Watered-down titles OK with LHSAA

Published 5:44 am Saturday, January 28, 2017

The big proposal sponsored by an area principal, Iowa’s Mike Oakley’s attempt to decrease the absurd number of classes and divisions in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association didn’t pass, but on the whole, area programs probably came out ahead based on the results of this year’s convention.

The big winners were the area programs currently occupying a top-four spot in the basketball power rankings, as a Barbe-sponsored proposal that goes into effect immediately guarantees those teams home games in the quarterfinal round of the playoffs should they advance that far.

The Barbe girls are one of those programs, meaning the Bucs would have to leave home only once in order to earn their first trip to the state championship tournament. Sam Houston, DeRidder, Iota, South Beauregard, Lake Arthur, Merryville and Fairview are also in position to host quarterfinal games.

On the boys side, no one benefits more than Washington-Marion, which at worst will have to play one of five games needed to win a state championship outside of Lake Charles. The Charging Indians earned their trip to the Top 28 state tournament the hard way last year, winning a quarterfinal game at McDonogh #35 as the higher-seeded team.

This year’s path for W-M gets easier. If the Charging Indians hold on to the top spot in the power rankings, the worst-case scenario is a road trip to the No. 17 seed in the regional (second) round, sandwiched by a pair of guaranteed home games. With Carencro and DeRidder the only other teams ranked in the top 10 within a 90-minute drive of Lake Charles, W-M is sure to enjoy a significant home-court advantage should it return to the Top 132 (it’s actually 48) or whatever it is now at Burton Coliseum.

Hathaway. St. Louis and Hamilton Christian are the other boys hoops teams in line to take advantage of the new rule. Any added local flavor to what promises to be a long week at Burton is a welcome addition. Six days of six games per day without many local crowds to spice things up is not a great-looking prospect.

The failure of Oakley’s proposal wasn’t shocking. I don’t know if principals have ever voted to decrease the number of championships awarded.

I cringe at the number of classes and/or divisions, but I doubt the parents, coaches and administrators at the increasing number of “champion” teams really care how many teams were in the bracket or how meaningful/competitive playoffs are.

The first round of the playoffs have become a complete joke. This past season, area teams in Classes 3A-1A competed in 16 games. Just three were decided by a single-point margin. Each of the other 13 were decided by at least 27 points, including margins of 41, 43, 47 (twice) and 50. It is a waste of time and money sending schools criss-crossing the state for such blowouts.

If you win a championship, the rings and letterman jacket patches are the same regardless of the degree of difficulty required to earn them.

So, onward we go, with as many as 12 champions in a single sport and winless football teams traveling across the state for playoff games they have no chance of winning.

The safety concerns cited during arguments to segregate the private schools into their own divisions apparently don’t matter when winless Sophie B. Wright is playing undefeated Welsh in the first round of the Class 2A playoffs.

The increasing number of championship trophies has done little to decrease their value to the public school principals who hold the power in the LHSAA.