Nick's Notes: Idea will damage WIAA

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: March 15, 2014

Idea will damage WIAA

One proposal on the agenda for next month’s WIAA annual meeting that, if it is passed, will dismantle the WIAA and, in a way, make the WIAA irrelevant. On Tuesday, the WIAA announced a proposal that was introduced by a collection of its membership through a petition to adopt an enrollment multiplier for nonpublic schools (charter, private, etc.) of 1.65 when determining postseason tournament placement.

What it means is a school’s enrollment will be multiplied by 1.65. For example, Kettle Moraine Lutheran’s projected enrollment for the 2014-15 school year is 392. If the multiplier is in effect, KML’s enrollment would be “bumped up” to 646.8.

How significant is that?

Well, it means KML would have to move up a division in most sports. The heaviest-hit sports would be football and basketball. The basketball team, for example, would have to move up to Division 2, where schools on the high end of Division 2 have close to 1,200 students, almost four times as many as KML. Does that make sense?

There is only one possibility for this to work and that is figure in a town or city’s population. Let’s look at Wisconsin Lutheran and Milwaukee Pius. Those are schools in Milwaukee, where there is a bigger population of students to draw from. On the other side, a school like KML or Living Word Lutheran have a much smaller area from which to draw students.

A multiplier would drastically hurt KML’s and Living Word’s ability to keep student-athletes motivated in athletics and thus will lose students. Nobody wants to be a part of a consistent losing program. As we all know, success breeds success and losing breeds losing. Athletics are such an important part of high school for those who choose to be a part of it. If passed, the enrollment multiplier could devastate the WIAA and many schools. Living Word Principal Dave Miskimen said this proposal is discriminatory. He is right. Why should the nonpublic schools have different rules? Each year, the WIAA preaches it wants to have uniformity with its rules for all sports. This proposal would make that statement and so-called promise a joke.

This proposal treats the membership schools differently and you can be assured there will be a legal challenge by some school district if this passes.

WIAA Executive Director Dave Anderson said since this rule works in other states, he failed to see how it can be discriminatory. That’s hard to believe.

What works in some states doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in others. The membership needs to look at itself and see this is an exceedingly bad idea.
The reason for the proposal was because about 70 public schools believe they are at a disadvantage with the nonpublic schools because their resources are better and it’s not fair. It apparently is the biggest reason as to why the nonpublic schools seemingly win more state championships. That’s not necessarily true. In boys basketball, since 2009, nine of the 23 championships have been won by nonpublic schools. That’s less than half.
That’s why open enrollment is out there, to level the playing field. Now if there wasn’t open enrollment, an enrollment multiplier would make more sense.
However, the one stipulation with the enrollment multiplier to consider is a look at the school’s location.
Yes, it’s a lot of math, but it’s a far better way to reach equality than this silly and damning proposal.