Classify This Action As A Challenge
The face of Washington high school athletics is changing.
While there is some fear of the unknown, a lot of people are excited by the prospect.
Some time will elapse before schools have the answer to their primary question: How many state playoff allocations will each league receive?
“It’s a challenge, and a lot of times that’s fun,” said Mead principal Steve Hogue of reallocation.
Hogue, who is retiring as Mead principal and Washington Interscholastic Activities Association Executive Board president, just presided over one of the more revolutionary membership meetings in almost three decades.
The WIAA representatives assembly voted Saturday to add a fifth classification for member schools, changing the enrollment guidelines for all but the smallest classes.
WIAA members decided something needed to be done because of how rapidly the number of schools and the population of those schools are changing.
“You need to look two years into the future. We all do,” Hogue said of the individual school representatives voting for the change. “That’s why discussion on classification is so difficult. You can’t wait until you get there to make decisions.
“When you go back to the ‘60s (1968) when we last did this, there were (25 percent fewer) schools than we have today and, in general, those schools were much smaller than the schools we have today.”
Gary Burnelle, athletic director at Cascade (Leavenworth), was a big supporter of the change.
He said new classification numbers were selected with care. The numbers were drawn from studies that show there are certain points at which more students tend to turn out for athletics.
For example, Class AA schools now range from 401 to 1,000. Although AA will retain a range of 600, 601-1,200 is considered more equitable.
“We don’t know how this is going to shake out,” said Liberty (Spangle) athletic director Nancy Hobbs, who is the District 7 representative on the executive board. “There were several districts in the state that were sure how it was going to shake out for them, but they realized something needed to be done, so they stepped up.”
Hogue said, “Any of us could go back into isolation and ask, ‘What is this going to do to me?’ But that isn’t going to help. I think everybody at rep assembly agreed we have a problem, but if you ask 35 different people what solution they favor, you would get 35 different answers.”
The good news is that there will be a year to sort it out. Schools won’t officially know where they fall until their enrollment counts this autumn.
“The next step is for all of us to sit down and discuss options, start asking questions of each other,” Hogue said. “Then we have a year to talk about it, which I think is the upside.”
WIAA executive director Mike Colbrese said he wanted to see a classification transition committee to answer the many questions sure to come.
In the meantime, the WIAA must find another site for state basketball and volleyball tournaments, plan to revamp the state wrestling tournament, find another Springfest site and plan to make the Gridiron Classic a two-day event.
As far as allocations, leagues and districts must be established before those are set. Allocations are based on enrollment and school populations will be counted in October, November and December.
, DataTimes