By JERRY BYRD JR., Journal Sports
The LHSAA Summer Meetings began yesterday, but all who have their eyes on Louisiana high school athletics will be following today’s session as the Executive Committee uses a seldom mentioned sportsmanship rule to help define the term “select” as it relates to how schools are classified for championships.
In the LHSAA bylaws rule 4.4.4 gives the LHSAA permission to “make special rules to effect the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship.” The meeting comes after numerous attempts by LHSAA to bring the association back together from the split, which started in 2013 from a football-only proposal from Winnfield High School and quickly spread to other sports.
The latest attempt came in January at the LHSAA’s annual convention when Class 5A principals voted to keep the status quo.
Here are the options on the table at today’s 9 a.m. Executive Committee meeting, led by LHSAA executive director Eddie Bonine. Redefining how the organization considers schools as “select” could be any of these three.
Option 1: Public or private schools that have established academic criterion that determines admission or retention.
Option 2: Lab schools, magnet schools, school with magnet components, charter schools, parishes that allow open enrollment at all its public schools and tuition-based schools in the definition.
Option 3: Private or public schools that do not receive money from the Louisiana Minimum Foundation Program or receive and academic letter grade from the Louisiana Department of Education.
Along with today’s “select” definition discussion, Bonine will also address issues with playoffs in football, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball. The problem, according to popular opinion, is too many sub-par teams are qualifying for postseason play.
According to Geauxpreps.com, there were 35 football teams in the 2021 LHSAA football playoffs who qualified for the postseason with losing records. Of the 24 schools that qualified for the LHSAA Class 1A football playoffs, only 11 had records above .500.
Bonine will present a plan to the Executive Committee addressing the situation.
Coaches across the state of Louisiana have seen this waffling before from the LHSAA. While he has read about the agenda of the LHSAA’s summer meetings, Haughton’s Jason Brotherton is unsure how any decision made will change the landscape of high school athletics in the state.
“It seems to me they’ve found a rule they can use to pass what they want to pass,” said the Haughton head football coach and athletic director. “The frustrating part is that we vote at the convention and then they (LHSAA leadership) go back and don’t like something and so we have to revote on what we have already voted on.”
In Wednesday’s session, the executive committee approved championship locations for the next two school years. Baseball, softball, and swimming championships will contested in Sulphur, volleyball and powerlifting championships will take place in Lafayette, girls basketball and soccer championships will be played in Hammond, boys basketball championships will be played in Lake Charles, tennis championships will be held in Monroe, and wrestling championships will again be held in Shreveport-Bossier.