Re: Couple of Canyon County notes

Well written article, Will. There are many teams around the state doing poorly in the division they qualify for. Moving them up and down based on win-loss opens up a can of worms. They have to draw the line somewhere, so if Caldwell is still 5A after the drop in students, they should stay there. Take Marsing in our league. They aren't a traditional power in the WIC, yet (to their credit) they have never asked to be a 1A school. As for the six divisions, I understand money being a problem. On the other hand, I like the fact that six teams get to be champions helping them boost their self-esteem and enrich their high school sports experience.

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Giving little "participation trophies" at the end of the year should be up to the coach not the state. Don't water-down the quality of the tournament in order to boost self-esteem. When they are out applying for jobs and they are told only 5 people will be hired, the boss won't change his mind and take 6 just to make them feel better about themselves.

re: Marsing - Didn't you learn your lesson in football??

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I went to Hansen High school. We tried to consolidate Murtaugh, Kimberly and Hansen when I was in school. Pride was the big issue and now Murtaugh is barely hanging on to any programs let alone funding for their school. Both Hansen and Kimberly built new schools because on faction Murtaugh didn't want to consolidate. I don't agree with six classifications. We went to state in track every year and had to compete against the classification above us in the state track meet. Our junior year we were seventh among all A3 and A4 schools in the state. If we would have had a 1A state meet we would have won hands down. the state needs to get involved and force some of these prideful districts to join with each other. Fewer sport programs less money.

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Paul: I am slow learner, you know that. I'm a bit confused. Are you calling the state trophy a "little participation award?"

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More classifications equals more money for everybody. The more teams that qualify for the state tournament, the more tickets they will sell for district tournament games. And the more tickets they will sell for schools that will fall just short of making state. If only a third or a quarter of the teams go to state, then far more schools have no realistic shot and then their fans won't go to district tournament games. When every team has a realistic shot of making the state tournament (the current system) more fans go at $5 a head.

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Michael - how much of that revenue is eaten up by the costs of putting on all the extra tournaments? I'm not asking to belittle your point, I'm asking because I'm not sure it's anything but a wash. You raise more money, but your costs go up as well.

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Pablo: just one more comment and I'm done. Using your job analogy, what if there's only one job open? We've all seen the movie Hoosiers where Indiana only had one classification, which lead to a dramatic win by a very small school. Great story, but 99% of the time a large school won the title. I believe Indiana now has more than one division so more teams can win state. I like that. Is 6 too much for Idaho? Perhaps, but I still like that fact that at the end of the day, 6 teams haul home their "little appreciation award."

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From my talks with ADs, my understanding is they make a lot of money from those district tournaments. I couldn't give you a number. The point I made is something John Billetz has told me. It could be wrong. But that's the answer I got to last year when they were cutting costs and I suggested consolidating classifications.

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I would love to see a Large division (4a/5a) medium division (2a/3a) and a small division (1a). Scheduling games throughout the state would seem to get easier. I bet that would bring a lot more interest to the fans and players.

Or option two.. keep it as is but the week following the championships the 4a/5a champions play for the large school championship. 2a/3a for the medium school championship and both 1a's for the small school championship.

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I'd have to think Mike is probably right because most of these district tournaments are played relatively close to most of the school.

Take next year's 4A Sixth District. The furthest trip in the district is Blackfoot to Madison, just under 60 miles. They can play the entire tournament at either Idaho Falls or Skyline for a neutral site and no school is traveling more than 30 miles to play. That minimizes costs in a hurry.

That's probably also why they have the ridiculous double-elimination format in some of these tournaments, there would be little money made from a two-game tournament. You can get a winner and runner-up from single elimination, but you make little money from fewer games.

Now, if the districts in Idaho were bigger, which would happen with three or four classifications, you could reasonably see single-elimination. Don't hold your breath for that, though. In this day and age, every parent wants more shots at a state title for their kids.

For example, Virginia, a state that could actually support a six-class system but was three for everything but football just three years ago, now plays five tournaments in basketball and six for football, plus has expanded its football playoffs to include up to eight teams per region when previously only four got in. The result is that in some years, you now have 1-9 teams making the playoffs as cannon fodder for the top seed, similar to Shelley's 52-6 beating of American Falls that could have been even worse if the Russets wanted it to be.

Two things matter: money and parents, and that means Idaho's not consolidating any time soon.

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Willl
When you look at just the number of schools you leave out the HUGE difference in enrollment between for example a smaller 2A school and the largest 3A schools (Fruitland, Shelley for example). The enrollment difference is several Multiples of the smaller school's enrollment. Again the level at which a small school can compete is related to the number of kids you have to put on the court or field - It's easier for example to find 5 athletes for basketball than to find 20 or so to play football.

Also - You are mistaken about Montana - there are actually 5 divisions in Montana for some sports
(AA, A, B, and two C divisions which play either 8 or 6 man football) There is a huge difference between A and AA there. They have a similar situation with regard to playoffs and even greater distances

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Clayton, I'm going to be honest with you, that's not really as big a difference as you think. It's huge to you because of what you're used to, but to me, the difference is small. Again, I'll use my original home of Virginia as the example, which had a three-class system of A, AA and AAA. Under Virginia's system, EVERY 3A, 2A and 1A school, plus BK, Shelley and Preston would be A, the smallest classification. The rest would all be AA, which was about 750 kids as the smallest to just shy of 1450 as the largest.

Yet the system worked perfectly as it was. We didn't need six classifications for anything but football, and really, we didn't even need that. Bigger did not always mean better. My high school played in the larger division of AA, and we knew that we were better than most of the schools in the smaller division of AAA. Here's an example from this year: Stone Bridge, which has just under 2000 kids, played a game against Westfield, which has just under 3000 kids. A 1000 kid difference. Who won the game? Stone Bridge, and it wasn't an upset. That happened all the time where a school with half the population would win and it was no fluke.

Honestly, can anyone give me a reason besides parents and cash that the state shouldn't shrink to three or four classifications? Why does a state where the schools are so small that my old high school, which was about the 120th biggest school in the state, would be the 13th biggest here need six classifications?

One classification for 5A/4A, one for 3A/2A, one for eight-man. What's wrong with that?

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Dan
You're mistaken about my only liking it because that's all I know. I've been involved with sports in 4 states including a larger state than Virginia which had 5 classes. I'm a little confused by your description of an "upper division of AA" and a "lower division of AAA". Sounds like more than 3 divisions.(2 AAA, 2AA, 2A?) It also sounds like that system has since been abandoned. Why, if it was working as well as you recall??

Sounds like your experience has been with large schools, at least by Idaho standards. Mine has been with smaller schools. It is a different perspective. I see quite a few games each year from 1A to 5A, and what is really fun for fans, and valuable to the kids is Competition. Some of the matchups are bad enough as it is. How many 50-0 8 man football games are enjoyable?
Individual sports like track, tennis, or wrestling are much more amenable to all division competition than team sports. An outstanding athlete can shine no matter what the level. It's a lot harder to assemble a team from a pool of 50 or 70 kids than from a pool of 600 or 1000.

Providing fair competition promotes the good things we all see come out of high school sports. Playing with no reasonable chance of winning may have some nobility in literature, but not much value in real life.

If there is a problem with teams getting into the playoffs who shouldn't be there, then cut the size of the tournament field. It is sort of ridiculous to have half the teams in a division go to state. So cut the field!! It is hard for me to see how having small schools compete against the biggest would not make for more of those painfully lopsided matchups.

So there it is, a reason other than money - promoting good and fair competition that benefits kids.

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I know people get mad at moving schools and towns together I have been saying for a few years now that Fruitland Payette and New Plymouth should build one big high school man I think it would be awesome they would be a 5a classification. What about the old days like when Ontario and Vale were in the SRV now u have to travel forever to play up north would play Wash. and Montana. Doesn't Jackpot play in the eight man league down south in football. Schools are really going to start suffering and people just don't see it coming or don't want to think its coming. I know at Payette they rely on fund raising as im sure a lot of schools do but, people cannot afford to do it anymore people need to support their own familys. What is going to happen when the state says they will give no more money for travel schools are on there own. I think schools need to take a look at buying vans or small buses for smaller team activities. Last year during cross country Payette and Weiser rode together to CDA smart move I think. In my opion we as parents and fans need to start looking for other ways of doing things because budgets keep getting cut.

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How do you expect schools like mt.home, emmet, columbia or any other 4a school besides skyview this year to compete with eagle,centenial, mt.view, r.mountain, vallivue Timberline, list goes on. Go out to a 5a game and see the difference! It is a totally different level.

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Great writeup Will and a really good topic. There are 155 total schools in Idaho and 63 of them have less than 159 students. Yes, 8 of the 19 schools make the 5A state tournament which is a higher percentage than 8/33(1A D1) or 8/30 (1A DII). I believe it used to be 8/11 for the large schools before Timberline, Mountain View, Lake City, Eagle, etc. came into the picture. I think it is a great deal to have kids make a state tournament. It is something that they'll remember forever.

Washington state has really done a great job on making things equitable. They get the enrollment numbers from the schools FIRST and then divide up the classifications SECOND. In Idaho, it is completely backwards. Everyone is so hell-bent on this number classification system and competitiveness that they've lost focus.

How much does it really cost to send kids to state tournaments? Even if the far reaching schools such as Bonners Ferry make it to a state basketball tournament @443 miles one way, it costs them about $2500 for the transportation, $2100 (10 rooms, 70 per night, 3 nights) for lodging, and a eight hundred or so for food. You might think this is a lot of cash but this school district had a district budget of 29.4 million dollars in 2007.

People need to quit fighting over the scraps and leave the activities that impact the kids alone. It is the big picture that people miss the boat and athletics shouldn't take the brunt of the funding shortage. Will, writeups like this only fuel their fire. Athletics are the window to most schools, but in all actuality, they are not the financial burden they are made to be. Maybe consolidation of a few state departments would have been a better choice of a writeup...

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Why don't we call in the BCS people to help solve the problem.

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Will,

Couldn't agree more that it's too easy to make it to state. 5 out of 11 teams from the Treasure Valley can make it to state in the 5A classification for basketball. Consolidation is definitely needed. Just wanted to point out, however, Montana has 4 classifications: AA, A, B and C. 4 ought to be enough for Idaho too.

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By your standards and comments that too many teams make it to state, remember this. Lewiston would have been a team that didn’t meet your standards and they took state. They made by winning a play-in game against Mtn. View, then took state. Did they belong there? I think they proved they did.

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And with half the 5A schools in the Boise area, the rest of the 5A schools have to travel great distance at great expense in order to fill a schedule. Highland (pocatello) travels to Utah or Montana every year for football games. Seems to me that these larger school districts - Pocatello and IF that have both 4a and 5a schools should try to balance out enrollment and move their 5A schools down to 4A schools. How much longer are we going to justify travel budgets for athletic nonsense such as this?

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I have always favored the promotion / relegation method used in some of the larger states. It is somewhat of a petition up or down, but is determined by the success, or lack thereof, of programs over specific periods. Some small school are "factories" or just very strong programs, whereas some larger programs are less competitive, for what ever reasons. Schools that are consistently at the top of their divisions and who win multiple championships are promoted to the next level. Teams who are consistently poor or unable to competed are relegated to a lower division. What ends up happening is, like water, everyone eventually finds their level and you have somewhat of a balance from top to bottom of each division, with the upper divisions being the best teams, and the lower being more intramural, for lack of a better term. I don't like breaking small states with minimal numbers of schools, such as Idaho, strictly by numbers, because the fewer divisions, the larger the gaps. I don't care how hard a small school works, it is highly unlikely that a school of, say, 350 is going to be able to compete with schools of 700 - 900 or something like that. When you get above 1000 or so, you should probably have enough kids where depth is not such an issue, but below that, depth really begins to factor in and the loss of one or two key kids could really affect the ability of a team to compete.

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I have a point to make about our classification system. I feel very strongly that it should be changed. Many peoples opinions about surrounding schools are made by how their athletic programs perform. It is not fair for the people of that community or the students of that school. In each Classification there is a large gap between the top school with enrollment and the bottom school with enrollment. The school who sits on the top almost always dominates in all sports while the school who sits on the bottom almost always struggles. This is very pertinant in the smaller school districts. Vallivue is able to compete because many of their top athletes can easily move from Caldwell's district to attend Vallivue. This gives them a large group of athletes to choose from. The same goes for the Boise schools. The ones who are traditional powers get kids to move inside their district lines to join their school. Especially with all the AAU basketball that goes on now. Coaches have a great sense of the upcoming talent in different school districts. The smaller schools do not have this happen very often. The move is much more difficult and up roots them from their sense of community, which very few have in the large school districts. Lets start with Homedale. They sat on top of the 2A enrollment line and dominated for years. They consistantly beat up on schools who had atleast 100 kids less than them (they did have some football teams that would have competed with any classification). They made the move up to 3A 6 or 7 years ago and have struggled since. Now they face Fruitland who has over 500 students compared to Homedales 300 something.

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Cont.
If you look at the 2A league, Marsing competes with 2 private schools, 1 school who will be moving to 3A and another school who hovers in the high 200's. Marsing just recently broke 200 kids. A few years ago the smaller 1A schools where whining because they couldn't compete with bigger 1A schools. So the IHSAA decided to divide it in half. This way the schools with enrollment under 100 kids wouldnt have to compete with schools who have 150 kids. But its alright for Homedale (who has mid 300's) to compete with Fruitland who has mid 500's. So now it's fair so schools with 50 or 60 kids difference don't have to compete in the same league, but schools with 125-250 difference do. Don't forget that schools get funding based on their daily attendance. Every wonder why some schools are so much nicer than others?

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The smaller the school, the less depth potential. It also depends on the sport. Contact sports like football, depth is a big issue. Most other sports, where the risk of injury due to violent contact is much less, have a greater likelihood of ability to compete with larger gaps. In the schools with 100 playing a school of 150, which is 1.5 times larger as opposed to that school with 100 playing a school with 300 (a 200 difference) which is 3X larger, the difference is magnified by that number.
So take Homedale with say 350, playing Fruitland with 525, the difference being 175, or 1.5 times larger, is the same as the school of 100 playing the school of 150. Take Homedale, with 350 and play a school with 3X the number, or 1050. So proportionally, the school of 100 playing 150 is the same as the school of 350 (Homedale) playing 1.5 X's larger Fruitland (525).

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I do agree with what you're saying. But when it comes to sports the more students to choose from the better you usually are going to be. When a school only has 50 students (lets say 50% boys/girls) more to choose from, the odds of getting a few quality players are a lot less than if you get to choose from 200. Especially in a sport like basketball where 1 good player can make a huge impact. It is a very good point though.

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The way the classifications are right now are a joke. If they state was actually making more money for the tournements they put on then I would understand a little, but that is far from true. It is exactly what you said Will. It is a copout so schools can get their little blue ribbons. I played my high school sports in Nevada and their set up is about as good as it can be. They have a larger population base than Idaho, but only 4 classifications. I played in the 1A which was the lowest classification. At that time there were about 24 1A schools and only 4 made it to state. The competition level was great because by the time you made it through districts and got to state only the best of the best were left. The 1A tournement brought in the most money because whole towns would shut down to go just like in Idaho.

I have coached some in Idaho and have parents and many family members who coach in Idaho. It really is a mess. When it came to a vote in the 1A a few years back the majority of the coaches wanted to keep the 1A together, but that didn't matter. The IHSAA made the final decision. The IHSAA has no one above them to keep the checks and balances so they can do pretty much whatever they want.

The 5A classification is rediculous. There are barely enough teams in the 5A to have a district tourney let alone a state tourney. It is the most watered down state tourney of them all. Granted most 4A schools can't compete against 5A schools overall, but to have 8 out of 18 teams go to state is crazy. They either need to put the 4 and 5A back together which would be best, or they need to only take 4 teams to state. 2 from the treasure valley and 2 from the rest of the state.

I also know that there are many expenses involved in high school sports, especially now with buget cuts throughout the state. Watering down state tourneys makes it worse. How you might say. Because more schools have to travel farther either within there districts or to state and travel costs are a huge part of the budget for high school sports. Not to mention having to come up with new record books and taking away from winning a state championship used to mean. For example, the 1A state volleyball tourney as you mentioned. We should have only one state championship. There were teams that I watched in person at the 1A division one and division II state tourney that just were not competitive at all. On the other hand their were teams from each tourney that could have made a great tourney and would have been very competitive. What do we say to past champions that won state tourneys when it wasn't wattered down and now that it is does it make it the same or even close saying you won a state championship? It isn't fair to either champions.

I can answer all of your questions if you want and give you very logical and common sense answers that would for the most part please everyone, but that doesn't mean things will change or the IHSAA will listen. Thanks for bringing these issues up for debate I enjoyed reading what you had to say and putting in my two cents.

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The way the classifications are right now are a joke. If they state was actually making more money for the tournements they put on then I would understand a little, but that is far from true. It is exactly what you said Will. It is a copout so schools can get their little blue ribbons. I played my high school sports in Nevada and their set up is about as good as it can be. They have a larger population base than Idaho, but only 4 classifications. I played in the 1A which was the lowest classification. At that time there were about 24 1A schools and only 4 made it to state. The competition level was great because by the time you made it through districts and got to state only the best of the best were left. The 1A tournement brought in the most money because whole towns would shut down to go just like in Idaho.

I have coached some in Idaho and have parents and many family members who coach in Idaho. It really is a mess. When it came to a vote in the 1A a few years back the majority of the coaches wanted to keep the 1A together, but that didn't matter. The IHSAA made the final decision. The IHSAA has no one above them to keep the checks and balances so they can do pretty much whatever they want.

The 5A classification is rediculous. There are barely enough teams in the 5A to have a district tourney let alone a state tourney. It is the most watered down state tourney of them all. Granted most 4A schools can't compete against 5A schools overall, but to have 8 out of 18 teams go to state is crazy. They either need to put the 4 and 5A back together which would be best, or they need to only take 4 teams to state. 2 from the treasure valley and 2 from the rest of the state.

I also know that there are many expenses involved in high school sports, especially now with buget cuts throughout the state. Watering down state tourneys makes it worse. How you might say. Because more schools have to travel farther either within there districts or to state and travel costs are a huge part of the budget for high school sports. Not to mention having to come up with new record books and taking away from winning a state championship used to mean. For example, the 1A state volleyball tourney as you mentioned. We should have only one state championship. There were teams that I watched in person at the 1A division one and division II state tourney that just were not competitive at all. On the other hand their were teams from each tourney that could have made a great tourney and would have been very competitive. What do we say to past champions that won state tourneys when it wasn't wattered down and now that it is does it make it the same or even close saying you won a state championship? It isn't fair to either champions.

I can answer all of your questions if you want and give you very logical and common sense answers that would for the most part please everyone, but that doesn't mean things will change or the IHSAA will listen. Thanks for bringing these issues up for debate I enjoyed reading what you had to say and putting in my two cents.

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Although the state rarely listens to what we have to say, mostly because EVERYONE has their own opinion, I really think that they could benefit from putting all of these pieces of information together and hopefully come up with an answer to a very beat down topic. Any way you reformulate this problem, other problems will arise, that is fact. Game scheduling and reforming districts will be the biggest challenge. My solution? I agree that 6 classifications tends to lean towards the 'recreation' side of sporting. It is too many, and there is one way to solve this. Go back to 5 and recalculate the attendance numbers they use to classify them. Small schools have the biggest challenge in fielding teams, and as Anonymous said, in a school of 50 kids one player does make all of the difference. I think that changing the attendence numbers to 1A 0-100 2-A 101-300 3A 301-600 4-A 601-1000 and 5A 1001+ (just an idea here not set in stone) might be a viable solution. Idaho is a small school state, and I don't see that changing in the forseeable future. Lets face it people, if you have a High School of 1000+ kids, then your progam has every ability to be as competetive as the next. If you are running competetive try outs, then I believe you can be in the same league as the rest. Trust me, you haven't coached until you have coached a small high school and you have to bribe kids to play so that you can have a program! I live for the day when I can pick the top 12 out of the 100 that show up to play for me! We are too favorable for the larger schools, and in reality with 63 small schools under 159 students, don't you think that possibly it is time to take a look at it? Not to mention the IHSAA dropping more schools down last classification ie: Challis to an already bulging at the seams 1A program. (they were one half a student over the limit of 159). if you are over, you are over.
Combining has worked with some, and sadly enough, not with others. Pride always seems to get in the way. In talking with the administrations of the small schools that have combined, they all say that the savings in dollars is minimal if any. However, the ability to compete at higher levels has improved immensely. Isn't that what sports is for? Competing?

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Looking at the numbers, it is almost impossible to fairly group the schools by enrollment. By my count, and I might be one off in some of the lower groups, and I don't think Canyon Ridge is factored in, but there are 35 schools from 0-100, 42 from 101-250, 27 from 251-500, 14 from 501-1000, and 33 from 1000-+. As I see it, the big problem is the lack of schools in the 500-1000 range. Any way you shuffle it, those schools will either be at the top or the bottom of a group, and most likely either dominate or struggle big time. I can't see grouping schools of 250 with schools of 600 or 700, or schools with 300 with schools of 700-800, or schools with 500 with schools of 1200. My bottom line is that is nearly impossible to group fairly by enrollment.
I go back to a system of relegation and promotion, where the very competitive schools move up as the less competitive schools move down within 4 or five divisions. The higher divisions would become the most competitive, while the lower divisions would be less, but most schools would find their level. Right now, each division, especially 3A and below has a few schools who are the "cream of the crop" in most all activities. Fruitland, Shelley, Snake River, Weiser for example, are usually at the top, in fact Shelley is moving up, and those other schools have programs which should be very competitive most of the time with schools in the 500 - 800 or so range.
There is no perfect set up and some are going to be at the bottom, and in most cases have minimal success unless a superior class of athletes comes in together.

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The state doen't even listen to the majority of the coaches and athletic directors at least in the 1A division. Just like I said they had a vote of who wanted to to split the 1A division into two divisions and as I remember maybe I am mistaken, but there was a majority of votes around 60% who wanted to keep it one division. Since the squeeky wheel always gets the grease the small schools who wanted to split the division kept on the IHSAA until they went their way. There was even facts brought in to prove that smaller schools in the 1A could compete and even beat the larger 1A schools over the years. The facts basically stated that since there was a 1A division in Idaho the smaller schools actually won more state championships then the larger 1A schools. So when you say everyone has their own opion I don't understand. Are facts really facts anymore? I can research and show you exact facts of the cost benefit analysis of putting the 1A back to where it was with only one division, but people would still argue the facts.

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How many wins does Borah's boy's basketball team have? Did they make it to state? Have they advanced past the first round of the state playoffs?