The stupidest thing your state high school association allows to happen

I have a volleyball team in my coverage area that gets to drive 350 miles one way to play what amounts to a true road match in the state quarterfinals because the school that signed up to be the 'neutral' site ended up winning its region.

 

Dublin Coffman! Are you kidding me! I covered a playoff game there, and their "press box" for media consisted of a wodden platform with a tarp over it on the vistor's side! I'm sure the OHSAA was laughing at that one.

 

We've used Impact the last two years at the state boys tournament, and Impact hasn't charged us. Maybe we got lucky, but they didn't charge us.

 

UPDATE: Due to a scheduling conflict at a state event this year, we contacted Impact. The company didn't charge us and we got a photo of exactly what we wanted. The overall experience (as well as the free pic, of course) will go a long way in us considering Impact for future events.

 

Virginia has three classes, called groups. For football playoffs, each group is split in half by enrollment, so there are 6 state football champions for 300+ schools.

Basketball, though, will be absurd this winter. Because the Virginia High School League rules leave it up to each group to determine how basketball champions are determined, the state will have this:

Group AAA (largest schools): No divisions, so one boys champion and one girls champion.

Group AA (medium-sized schools): Split into divisions for playoffs, with four regions sending two teams each to the state tournament. So two boys champions and two girls champions.

Group A (smallest schools): Split into divisions for playoffs, but the state is split in two half-state sections instead of four regions for post-district tournament. So two boys champions and two girls champions.

Three groups, three different ways to crown state champions.

 

CIF contracts with Maxpreps as their "official" photographer for playoff games. Whenever a game announcer is forced to read one of the PSAs "go to Maxpreps.com to buy photos," I always mutter under my breath "or go to the Podunk Shopping News, where we'll beat their price." Should one of our teams make it to state finals and the front office won't spring for a shooter, though, my first call is to AP to see if they're shooting it.

At one of our schools, there's a woman who's been taking photos for years that does great work. Always gives sends us shots when a team is out of our range for regional, or gets the group shot at hall of fame night and yadda yadda yadda. Last year I asked her to give us a call at the end of every quarter of a regional basketball game with the scores, but she ended up calling us at every dead ball. We ended up blogging her updates. When they got in the next morning, the school's principal and AD had an e-mail from me telling her what she did. Once every couple of years she asks if we can get her a credential to shoot a local kid at a game, and it's never a problem.

I've had coaches ask me to get them photo credentials before, but its obvious their first intention is not photography. Don't know why I keep missing the deadline ...

 

Bumping for one of the strangest things I've seen any high school association do. Texas private school association (not to be confused with UIL, which governs public schools) won't accommodate Jewish school's wish not to play game during Sabbath:

http://www.chron.com/sports/highschool/article/Beren-Academy-prepares-for-game-it-can-t-play-3367722.php

 

This became a story this week in our region, though thankfully, it wasn't in my coverage area, because I'm not sure I want to wade into this one.

The parents of an 18-year-old high school junior with Down syndrome have made waves in the local media after the Michigan High School Athletic Association refused to grant them a waiver to allow him to compete as a senior, as the MHSAA sets a hard cap on eligibility at 19.

As easy a reaction as the "let them play" reaction is for your average Disney movie, is there a slippery slope? How does your state treat this?

 

XXX state association previously required football teams to practice for two of the first five days of August with no pads. However, it did not specify which of the two days it had to be. So a team could practice full pads on Aug. 1-3 and no pads on Aug. 4-5, rendering the entire rule useless.

The association just changed its policy last week.

 

Han: I know this is old, and I know it was resolved, but the one comment I have been wanting to make is that the school agreed before it joined hte league that it understood games would not be moved.

 

"Didn't wade in?"

"Made waves?"

I love this post.

I think the hard cap has to be what it is, but I have to wonder what would happen in court under IDEA.

 

The Georgia High School Association has taken some pretty strange steps recently that I find mind-bottling (you know, when your mind is all locked up like in a bottle). The main one is creating a private school and public school postseason in its smallest classification. I know a lot of states separate private and public, but the problem here is that our regions are still mixed with public and private.

The GHSA's solution? Create a BCS-like system based on record, strength of opponent and rankings to determine which teams that didn't win a region title will reach the playoffs. This starts next year and I have no idea how it is going to work.