The Georgia High School Association’s rule-making authority, the 75-person executive committee, on Monday will discuss a bold plan that would classify schools based on sports success rather than enrollment size starting in 2026.
The proposal is called the GHSA Competitive Balance Reclassification Model. The GHSA provided the AJC with its PowerPoint presentation ahead of Monday’s meeting in Macon.
It calls for the five schools with the most successful sports programs in each class to move up one class every two years while the five least successful programs move down one. Enrollment would no longer matter except as a starting point.
The concept has the endorsement of new GHSA executive director Tim Scott, who will lead the discussion in Macon with associate director Don Corr, who helped develop the model. It has been in the works for more than a year, starting at the grassroots with a few member schools campaigning for it.
No vote will be taken Monday, but Corr said he hoped the executive committee would consider adopting the proposal, or one like it, by next spring so the GHSA can begin planning.
“The GHSA has always had schools that perform poorly on the field or on the court and that have almost no chance of winning championships,” Corr said. “If they drop down, maybe they could have a little bit of success to build their program back where it needs to be. Schools that get moved up that are dominating a classification in all sports would be able to compete at the new classification without an issue.’’
The competitive-balance model would eliminate the contentious public-private split that currently calls for private schools in Class 3A and lower to play in private-only state playoffs. Under the new plan, private schools could move into any classification and compete with public schools in the regular season and playoffs.
To determine which schools move up or down, the GHSA would use three years of data (2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25) and use a points system to rank the schools in their classifications based on their finishes in state tournaments and meets.
Under this plan, it’s conceivable, perhaps likely, that all-sports powers Marist and Westminster, currently in Class 4A, would be in the highest classification by 2028-29. The Georgia Athletic Directors Association has been running an all-sports tally for decades, and Marist and Westminster have won their classifications 23 of the past 24 years.
The GHSA’s points system would not be the same as the GADA’s, though. The GHSA would give more points in sports with higher participation. For example, 94.9% of GHSA schools have boys basketball teams while 17.6% have gymnastics teams. The boys basketball champion would get 94.9 points (100 times .949). The champion gymnastics team would get 17.6 (100 times .176). Football, as the top revenue generator, would get the full 100 for its champions.
The GHSA points plan, also unlike the GADA’s, would rank teams on their average points per sport, not their total points. So schools that participate in a limited number of sports, but do well in them, would rank higher under this system than the GADA’s system.
If the executive committee ultimately rejects the plan, the GHSA will begin the process of reclassifying next summer using enrollment. Currently, schools with more than 2,000 students generally are placed in 6A while those below 800 are in Class A.
The GHSA’s office or executive director doesn’t always take a position on reclassification, leaving it to the reclassification and executive committees, but just as former executive director Robin Hines influenced last year’s decision to reduce the number of classes by one, Scott hoped to do the same when he went on record in August supporting a competitive-balance model.
“It’s making [reclassification] decisions based more on things that happen on the field or on the court and not just the numbers of students in a school, where you’re not Class 6A just because you’ve got a certain number of students,” Scott said. “I think it’s important to get things more balanced. We want to give a young person a better opportunity to compete and have a chance to win.”
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