GHSA meeting: Mild reclassification talk, but some explanation of what's been decided

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

            Any time reclassification is on a GHSA executive committee agenda, eyebrows are raised.

            But Monday’s fall meeting got started early and ended early, and only one reclassification issue took up discussion time, and that won’t affect a large number of schools.

            In the spring, the GHSA voted that upon execution of the multiplier, a team could move up only one classification.

            The multiplier of 2.0 counts out-of-zone students twice.

            How big an impact it will have and how many programs it will affect in terms of a two-class jump is an unknown for at least another month. That’s when the Department of Education releases full-time-enrollment figures to the GHSA, which already has private-school figures.

            Mary Persons principal Jim Finch, on the executive committee and reclassification committee, re-offered a proposal Monday to expand that to two classifications.

            A maximum of a two-class bump was discussed in a spring reclassification meeting, and then in summer reclassification meetings, there was a move to make it just one class.

            “Even though some may even qualify to get pushed up three classes,” Finch said. “We weren’t going to do that. Two-class max.

            “We came back in August, and there were some people expressing regret about the two-class.”

            And it passed 11-4.

            Marist athletics director Tommy Marshall addressed the group with points against the proposal, mostly citing safety concerns of potentially playing schools twice as big.

            Finch noted that Marist has played two classes up for a long time and had quality success, and Marshall noted that nearby public schools have grown and Marist has kept the same enrollment.

            He acknowledged the success, but said “it is a challenge, year to year to year.  … It hasn’t always been pleasant.”
            Finch’s proposal, though, passed fairly easily. Teams will also not before forced out of Class A or into Class 7A in reclassification.

            The GHSA will receive full-time enrollment numbers from the state in early November, and then the main office will put together the classes and regions to begin the final part of the process.

            The reclassification committee will then undertake the inevitable modifications necessary with the new regions expected to be presented likely in January.

            “Then it’s just a matter of coming back and ratifying that whole thing with the full group,” executive director Robin Hines said. “There’s no strict timeline, because there’s no strict timeline when we get the numbers.”

            In the spring, the full group voted to return to two-year reclassification after one try at four years, which came at the same time the GHSA went to seven classes.

            The GHSA also voted in the spring to split the Class A regions in to all-public and all-private, and thus eliminate power ratings. There was a collection of representatives from Class A schools who apparently thought there was more discussion to be had.

            Finch said there had been a sentiment among some Class A public schools that the GHSA might as well split up the regular-season regions to go with the split in the playoffs.

            A point of contention was the two groups weren’t competing for state titles, but played teams in the other group in the regular season, which affected the power ranking.

            “While I won’t compete with them for a state championship, they’re adversely affecting my ranking,” Finch said in paraphrasing. “If I’m not going to compete against them for a state championship, why would you allow them to be a detriment towards what my final ranking would be?”

            Conversely, there is a private-school faction, including the Macon schools, that have for months been discussing the situation, with an option including the possibility of returning to the GISA.

            Finch said part of the debate involved travel, and that schools would have to travel more in new regions, and the public schools decided they were fine with that.

            Two years of very small regions, increased travel expenses,  and the inevitable difficulty in scheduling may lead to further tweaks in Class A fairly quickly.

            There are two Class A regions involving Central Georgia teams.

            Two of the 12 teams in Region 4 are private, while six of the 14 in Region 7 are private/charter.

            Regions 1 and 2 are public (except for two charters in 1), 3 is mostly public, Region 5 is all private and 6 is mostly private.

            Region 8, in the general Athens area, is all private except for two schools. Region 5 is all private.

            The rest of the meeting – which came a day after committee meetings and recommendations - was pretty routine.

            A proposal to add another summer dead week was table for more study. Varsity basketball games will have three-person officiating crews. There were some mild alterations to determining the home team in the third game of postseason baseball and softball series when the teams are the same seed.

            Officials got a pay raise, and there is now an option on the tiebreaker format for regular-season and area/region tennis tournaments.

            Three area high school students were introduced as part of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council: Jimbo Finch of Mary Persons, Justin Harris of Peach County, and Ella Newsome of West Laurens.

            And in the room, Finch’s father Jim and Harris’ grandfather and former Northeast and Southwest head football coach Carror Wright, the GHSA director of compliance.