10 days and counting: GHSA searches for hundreds of scores before playoffs begin

Don Corr, the GHSA’s scorekeeper, said he was missing 1,500 scores in those five sports and one other when he sent out his most recent request to athletic directors March 30 seeking to find missing scores or reconcile others. He said he’s whittled them down a bit since then, but the search continues as the deadline approaches.

The sports he’s following are boys and girls soccer, boys and girls tennis. baseball and slow-pitch softball — the ones that use the GHSA’s Post Season Rankings to determine playoff teams and seeds in classes 3A, 2A and A Division I. Other spring sports, such as track and field and golf, don’t use the PSR and don’t need to report to the GHSA.

The PSR is new this academic year, and so is the mad scramble for scores, which has become so laborious it’s virtually Corr’s entire job now.

Corr is one of the GHSA’s five associate directors. He also was in charge of wrestling, slow pitch and fast-pitch softball — not their scores, but coordinating their seasons and playoffs — but those duties are being reassigned next year so he can hone in on the tens of thousands of scores he needs each year.

Since Aug. 1, Corr has received more than 10,000 emails in response to his requests to report or reconcile scores. He hit that milestone this week. He gets several calls and emails about scores every day, he said.

Corr said he is confident he’ll get them all, even if some arrive in the final hours. He’s managed to get it done for football, volleyball, fast-pitch softball and basketball already this academic year.

The slow pitch draw was announced Friday morning. That sport has only 22 teams. But the soccer, baseball and tennis draws will be announced April 21, meaning it’s urgent that athletic directors get their scores entered.

“We’re coming down the stretch in all these sports, so we need to make sure that every sport gets their scores in, no matter what classification they’re in,” Corr said. “We just hope that somebody not entering their score doesn’t keep somebody else from getting in the playoffs. That’s our biggest worry.‘’

Until 12 years ago, the GHSA didn’t keep regular-season scores, and even then, it was on a much smaller scale.

Historically it has been the job of the GHSA’s regions to compile their region standings and report their four playoff teams to the GHSA, ranking them 1-4. The GHSA then filled out the 32-team bracket strictly from that. In those days, the GHSA kept scores only for the state playoffs, which it runs.

Even the regions cared only about region scores, and only for as long as it took to seed their teams. As a result, most regular-season scores through history were like dinosaurs until the past 20 years. The only GHSA sport for which historical scores could be easily found before that is football, and that took years of research by the Georgia High School Football Historians Association to compile.

What changed for the GHSA in 2012 was the first Class A private school playoffs. Because the private schools still played with public schools in the regular season, region finish no longer was a fair way to seed. So for the next 10 years, the GHSA kept scores using a contractor, MaxPreps. But only scores involving Class A schools mattered, and it didn’t amount to much more work for the GHSA over those 10 years with MaxPreps doing it.

In 2024, the GHSA created a new private division for schools in classes 3A to A and came up with another rankings formula, one that was maintained in-house and required scores of every game in all classifications, not just for those schools using the PSR ratings.

For football, that was a piece of cake compared with the others, with only 415 teams playing 10 games apiece, about 2,000 games in all.

Spring sports are much tougher, though. There are 388 baseball teams playing this season, and they’re allowed to play 30 regular-season games. So that’s potentially almost 6,000 games in that sport alone. Boys and girls soccer and tennis also have about 400 teams apiece, and they can play 18 regular season matches.

Coaches and athletic directors are not in the habit of reporting scores quickly because, historically, they haven’t had to.

To ensure better accuracy and to limit the number of contacts the GHSA must manage, the association allows only a school’s athletic director, or another designated school representative, to enter scores. That person must round them up from all the school’s coaches.

The GHSA considered having game officials enter scores, but that would have entailed signing up as many as 5,000 officials across all sports and giving them access to the GHSA’s scores portal. That was deemed impractical. Same would go for coaches of individual sports. So the job falls on school athletic directors.

“With all of the duties some athletic directors face, I am sure it slips through the cracks in the daily life of some ADs,” Marist athletic director Derek Waugh said. “We are fortunate enough to have someone, Jason Harris, who is dedicated to it, but I know many schools do not have that luxury. I feel for Don because tracking down scores on his end is a full-time job.”

West Forsyth athletic director Brett Phipps said it’s taken some time to get used to the new protocol, especially for those in Class 6A, which aren’t guided by PSR rankings but still need to turn in scores because of their effect on the PSR teams.

“I heard more complaining about it in the fall when we first started, but I think it has smoothed out for most 6A people,” Phipps said. “The power ranking is just (classes) 1-3A, so I don’t run into many of those circles, so I don’t honestly know how much it has held up the process. My understanding is that the GHSA ultimately gets what it needs by the time the brackets come out, but I am sure Don had to make some phone calls to get it right.”

Corr, meanwhile, walks a tight line. He’s frustrated at times, often needing to spur athletic directors to do what’s required, but he’s also confident he’ll get the job done.

It’s 10 days and counting.

‘‘We feel we’re going to be very accurate in the end on the rankings,” Corr said. “It’s a lot of work because of missing scores and rainouts and rescheduled games and postponements, things like that. We encourage schools to get their scores in and ask them to do their due diligence and get them right. This is new, and ADs are becoming better and better and getting the scores in and the changes made.”