Take Evasive Action!!!!!!

I’ll admit it, I’m a small school guy at heart.

I‘ve lived in Northwest Ohio most of my 38 years. I’ve gone to small schools, even the smallest of the small in Bettsville, covered small schools as a sports writer, coached at small schools and cheered for them in the tournament.

I’ll admit I do have a bias in the way the OHSAA’s new rules on setting up their divisions is concerned. Especially in football when there will be 72 Division I teams competing for 32 playoff spots and 140 Division VI teams doing the same. I’m writing a story for Thursday’s paper telling the OHSAA’s side of the story why it’s a good idea and what went into coming up with the idea.

Some people from the OHSAA are starting to get a little ouchy. I had a strange encounter this morning when I called Toledo Central Catholic AD Bill Axe, who also wears the hat of the Northwest District Athletic Board President. He was one of the members of the 18-person Blue Ribbon subcommittee that recommended the changes to the Board of Control. I asked him if I could get some clarification on a few things and he didn’t want to answer questions, seemed surprised I was asking about it and even said that he thought the discussions that took place were confidential and that he knew he wouldn’t want anyone else knowing what was said during the committee meetings. He was quite evasive and it was just a bit of a strange exchange.

As a reporter I can kind of get a sense of when someone doesn’t want to tell me something because : A) It will stir up a bunch of controversy or B) They’re hiding something. I got the vibe that both of those things were going on here.

I think because he knows there are so may small schools that will be negatively impacted here in NW Ohio, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with the decision -- even though he was on the subcommittee. I asked him a couple of things and was answered with stunned silence.

Keeping things secret is no way to run an organization that is responsible for maintaining Ohio high school athletics for 800 schools and thousands of athletes across the state.

My primary question was: Why were the smallest 2 percent of schools (which include area schools Vanlue, Hardin Northern and St. Wendelin) taken out of the equation when they split the schools into Divisions II through VI, then added back into Division VI. I want to know the rationale behind it?

So far no one knows….nothing….stunned silence.

I was able to get a list of the 18 committee members and found that only one…Worthington Christian’s AD, is from a Division VI school. Two others are from Division V schools.

I think the coaches, administrators and athletes in NW Ohio deserve to know why there are twice as many Division VI schools in football as they will be in Division I.

And I aim to find out why.

NOTEWORTHY
Sorry, tomorrow we’ll look at the area openers and maybe give some predictions. Also Thursday I will post out notes on Friday’s match ups.