So, what the hell just happened at the PIAA Board of Directors meeting in Hershey over the weekend?
Politics happened, that’s what.
And I am at a loss to remember a BOD meeting with more anger, more personal antipathy and, frankly, more crappy arguments than this past weekend’s.
The Board did little to enhance its reputation as a sober, deliberative body and much to encourage the idea that the Board lacks leadership and is as partisan as any group of political operatives.
Neither view is quite correct – I’ve been to many BOD meetings since 1997 – and in that time have come to find the Board to be reasonable and intelligent at both the professional and personal levels. Naturally, a board of 31 directors with a wide range of constituents is going to have disagreements – sometimes sharp disagreements – over any number of issues. That’s just life.
But the ongoing battle over the length of the football season has exposed some raw nerves and at least one very serious flaw in the Board’s process.
First, some necessary disclosure: In very short order, I will be a employee of PIAA, paid through the organization’s headquarters. My work with District 3 will soon shift from independent contractor to employee status. The funding for my position comes wholly from District 3, but because of PIAA’s operational structure, my W-2 next year will say PIAA as my employer.
And I now sit in on all District 3 Committee meetings, which means I’m not exactly a disinterested observer on these matters. I agree 100 percent with the District 3 position on the football calendar. I was firmly behind 16 weeks when the change was first proposed (and barely passed by one vote), but the evidence is in, IMO: It’s one week too long under the current format of four classes. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it despite the 17-10-1 vote that killed the 15-week bill.
Oh, yeah: that 17-10-1 vote. You’ll notice four paragraphs up that I said the BOD has 31 voting members. My math skills trend toward weak, but as best I can tell 17 plus 10 plus 1 does not equal 31. It equals 28, which means three Board members were not present for the vote.
I have not had an opportunity to speak with the three absent members – Eric Wolfgang of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Dr. Emilie Lonardi of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators (Superintendents) and Junior High / Middle School representative Kirk Scurpa of Sharpsville – so I will not speculate on their absence. All three likely have perfectly legitimate reasons not to be there in person. I have missed meetings myself over the years, some for as simple of a matter as dehydration following a particularly active evening of debate at a local tavern.
But where are the alternate voting representatives? If a board member knows he or she will be absent from a meeting, they should have an alternate in place. But here’s the flaw: No Board constituency is required to have an alternate present.
Let’s go to the book: Article VI, Section 2, sub-section N (say that in your best, deep, slow Brad Cashman cadence) of the PIAA Constitution states that: “In the absence of a member from a meeting of the Board of Directors, one of the alternates may (emphasis added) attend such meeting and exercise at the meeting all powers of the absent member.
It does not say “must”, and I have a huge problem with that. The fact is that if a given constituency wants to skip a big vote, it can, and it can do with no penalty to that seat on the Board. It is that very provision that has caused significant problems with major Board votes over the year, but especially the recent football vote.
Let’s take as given that the football calendar is one of PIAA’s most serious sports-related matters (I certainly think it is), serious to the point that all 31 voting members should be present.
In the case of this weekend’s vote, three votes that were previously “yes” votes were missing. Another previous “yes” vote, the second School Boards vote, went from “yes” to “abstention”, a bizarre and at present unexplained decision.
Another “yes” vote – the male parents’ rep vote – flipped to a “no”. That came from District 3 Committee member Dale Myers, who change in position absolutely floored District 3 chairman Sam Elias and vice-chairman Ron Kennedy.
Two other previous “yes” votes from District 12 went to “no”. That was all it took to kill the measure, but let’s go back to the absentees and the abstention. If all of those votes remain in place as “yes,” the measure passes. That would have provided the necessary 21-vote total needed to enact the by-law change that would have reduced the season from 16 to 15 weeks.
Then there’s the matter of timing.
It remains a mystery why the BOD meeting was adjourned at a relatively early hour (9:20 p.m.) on Thursday night with the football vote and the football steering committee recommendations left unattended. It was widely believed that football, which comes via the Executive Director’s report, would happen on Thursday since the PIAA scheduled three hearings at 9 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Friday. That schedule gave the Board precious lttle time to discuss the issue and clearly contributed to the rising level of tension in the room.
In addition, Wolfgang, one of the two school board reps, was at Thursday’s meeting; it was Friday’s meeting he was unable to attend, and it’s entirely possible, even probable, he believed the matter would be taken up Thursday while he was in attendance.
The decision to adjourn belongs to the Board president with assent of the Board. In this case, outgoing Board president W. Rodney Stone, the District 1 chairman who will officially retire from both positions in the summer, made the call for adjournment. And it must be said the call was not strongly contested. At best, it was met with a murmur and swiftly approved.
I did not have an opportunity to talk to Rod over the weekend; my football championships schedule was full, and I was working with Any Shay and Eric Epler on the soon-to-be-released all-state football team. So I can’t be critical about the decision without knowing Rod’s reason(s).
But it seemed very odd to close up shop with such an important issue on the table and enough time to address it, especially when the following day was certain to be a cluster (in fairness, the football vote was on the agenda for Friday, not Thursday, but the PIAA has busted the agenda many times over the years). Indeed, part of the reason I had no commentary on my blog on Friday morning following the vote is because I had to file, pack up and dash over to Hersheypark Stadium at top speed to make it in time for kickoff of the Class A championship game.
The vote took place after noon; kickoff for the A game was scheduled for 1.
What happened in between was that the football discussion and eventual vote was compressed. It was anxious. I was tense. It was full of last-second, straw man arguments (District 5′s Virgil Palumbo insisted that the early start provision required districts to mandate that start, something that was never understood to be true during the first two readings).
It was all wholly unnecessary, and while I’m not convinced it was a purely political strategy, I’m utterly convinced that it lead to a very unhealthy atmosphere for debate and the eventual vote. That alone is reason to question the whole process this weekend.
That’s why Elias left the meeting room at Hershey in such angry fashion. It wasn’t just that the vote didn’t go his way – no one ever gets that, although the scope of the defections from earlier yes votes was shocking – it’s that the whole process had a bad odor to it: Lousy arguments, shifting allegiances, voters absences, altered time schedule. It had that kind of Romania-under-Ceausescu feel to it. At least there were no poorly-uniformed guards with those ridiculous helmets and bad Eastern bloc rifles in the room.
The whole scenario infuriated Elias, and it’s my view that Sam’s reaction was one of righteous anger, not petulance. That’s because District 3 had taken the position from the beginning to vote against its own self-interest (the district would have stood to lose significant playoff revenue) to do the right thing for the student-athletes and the schools.
In the end, only Districts 2, 3 and 9 took the altruistic position among the district voters; those three districts stood to lose financially from their positions. Sorry, but the “yes” votes from District 7, 8 and 10 were painless; those districts would have suffered no harm with a reduction in calendar and were voting their self-interest.
For years, PIAA officials have wondered why the organization suffers a negative reputation. Well, the reasons are legion, and I could write a whole series of blogs on the subject. But all they need to do is look at their weekend dysfunction, and they have one of the biggest reasons right there.
Why the change in D12 posture? Did it have anything to do with the western districts and PIAA going out of their way to “screw” D12 athletes? You spent a great deal of time on why your employer, D3, is saintly but totally bypassed an explanation of the D12 change in vote. Clearly, there is a reason why D12 would change their vote; clearly, it was a big factor in this proposal failing a vote. Can you shed some light on it?
Rod, in all honesty, after reading your article at Gametime (whidh has some points missing from your blog) it would appear that D3 may have an agenda in supporting the vote. You’ve made it sound as though they are saintly in sacrificing playoff income but you fail to point out it would have moved them to eastern brackets and pushed D12 and D11 into the western brackets.
I did notice in the comments to your earlier blog entry, you did try to go into some detail but seemed to not clearly spell out the change to D12 / D11 being pushed west nor D3 moving east.
Unfortunately, I cannot expound on District 12′s reasons because i was unable to talk with the District 12 representatives after the meeting. Because of the time, I was unable to talk with anyone before i had to dash off to the stadium.
re the AAAA brackets: Sure, it’s ridiculous for the 12 vs. 11 winner to play through the west. It’s ridiculous for D3 to play through the west, too, but that’s the way it is under the current system. The current system should be completely scrapped in favor of a new system, but essentially those have been tried, all to great failure at the Board level.
The D12 vote was no bigger of a factor than the absent votes, the abstention by the school board rep, and the defections of Districts 1, 4, 5, 6 and 11 when the proposal was specifically crafted to appease the smaller districts. They all have to be looked at as one, not separately, because the vote would have passed if any of those elements had happened separately. But taken together, the vote failed.
You seemed annoyed that I’m backing my employer, but the fact is that District 3 has not wavered in its position from start to to finish. The district committee discussed this thoroughly. The decision wasn’t unanimous, but in the end, the 15-week position became District 3′s position. And it has not changed, unlike the position of six other districts. There’s something to be said for debating an issue, coming to a conclusion and sticking with that position when it’s not in your self-interest. So have no doubt I’m very proud of the way District 3 has handled this.
I don’t have a problem with people changing their mind. I’ve changed my mind on this issue: I originally backed, with some reservation, the 16-week plan. I wanted to see how it worked out. Well, it’s worked out horribly, in my view, especially when the only sports that were damaged were boys basketball and wrestling. What I have a problem with is last-second straw-man arguments when the wording of the proposal had not changed one bit and Board members failing to do their duty.
I can wrap up this one really quickly. District 3, just like District 12, had nothing to do with the 15-week bracketing. That was done by PIAA executive staff.
And D3 has not complained about going to the west in football and basketball. Indeed, if it’s going to happen, it makes sense for D3 to be the district to go west.
There is no agenda on D3′s part. I’ve sat in the meetings and listened to the discussion. I realize everyone’s a cynic these days, but D3 was doing the right thing for the right reason. I’m not so sure that can be said for all involved.
Rod,
Come on District 3 has a lot of dirt in this. In the current format they have to play one game out of the region then the state final is in their backyard. They travel for one game. District 12 and 11 voted againts this because they were being asked to travel over 3 hours for 3 of 4 rounds and 1.5 hours for the other. They were just getting screwed. You can ignor that fact but it was the issue, If District 11 and 12 were in someone else would have voted for it, People changed their mind when the proposal screwed the. Heck District 12 already plays a 15 week schedule.
You know why District 11 and 12 changed their mind and you know District 3 led the effort on the proposed bracket. Just put the blame where it is due right on D3
Rod,
OK so the PIAA all on there own said, here is a great idea, lets make the kids from Philly and Allentown play all their games against teams from the west and be on the road. And to make things really fair lets take the teams who are in the district of the state final location and let them also play their Semi Final game in the same location for one of the two years. That would be three games in a row at Hershey. Yes that is really fair. But as you say they did the right thing and were only thinking about the kids. It was the PIAA’s idea with that set up.
Oh really? Do you know when the proposed brackets came out? I do: July. And they didn’t change appreciably in October or December. So your District 12 people were either unaware of the brackets or approved of them in their two previous “yes” votes. Don’t really know. Didn’t ask them about it. Maybe that’s a question I can ask them next month.
And I can tell you that the state brackets were not a big part of the discussion at District 3. There was no eureka moment among District 3 people. So, no, I don’t “know” District 3 led the proposed bracket. If you offer proof beyond your own suspicion, I’d love to see it.
You can be as cynical as you like, but I’m actually in on the discussions at District 3. District 3 is fine with being in the East, and it’s fine with being in the West. A lot of D3 teams have had to drive to Altoona and DuBois and State College. That’s the price of state playoffs. D12 seems to think a trip to Hershey is like a trip to North Dakota. Indeed, Hershey or possibly Chambersburg would be likely playoff sites against western teams; that’s doable.
And as far as having that great advantage of stepping into the state bracket at the semifinals, D3 teams haven’t exactly brushed the lint of their lapels and racked up endless state titles. Central Dauphin is the first AAAA team from D3 to win states since 1992. That super-easy path happens to run into the WPIAL champion, more often than not. And more often than not, that team is pretty good. I believe La Salle ’10 will agree. Simply put, D12 is hardly screwed by its place in AAAA, AAA and AA brackets. I know a lot of people would love to have the Week 13 bye that La Salle and Wood enjoyed the last two years. Funny how that seems to be absent from the “D12 is getting screwed” conversation.
And this idea that the PIAA is conspiring to screw District 12, as has been posited on my website, is ludicrous. That’s a product of over-active imaginations and victimthink. But I guess it’s pervasive enough that one of your District 12 schools felt it was just fine to accuse white PIAA basketball officials of racism with no more evidence than a few technical fouls in a playoff game. They were laughed out of the room in Mechanicsburg and appropriately so. Maybe the charge alone of racism is enough to intimidate the trembling masses in the southeast corner of the state, but we folks up here in Alabama appreciate things like “evidence” and “facts.”
Yeah, I know: the school in question was one of those loose-cannon city charter schools, not a suburban diocesan school with hands folded in prayer. But if the growing feeling is that District 12 is somehow being singled out for special, negative treatment, I’m afraid you’ll have to wallow alone. I’m not a member of that club.
Proof, Fan. We could use a little proof.
Rod,
What proof are you looking for? D3 had the most to gain from the change. You throw in the added point that they can’t beat D7 teams anyway so with the proposal they don’t have to play them. My point is D3 had the most to gain and the brackets play that out.. There is no logic to have D11/12 play in the west. OK the PIAA came up with it on their own.
Your point about having to drive to Altoona, DuBois and State College. Arn’t those adjoining districts to D3? And it was for only one of the 4 playoff games. No one can help that they are adjoining districts and they are big.
The PCL knows where Hershey is but it is 3 district’s away and no team should have to drive that far for 3 of 4 playoff rounds.
As for the bye, it does not help and the issue has been talked to death. The PCL play a 15 week schedule and need to fit it into a 16 week PIAA schedule. What would you propose? More the Bye to the beginning forcing every team in the playoffs to extend their season a week by sitting around waiting for the PIAA to get its act together?
As for the Alabama comment, it is more like Mississippi, and you bringing it up in this conversation makes my point.
Ok Rod since you are in on the D3 discussions give us your take on why the proposed brackets made sense?
Proof is a fact or set of facts that reveal or lead to yet another fact. Your point is that some representative or agent of District 3 called or wrote or emailed or telepathed the new brackets to an accomplice among PIAA executive staff. That did not happen. The District 3 folks were as surprised as anyone when 11-12 in the west bracket came out. But it came out not because it made real-world sense – it does not – but because it fits PIAA’s proportional representation policy.
You will never find me championing that policy for any number of reasons, but it exists because people throughout the state have bitched and moaned for years about “fairness.” It’s like kindergarten. At least D12 gets a pass on that because it was already in place when the district came aboard … not that it has stopped D12 from bitching and moaning, which it does occasionally at PIAA meetings (I suppose this is called “supporting one’s constituency” or some such euphemism).
Hershey is three districts away from D12? Not on my map. The only district D12 teams have to pass through is D1. And, of course, several PCL teams are physically located in D1. By the way, DuBois is located in District 9, which is four counties away from the closest D3 point.
There is one inconvenient fact that overrides all of these “fairness” arguments: We have an unfair state. The geographical, political and cultural differences make anything resembling “fairness” (whatever the hell that is) impossible. Ask Erie.
Re Alabama or Mississippi, as you know, it was some clever Philadelphia or Pittsburgh mind that compared the interior of Pennsylvania to those fine states with some presumed hilarious slander. Never mind that many folks in the interior would be happy to see New Jersey annex Philadelphia County and leave the remaining 66 counties in a blissful state. I don’t subscribe to that and I’m happy to have Philly and the surrounding counties, but the Math and Civics imbroglio would NEVER have happened in any other district. At least Bob Coleman was embarrassed by that particular event, but it certainly spoke to the Philly mindset, which seems to indicate a greater racial insecurity than the supposed yee-haws who live in (pick a rural county).
So, we’re stuck with this jigsaw of a state and an interscholastic athletics system that is in serious need of overhaul, much like our state government, Sadly, that’s not going to happen for either. What you have as a result is what you see come out of PIAA. and Harrisburg
That’s how you get an 11-12 in the west bracket. It’s the result of “fairness” brought on by people bitching about fairness.
Re the D12 bye: Don’t make me laugh. That bye is a D12 creation. PIAA certainly doesn’t want a mid-tournament bye, but it exists because of the (dwindling) Thanksgiving games, which in all honesty are no longer a serious factor, and the whole PCL / Pub playoff structure. D12 could certainly alter the current format to rid itself of that bye, if it so chose.
You won’t get me to say the brackets made sense because they didn’t. But there is NOTHING statewide that would “make sense”, even my cherished fantasy of regionalizing the state and doing away with districts in football. Regionalization would help ease some of the travel burdens, but only a little. And any regionalization plan would certainly have the D12 teams banging heads with the D1 and possibly D11 teams. Obviously, PCL teams have nothing to fear from that. But it simply will not happen. So what are you left with? From what I can see, constant gripiing.
Rod – Could you post links to 2011 bracket by district 16 week and rejected 2012 bracket by district 15 weeks.
On the surface this entire thing stinks – shortchanging the biggest issue on the agenda, having bye weeks in the middle of the playoffs, and placing D11/D12 in the west just doesn’t pass the common sense smell test.
As far as in the west – for the ’10-’11 cycle, the west has 36/150 4A squads – 24%, even if it drops to 20% in the next cycle it would seem to make sense logistically for the west champ to be a 1/4 finalist.
Rod you’ll like this about D5′s Palumbo – from the October D5 committee minutes:
B. Football 15 or 16 weeks – There was a discussion to determine if the District 5 Committee preferred a 15 or 16 week football season. District 5 supports a 15 week football scheduled with the possibility of eliminating one scrimmage. Motion-Batzel, DeMarco
To be fair I haven’t seen the Dec. 8th minutes yet, as it is possible that the position changed as 15/16 was on the agenda for that meeting also.
“… it was some clever Philadelphia or Pittsburgh mind that compared the interior of Pennsylvania to those fine states with some presumed hilarious slander.”
Actually, Rod, I believe you’ll find that it was political gadfly (and Louisiana native) James Carville who said that — apparently slandering his own part of the country if he was doing so with ours.
Now back to the 15 week debate.
Actually, Jeff, Carville stole it from a political activist in the state, but the name escapes me. Carville has plenty of original witty remarks, but he lifted that one. It first appeared in one of the state’s big newspapers. Do I have facts to back this up? Of course not …
odoyelrules here is the 15 week bracket, see page 16.
http://piaa.org/assets/web/documents/BOD_Agenda/2011/December/att6.pdf
http://piaa.org/assets/web/documents/2011_AAAA_FB_Brax.pdf
Rod,
As for the Hershey yes only 2 districts away, I would have expected to see a game against D7 in Altoona and not Hershey which is three away.
As for the bye, I can tell you it did not help LaSalle the past two years. Sure District 12 could fix it if they wanted to make their enitre district delay the end of season and do away with Thanksgiving games, but why would/should they?
Lets blame this on D7, they get moved into the Semis with the proposed brackets making their championship that much more important. and only have 25 teams in the district. But if they had to play another round in a 15 week season they would not be able to let those 3-8 teams from getting into the playoffs.
The current setup makes perfect sense. The 4 semi-finalist are divided about equally with D3 being the smallest. No one has to travel to much with D7 getting the most travel depending who they play but it is an adjoining district. D3 has to travel out of their district once. D1 is the big winner, no travel until the final.
At the end of the day the districts wanted to have their cake (revenue from playoffs) and eat it too (a 15 week season). It just did not work.
Why is the PIAA stuck in such archaic ways? East/West…
When will they start thinking of ways to fix things outside the box? I don’t have the numbers in front of me like Odoyel does but being a science/math persion i can sure as heck tell you i could figure out a set of brackets that work if you put them in front of me. Why not go to something like 4 quadrants depending on each classification?? For instance in AA football put Dist (5,7,8) (6,9,10) (2,4,11) and (1,3,12) and maybe for AAAA put Dist (7,8,9,10) (3,4,6) (2,11,12) and (1) This isn’t rocket science people. Or am i totally in another world with this idea? Those final 4 teams would then play. How you work that out is up to you guys In reality it would be ridiculous for any Dist 11 or 12 team to play in a western bracket. Just my 2 cents. They got any other openings up there Rod? haha
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Bigcat:
The enrollment numbers are under the gray PIAA Classifications tab at the top of this site.
From what I’ve seen it appears to be a 4A issue. I agree I don’t see why this is such an issue, though I’d slice things slightly different then you did: D1:45 schools, 30%::: D3: 30 schools, 20%::::D5,6,7,8,9,10: 36 schools, 24%:::D2,4,11,12:39 schools, 26%.
Rod, is D3 fine with avoiding D7, D11 and D12 until the finals? I would think so. Isn’t that the end result of the proposal they backed and were quite annoyed that it did not pass? Does that qualify as an agenda?
Rod, we’re trying to have an intelligent discussion on the football agenda; for you to bring up one nutcase in D12 basketball would seem to be an attempt to get off course here. Do you not agree that D3 avoiding D7, D11 and D12 would be a great benefit to them? Is that why Sam was so annoyed?
Again, because I’ve sat in on the D3 discussions, I can tell you that bracketing was not an issue for D3 one way or the other. You simply have to to trust my word that at the district committee level, the brackets were rarely discussed.
Besides, do you remember when the whole East-West thing happened? It started in 2004, not too long after the WPIAL had taken a bit of a dip. The talk then was that D3 was ducking the D11 champions that had been pummeling them and D3 was taking an easier path to states. Of course, D3 ran into Pittsburgh Central Catholic and the best team I’ve seen in Pennsylvania HS football. Ironic, that.
And are you insulting D1 by suggesting the 15-week bracket was easy for D3 (or for D1?) Look, I’m not a big fan of PIAA’s proportional representation policy because it leads to bracketing like we just saw. It’s pretty much senseless. But what it is not – and this is what is annoying me – is a set-up. I’m getting pretty tired of the implication that D3 was working behind the scenes to set this up. That simply didn’t happen. These brackets are produced by the PIAA executive staff. Period. And the reason you see these oddball brackets if because of PIAA’s oddball policies, not because staff in thinking of creative ways to screw D12.
On the other hand, if PIAA had a strictly East-West bracket in AAAA football, State College (and maybe McDowell) would meet the WPIAL champion in the West finals every year while D1, D2, D3, D4, D11 and D12 champions have to beat each other’s headsin after qualifying through stunted district championships. So while the 11-12 in the West looks utterly outrageous, is it any more outrageous for the aforementioned eastern districts to have 1-game or 2-game district tournaments? Or combining 2, 4, 11 and 12 into one district tournament? Because that would be the reality on the flip side.
I’m with you guys on the outrage aspect, but I’m pretty annoyed that you’re suggesting nefarious action or intent by District 3. You can choose to believe me or not, but I’m not talking out of my ass on this. I’m in the room and I know what’s been said and what hasn’t. The constant implication that I (or the leadership of D3) am either a doofus, a dupe or a liar is getting a little wearying.
Don’t you think it is time to restructure the entire PIAA? 31 members on the BOD is rediculous. Multi billion dollar corporations don’t have that many people. Maybe it is to simplistic but why not one rep for each district and not require a 2/3 majority for passage with ED as tie breaker. For this to be fair restructuring of the districts would need to be done(long overdue). Of course none of this would be accomplished due to all of the personal agendas that would need to be put aside. Remember when the PIAA was to be for the good of our student Athletes! Whatever happened to that concept?
Rod,
The comments about D3 are all due to the fact that they were the big change. They swaped 11/12 for 3. Add to that their quoted commented that they saw the change to the 15 week schedule as in the best interest of the kids, you have to ask which kids. D3 or the D 11/12 kids who now have to be on the road the entire playoffs. Maybe they did not talk brackets which I can not believe, but the brackets were the entire thing driving the 15 week schedule, If the bracket setup casues D3 and D7 to have to cut their playoffs they would have been totally aganst it. It did impact D1 and they voted against it, To say the brackets were not an issue is just plain bull, it was the entire issue for the 15 week schedule getting killed.
As for East/West, of course that does not work if you plit the state in two, there are not equal number of teams in an half of the state in any district. The best the brackets can do is split the state in half by teams as best they can and then limit travel. Pushing D 11/12 to the west only maks sense if you are D7 as it was the only way to keep their District playoffs in tact.
You are really emotinal about this whole think. No matter what you say when a groups is clearly getting screwed those who beneifted from the change most get the blame. Sorry but that is D3.
And I guess you’re a cynic who simply cannot accept facts when they don’t fit your worldview. When you write a phrase like “no matter what you say”, there is really no argument left. You’ve won the battle in your own head, and that’s all that matters to you.
Emotional? Gee, I guess. I have repeatedly told you what the discussions were and weren’t, and all I get from you is the implication that I’m a liar. Of course brackets were discussed, but they were done so with a shrug. In fact, the district chairman said (and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact quote committed to memory) that whether District 3 teams played out of the East or the West wasn’t the issue; a 15-week season was the only thing that mattered.
That view was not unanimously held among the Committee but it did win the day, and it wasn’t because someone looked at one particular bracket in one particular class and said, “Look! District 12 is in the West! That’s great!”
In fact, the 11-12 pairing never came up in D3 discussion. Never. It really wasn’t D3′s concern. Now, fan, you have the choice to believe that or not, but it doesn’t change the fact that D3 was ambivalent about bracketing but not about the 15-week calendar.
And you’re just flat-out wrong about brackets driving the 15-week issue: A 15-week calendar and its reduced impact on both football athletes and winter sports athletes were driving the issue. The brackets were a necessary result of that change. As much as you’d love confirmation of a conspiracy, there is none. I mean, there is a small, grassy knoll just across the parking lot at the PIAA building, but that’s as close as it gets.
That’s the truth. Period.
coming from the wpial area, i am very shocked that the 15 week proposal did not pass. for the wpial aspect, it did the two things that were best for the wpial teams and the athletes involved, it allowed the wpial to keep it’s playoff system in tact, with championships at heinz field and shortened the season by a week.
i am not a big fan of having the d 11 or 12 teams changing to the “west bracket” it makes more sense from a travel aspect to have d-3 play in the west, because the travel is slightly shorter and there are better locations to play the games in a mid-point(state college/mansion park) than might be the case in a situation then areas off of i-80 towards the midstate area.
and lets also consider one other point, the piaa has been very lucky the last two years with the weather for the championship weekend…..how many years before that have the times had to be moved up or games moved to sunday due to a heavy snowfall…..that’s not beneficial to the kids either or fans travelling to the game, while moving up a week or two still has the chance of bad weather, it’s not as great.
keep in mind for the critics of the wpial, over 100 member schools were in favor of the proposal, the wpial has played a 9 week schedule instead of 10 for years due to the state brackets and the need to have a 4 week playoff. this proposal would have still allowed the wpial or any other district to skip one of two scrimmages and begin play a week early, still allowing a 16 week schedule, in the wpial case, that would have allowed teams to play a 10 game regular season schedule…..(rod, if i’m wrong on any of this, please let me know, going on stuff i gathered from many wpial ad’s)
also, if the schedule is messed with too much, the wpial has threatened before to pull out of the state championships, the wpial championship is very special in our area, no other district plays their title games at a professional stadium, a thrill of a lifetime for kids.
i have side with rod on this one. dont you guys think if it was simply a bracket issue,
then that would have been brought up by any district who thought they were getting “screwed”
you don’t just kill a proposal over something that can be fixed.
And Pinkrover was right that we need redistrcting. I’d be anxious to see the numbers of schools in each district 40 years ago. Heck compared to most districts, D-3 could easily be split into 2 districts and still be bigger then a bunch of them. I think things are just a lot different then they were ages ago when this was all done.
schaasy,
There would be no way to keep the wpial playoff and still have their champ be in the semis in a 15 week season. No matter if they started earlier or not.
Rod it was all about the brackets, the PIAA tried to keep everyone’s district playoffs in tack. Those that they could, 3/7, voted for the change those that did not 1/11/12 voted against it. I don’t know what is so hard to see in this. Everyone who is quoted talks about the importance of playoff money. No one gives a rats butt about the winter season. It is all about money. As long as D3 could keep their playoffs they were fine with the change.
Bigcat no way to change things and keep the district playoffs for all districts in tack and cut to 15 weeks. Simple as that.
Rod, I don’t believe anyone is calling you a liar but you did write a lengthy blog post that totally skipped the fact that, in many eyes, D11 and D12 were getting hosed while D3 was clearly benefitting. You went on and on about missing votes and gave one sentence to the fact that D12 had changed their votes. No attempt to give your personal insight as to why D12 would change, nothing at all. Not even any explanation of the impact to D11 / D12 by way of background. Nothing at all. You also went to great length to posture D3 as some sort of white knight that is only looking out for the benefit of the kids and sacrificing income to do so. That may honestly be how you see it; your belief that Sam was so “infuriated” as a result of not being able to help the kids; it brought a tear to my eye. I, for one, don’t buy it.
There is always an agenda behind these types of issues; to suggest there was none here is to be naive, I believe. Many see D3 as benefitting greatly if it had passed and many see D11 / D12 getting hosed if it had passed; to ignore either belief is to just cloud the issue. To make D3 out to be “righteous” (meaning anyone who holds a different opinion must just be mean spirited) is clearly biased.
OK, from the top, B.:
(1) I did not expound on District 12 because I did not talk to Robert Coleman and Michael Hawkins. I might yet, but I had no time last Friday, thanks to the vote being run right up to the start of the Class A championship game followed by a hearing. I had commitments at the game; I couldn’t stick around. I had no time to talk to anybody.
Besides, I’m not going to give a detailed analysis on each district’s position, except D3. Just the way it is.
(2) For the last time, I was in the D3 meetings. You were not. The brackets received nominal attention. District 12 was not brought up. Nor were Districts 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11. Brackets were not the driving force behind District 3′s discussion. Again, B. fan, and all of the other clairvoyants down in Philly, I was there. You were not. Buy what you wish, don’t buy what you wish.
(3) District 3 has been standing behind the 15-week position WAAAAAAAY before any 2012-2013 brackets came out. How long? Since 2008, at least. District 3 supported increased classifications and every proposal that would have reduced the season. I’m sure you think that’s because D3 was getting pole-axed by the WPIAL in Class AAAA. fact is, D3 was getting pole-axed by just about everyone in every class but Class A. The issue is philosophical with D3. Don’t much care now if you believe it or not.
(4) Maybe there’s always an agenda in Philly. Don’t know, don’t live there. Maybe living in the sticks makes me nothing but a naive ‘billy. If so, I’m proud to wear the title.
(5) And finally, it’s all moot now, isn’t it?
It’s not really moot Rod because maybe it is time that the PIAA started acting more rationally and fairly. I actually support a shorter season; in addition, I think D11 and D12 being placed in the western bracket is ridiculous and reeks of “agenda”. So, not moot; maybe insiders like yourself could bring some rational thought to the scene but you really just seem to want to protect D3 so I don’t see anything changing.
Re all-state: Nominations were on the wire Nov. 30 through Dec. 6. Ballots went out Dec. 9-13. Team was compiled off balloting on Dec. 19, released Dec. 21 and 22. D1/D12 participation has always been weak. Sometimes Bucks County / Doylestown will vote, sometimes Delaware County, usually Pottstown. Almost never Inky and Daily News. Like I said, it’s voluntary. And those who participate choose the teams.
Re moot: Of course it’s moot. 16-week season will be in place for 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 at minimum, and now appears to be in place for much longer. This was the last, best hope for 15 weeks, and it wasn’t the now infamous 11-12 AAAA west bracketing that torpedoed it. It was much more complex than that.
I’ve laid out the District 3 information numerous times, but you guys choose not to believe it. Not much I can do about that; I’ll leave y’all with your conspiracy theories.
But I do hope everyone has a great Christmas.