just that they also combine the names "Class 3-2-1A" in wrestling vs. "Class 1A" or "Class 3A."

My guess concerning the difference is that Missouri defines classes by sport (Soccer has X classes with X schools while football has Y classes with Y schools and the class with the smallest schools shall always be Class 1) while Kansas defines classes by schools (Class X has X schools while Class Y has Y schools and the class with the largest 32 schools shall always be Class 6A).

If every school in Kansas could field a team in every sport Kansas sponsors, they would be in the same class in all sports. If every school in Missouri could field a team in every sport Missouri sponsors, they would be in different classes in all sports (Football excepted, obviously, because of the different systems to define those classes).

There haven't been separate classes at all for girls' gymnastics since 1977. I think only about 16 schools have teams. But they don't call it "6-1A." I think it's simply "All Classes."

As far as football, Missouri started it's district system at least one year after Kansas did (and I think it may have been three) baased on the fact that the district cycles were out of sync for several years. Kansas had a one-year district cycle in 1991 in order to get in sync with other states and make it easy for a Kansas school to schedule one in Colorado, Oklahoma or Missouri.

Neither is dumb, at least in the context of this thread, because they make sense in some way depending on which state you live in. Dumb is having two classes of eight-man football (Ahem, Kansas).

 

yeah the private schools are ludicrous. I covered a game between a team from Ferriday, La., and a team from West Memphis, Ark., playing each other for the Mississippi Private School Association (now MAIS) state championship. and there might be more private schools in Mississippi than public.

 

I think Missouri defines class by sport AND size, so that they always have a somewhat equal number of schools in a given class. And in the smaller sports like swimming or tennis it's a big change from what schools normally are. For instance, one school in our area is normally Class 4 for football and basketball but because only a handful of schools play tennis they're Class 1. That was the case for their girls soccer team, too, until they went from 2 to 3 classes in girls soccer (now I'm pretty sure they're Class 2 for both boys and soccer).

They're thinking about expanding both soccer classes to 4 now, too, which makes no sense to me since Class 1 only has about 50 schools (2 and 3 are a tad bigger, round 75). Private urban schools dominate Class 1 and I don't see how that's going to get any better if they make it into 4 classes (unless, of course, they put most of the private schools in their own class and leave all 20 or so small public schools that play soccer on their own in the smallest class... also stupid).

 

Still no state football championships in Massachusetts. Completely baffling.

 

Why did Missouri remove the "A" from their classes? (i.e. Class 4, Class 3, etc.)

 

Actually, the use of "A" in most states is rather archaic. It comes from years when states had "Class AA," "Class A," "Class B" and the like. There hasn't been a Class B in Kansas since the mid 60's. Of the states around me, I can think of only Oklahoma still having a Class B and Class C. And I think those are for eight-man football. I think, but I'm not certain, that Nebraska still has a Class B. Am I right?

Kansas could just as easily drop the "A". It doesn't really mean anything anymore.

 

Arkansas changed its classification system in the late 90s because a bunch of Class B schools claimed they felt they were being treated as second-class. So every class essentially had an A added to it and Class B became Class A.

Then a few years later Arkansas decided to blow up the old order and add two new classes. I'm sure that made for some fun copy: How many A's are there in AAAAAAA? (That used to be the style until they figured out you actually get to a point where you have to stop and physically count the letters, and made it 7A.)

The Arkansas Activities Association was already abbreviated AAA, which added to the confusion.

 

Louisiana has a Class B and a Class C, in addition to the normal 1A through 5A. Class B (98-233 students) and Class C (less than 98 students) are basically the podunk, and then the podunkier schools that don't play football. There's about 40 schools in each classification, though. Class 1A is 233 students and below that do play football.

 

In PA, every newspaper seems to have a different style. Even the PIAA can't make up its mind for district numbers, alternating between Roman and Arabic numbers; it's District 11 in one place and District XI in another on the Web site.

Most papers in the state use A, AA, AAA and AAAA. Though some outlets (most notably the Allentown Morning Call and Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader) use 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A.

For district numbers, most use 1, 2, 3, etc. Others spell them out: One, Two, Three, etc. (Which I think looks really weird.)

The Morning Call, for instance, does this: Central Bucks West won the District One Class 4A championship...

The most consistent style around the state is: Central Bucks West won the District 1 Class AAAA championship....

A couple papers, the Harrisburg Patriot-News and Reading Eagle, use: Central Bucks West won the District 1-AAAA championship.

My personal preference is the third sample.