The stupidest thing your state high school association allows to happen

Also, beginning your state baseball and softball playoffs in late April and ending them in mid-June -- six weeks before two-a-days -- with one round per week.

 

Going from four classes to six four years ago, without even thinking about stopping at five (which would've been best). As a result, having three football teams from a four-team league in the Class 4A playoffs, including a 1-9 team *hosting* a first-round game and a 2-8 team getting a first-round bye.

Keeping the basically the same bracket for every sport in a year, so a team that happens to finish second in its league travels to the champion of the same league 250-plus miles away for its football *and* basketball playoff openers.

In the 2010-11 academic year, keeping the six-class system and now having leagues with schools in two or three classes, without a clear or sensible playoff plan for said leagues.

I will, however, give credit where due for a vastly improved Web site (apparently revamped by a local grad) that includes easy access to any past state bracket/meet from any sport.

I have no such credit for the CIF.

 

Geeze, you guys are making Kansas look pretty smart, but still:

* Having one class (1A) be nearly twice as large as any other (over 100 schools, next-largest class has 64), which forces that class to have an extra round of playoffs. This means that class has to end its regular season one week before all the others. When a 2A school is suddenly dropped to 1A in October (it's happened twice in the past 5 years to one of the schools I cover), that school has to rearrange its volleyball and basketball schedules in order to get its regular season finished before Regionals. However, if the school anticipates being dropped down to 1A or staying in 1A but instead ends up in 2A, it now has a week off before its first round of playoffs which it doesn't really want. This will be compounded either next year or 2011, I'm not sure which, by splitting 1A into two divisions. This effectively gives Kansas 7 classes in volleyball and basketball when people already bitch 6 is too many.

* Allowing co-ops between schools in some sports where the smaller school has the larger number of athletes present. if there's only one girl at the big school who wants to play golf, maybe the school ought to co-op with a school of its own size so she's playing against the type of competition she'll see at Regionals, where's she's required to represent her school in the class her school is in for all other sports (Here, a 2A school and a 5A school co-op girls' golf with most of the players from the 2A school; one year, the 5A school didn't even have anyone go out, so the 2A school went ahead on its own).

* Requiring field turf to be a host for state football championships, even eight-man. Unless the eight-man championships are played with the 11-man boundaries, I can only imagine how confusing the layout must look. It also eliminates Wichita from hosting since WSU will never put field turf at Cessna Stadium as it doesn't have a football team. When Coffeyville or Chanute have a better chance of hosting a state football championship than Wichita, something's wrong.

* A football playoff system where a 1-8 team can make the playoffs (and HOST in the first round against what could be an 8-1 team), although changing the Class 2-1A set up should (SHOULD) eliminate that. But there will still be a possibility of a 2-7 team qualifying in any 11-man class and 3-6 teams in eight-man (larger districts).

 

The Ohio High School Athletic Association did away with flash photography in postseason basketball games a few seasons back. They switched it back after only two years, I believe, because of all the flack they caught, but what a STUPID idea.

 

The Ohio High School Athletic Association won’t allow us to use a flash during postseason volleyball matches, though we can during the regular season (with the exception of the player who's serving).
I don't know why there's a difference, but it's better than not being allowed to use a flash at all during volleyball, which is how it used to be.

 

In track, we had an area pole vaulter DQ'd from a meet a few years back because he was wearing jewelry (I think an earring).
Yes, it's against the Ohio High School Athletic Association rules. However, the competition hadn't started yet; one official saw him warming up and told him it was against the rules and to remove it, so the kid took it out, only to have a second official come over and DQ him.

 

I've had volleyball refs try to tell me not to use a flash. But I usually shoot from the balcony, so they don't really notice, anyway.

 

We have a doozy of problem brewing in northwest Ohio right now for our small schools (Division III).
Ohio High School Athletic Association officials redrew the district lines for the district track meet, sending a few of our teams to new locations, which is not a big deal.
Here comes the fun part: One team is in the same town in which the regional for northwest Ohio is scheduled, however, that team will compete in a different district this year and that district’s regional qualifiers go to another regional. That means a school located a tick over a half mile from the regional track meet location in its own town must travel nearly 2½ hours to another regional.

 

It's a recent change so they probably don't all know about it. Hey, I didn't know about being able to use flash for volleyball until I happened to see the change while looking up something else in February.
In fact, I didn't know about the supposed no-flash rule in basketball a few years back until I started taking pictures and was informed by the tournament director, who is a friend. I checked it out with state officials the next day and found out the rule had been changed, but my friend hadn't received the new book of regulations so he didn't know.

 

In high school, we drove past our cross town rival's school for a 45 minute drive to regionals. They drove 12 minutes in the other direction (5 minutes past our school) for a different regional that featured schools 10 minutes from the regional we were at.

 

The fact that Garden City and Dodge City are the only Class 6A schools west of Hutchinson and there are only three Class 5A schools west of U.S. 81/I-135 make for some wonderful gerrymandering when sub-state assignments are drawn up.

For years, the farthest west Wichita school in 6A or 5A got to be the lucky one to make the trip west to either Garden City, Dodge City or Liberal for sub-state (Wichita Northwest in 6A, Carroll in 5A). The shortest trip was 2 1/2 hours. Another Wichita sub-state might be held less than two miles away.

 

Why the hell was the school allowed to change classes after the school year started? That may be the dumbest thing listed yet.