COLUMN: Will GHSA ever find the ‘right’ way to reclass? Who ‘no’s

Published 5:56 pm Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Let me start off with a little bit of old humor about giving directions.

If you make the right turn, that’s the wrong turn. If you make the left turn, that’s the right turn. So to review, right is wrong and left is right.

I’ll reference that further on down.

It never has been and probably never will be a perfect process. It’s one that’s been changed and made over to try to suit whatever concerns (kind word chosen) arise when the results come out.

It’s the Georgia High School Association’s reclassification, the attempt to create level playing fields for each and every member institution. This is a subject of many previous opinion pieces by this author, and I believe I’ve tried to show empathy to the organization that has at least one representative voice in 159 different locations (that is the number of Georgia counties). The actual number of members is well over 450.

And you thought gathering election results for state-wide offices was difficult.

Where has the reclassification process been? We sure missed you.

That’s right, for one brief blip in our state’s history the GHSA went to a four-year cycle instead of two years. On the one hand, they needed a break from what seemed to be a constantly repeating procedure; on the other, communities and schools in this state change so much in terms of population and demographics in a short period of time, what is a level playing field one day could be completely out-dated in a matter of months.

So the GHSA is going back to a two-year cycle starting in the fall of 2020. But we knew this year, 2019, was finally going to be the year of learning the changes. There were so many GHSA reclassification committee meetings, so many proposals brought up since January, but in a few short recent weeks we got all the answers. Not everything has the final stamp of approval, but I feel we know enough for a firm grasp on what’s ahead of us in high school competitions.

The focus for this market and readership is Colquitt County High, which naturally stayed in Class 7A (one of the rejected proposals was to reduce the number of classes from seven to six).

The biggest question, however, was the Packers’ region makeup. It seemed like the GHSA really wanted to get away from four-team regions, which is what Colquitt had for four years with Tift County, Lowndes and Camden County. Not only does Region 1-7A stay the way it is, but there’s another four-team league one class down, 1-6A (Lee County, Valdosta, Northside and Houston County).

The rumor floated around for several months that there was one school out there that grew so much during the last four years it reached 7A enrollment. This is a school nowhere near Atlanta, which is within striking distance of about 98 percent of Class 7A. However, its distance from southwest Georgia makes for a similar – or perhaps worse in terms of mileage – road trip for three-fourths of 1-7A.

The reality is that yes, Richmond Hill High in Bryan County south of Savannah has a 7A enrollment. Only Camden County could say that’s not a bad journey for its teams, but there’s still a good bit of real estate between the two, one end of the Coastal Empire to another.

But if there’s any writing on the walls, Richmond Hill had to see its immediate future being in 1-7A. They didn’t want that and made the appropriate appeal for a move down in class based on isolation concerns. The GHSA concurred, and now Richmond Hill can sit comfortably in a region with two schools from Glynn, Bradwell, Effingham, South Effingham and even Statesboro that asked to play up from 5A to 6A.

No need to fear, the rest of 6A, for Richmond Hill isn’t exactly a powerhouse that’s going to stomp through every championship tournament.

Some of the reaction, at least in the Colquitt football circles, wasn’t exactly all smiles and thumbs up. What it meant for them was that it’s one more non-region game to seek out for a full 10-game schedule. In the past four years, Colquitt was in danger of playing just nine regular season games only to find a 10th at the last minute.

But what’s there now are eight schools facing the same situation.

So here’s my proposal to help alleviate this process. All of the important personnel from both regions 1-7A and 1-6A line up facing each other like captains before a coin toss. Then, all shake hands and agree to two-year home-and-home contracts. For all eight of you, that takes care of four out of the seven open spots. We are talking about good gates, good match-ups and good tests for when you play those three region games.

But, doesn’t this also involve a lot of travel, like from middle Georgia to practically north Jacksonville and vise versa? So what if it does? Saying this for the first time in print, I would rather go from Moultrie to Camden 10 times than make one trip into the Atlanta traffic congestion.

And if the 1-7A schools are disappointed that Richmond Hill is not a region game, try to scheduling it anyway. I’m thinking those who do basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, tennis, etc. aren’t too upset by this.

Oh, that thing about left, right and wrong directions. That’s what I thought of when looking over the minutes of last week’s reclassification appeals meeting. Some of the lines I had to read over more than once to get down the true meaning. I felt for the committee members going over one appeal after another (19), then one motion and one vote after another.

In five cases, the motion made was to deny the appeal of a school to move down a class. This means, if you are voting yes, you are voting to tell the school no. A ‘no’ vote would then mean you are O.K. with the school’s request? And if there are more ‘no’ votes than ‘yes’ votes on a motion to tell a school ‘no,’ then the appeal is accepted?

That actually happened, for the Academy of Richmond County, the motion to deny failed 9-7. So, yes, ARC went from 4A to a 3A region.

Was there a triple negative in there somewhere. I don’t know, or is it ‘no?’