Local coaches not keen on proposed LHSAA legislation

The legislation is three-pronged:

- Schools may elect to play up in division if they want to; however, they must play up at the highest division for the two years of a classification period;

- Dividing the football-playing schools into divisions with eight-team districts instead of classes. Division I would consist of schools electing to play up and would be capped at 32 teams. Division II would be the next largest schools in the state, capped at 64. And so on.

- Any school that makes two consecutive state championship games and wins one of them will be required to move up a division. Should that team not get back to the Superdome, it can elect to play back down in the division it was in prior to the move.

“All of that is going to be referred to committee,” St. James head coach and athletics director Rick Gaille said Thursday. “It’s going to go to a committee and they’re going to tweak it. After the reclassification is done in October and November, they’re going to that proposal and show how it would break down by division.”

Coaches are mixed in their understanding and backing of the proposed legislation. Curtis head coach J.T. Curtis said more information needs to be known about the proposals before the entire membership will pass the rules.

“What are you going to do if all the teams that are jumping in the top 32 are the majority of the teams in the bottom of the state? Who is going to have to go to that district way up north and play two or three district games in north Louisiana,” Curtis said.

In that past, schools were allowed to play up to the division they wanted to play in. But that was for all sports. The proposed legislation allows schools to play up, but only in football.

That certainly could help get some administrators sitting on the fence to be for it.

“I think it’s a good rule,” Newman head coach Nelson Stewart said. “It can allow guys to play up in class if their program is at that level. It gives them a fair shot.”

Gaille isn’t certain every school expected to play up would.

“Some of the schools that would be traditional powers, in my estimation, wouldn’t play up anyway,” Gaille said. “They’re just going to stay wherever they fall. They care about championships and it doesn’t really matter what classification or division they may be in.”

Then there’s the proposal to make a successful program play up in divisions should it have a successful two-year run. Neither Curtis nor Stewart seemed overly thrilled with the legislation.

“If we’re going to do that, why don’t we just let a team play up like we’ve always done?” Curtis said. “I think we made a jump off the bridge four years ago and now we’re trying to correct it and really, probably, the best rule is the old rule.

“It allows the team to play if they want and if they don’t, then they don’t.”

Added Stewart, “I think that’s tough. Sometimes you have schools that have a nice junior and senior class and then you might dip back down.”

The proposal with the most backing by coaches appears to be the move to eight-team districts.

With some schools now playing in three or four-team districts, the emphasis on winning the district has waned, Curtis said. He would like to see district championships mean something again.

“I think over the last 10 years, 15 years, the district championships have a (lessened) in importance,” Curtis said. “People no longer are as excited about winning the district champ because we’ve had such small districts.”

Basketball proposal
Football might be stealing the thunder at this week’s convention, but proposed legislation for basketball, as well as baseball and softball, will change the way the postseasons are shaped.

On the table for a vote will be this:
For basketball, baseball and softball, the top 32 teams will be decided using normal procedure; i.e, district winners, runners-up and wild cards. However, that’s the only thing that remains from the old style.

Once the 32 teams are chosen, all 32 coaches will meet at a central location and rank the teams in the playoffs from 1 to 31, excluding their own team. The team with the fewest points will become the No. 1 seed and so on.

“I really have a hard time with that,” J.T. Curtis said. “If we’re going to do power ratings in football, we need to do power ratings in basketball.”

He added, “I don’t like having personalities involved in the decision-making of who is in the playoffs. That’s not a good thing to do. A lot of times, you’ve got heated rivalries and animosity from people towards teams or a team. I don’t think that’s the best way.”

But Gaille said to combat coaches carrying out vendettas or trying to place their team in a favorable bracket, the votes will be common knowledge.

“There certainly has to be some concern about that,” Gaille said. “Each school’s ballot on how they voted would be a matter of record. It’s a public vote. It’s not a secret ballot to try to alleviate that.”

For basketball, this model would or could be only a one-year program. Also on the table to vote on is a proposal to use power ratings to determine postseason participants, much like how football uses the ratings.

Also being voted on:
- If a school voluntarily forfeits two or more scheduled games in the sports of baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball or volleyball, it shall be considered as dropped the sport;

- A school that voluntarily drops football, baseball, softball, volleyball, basketball or soccer won’t be able to have the sport for two years;

- A school shall be allowed to use non-faculty personnel as head coach in baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, gymnastics, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, indoor/outdoor track and wrestling;

- In football, beginning in the third overtime, teams must go for two;

- Girls volleyball will be divided into five equal or nearly equal divisions.