Ad Hoc member glad success factor failed

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: April 22, 2016

Ad Hoc member glad success factor failed

Area student-athletes not in favor of enrollment multiplier

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

One of the Ad Hoc committee members is glad the success factor for WIAA postseason tournament placement failed.

So were area student-athletes.

“I’m very happy that it failed,” Kettle Moraine Lutheran Superintendent David Bartelt said. “The success factor was always the best proposed solution to a perceived problem. I felt it was the best option.

“If it’s just a perceived problem, then status quo should continue. I was happy it failed.”

Bartelt was one of 21 administrators from throughout the state who were challenged by the WIAA membership in 2014 to find a solution for what several members called a competitive imbalance in high school sports.

On Wednesday, the WIAA’s membership voted against the success factor, 221-198.

In 2015, the success factor was proposed to the members at the WIAA’s Annual Meeting, but the proposal was amended in favor of an enrollment multiplier of 1.25. It failed, 297-134.

Then an amendment was made for 1.65 multiplier. That also failed, 293-141.

Bartelt said Thursday he had no hard feelings about the memberships vote after the committee’s nearly yearlong research.

“The majority of the committee put it forward as the best option if there had to be a solution,” Bartelt said. “The majority of the committee did that because that’s what we were tasked with. Most of us agreed to keep status quo.”

While Bartelt wasn’t surprised status quo remained, he was surprised at how close the vote was, a 52.7 to 47.3 split.

“I thought it’d be two-thirds against the success factor,” he said. “I did believe that it would fail.”

“I think the WIAA probably should continue to gather information, gather data over the next couple of years,” Bartelt added. “If the problem keeps on coming back, they can look at the data already collected and look at it again.”

He also believes the discussion will go quiet for the next year.

“They’ll watch tournament results over the next year and see if the perceived problem goes away or gets worse,” Bartelt said.

So what do area student-athletes think? Well, most of them haven’t followed much of the process if at all. And most don’t care what happens, enrollment multiplier or success factor.

“I don’t feel like there’s one team that’s at state every year,” Kewaskum senior basketball player Sammie Wiskirchen said.

Wiskirchen played club basketball with some girls from KML last summer and found out it is no fluke the Chargers are as good as they are, especially in girls basketball.

“They work out. They have daily workouts,” she said. “They’ve earned it to be as good as they are. It’s not like they’re getting handed anything.”

The perception that private schools have it better than public schools started with Whitefish Bay Dominican’s five straight state titles in boys basketball.

Living Word Lutheran sophomore Jacob Bolwerk, who is on the Timberwolves’ boys basketball team, believes it is a challenge to move up a division, rather than punishing success.

“I think it would be a motivator for us,” Bolwerk said. “We’re a small school playing against the bigger schools. Let’s go out and compete against them.”

However, he does understand why the debate exists. But, as a player, “you can’t think about that.”

“You just go out and play.”

Bolwerk, along with West Bend West junior Jack Thelen, who is on the Spartans’ football, basketball and baseball teams, said if they had to choose between the enrollment multiplier or the success factor, they’d chose the latter.

“The success factor because that would mean those schools that are having repeated success, they’re not on the same field as others,” Thelen said.

Wiskirchen, Thelen and Bolwerk agree an enrollment multiplier would be unfair.

“Yes we’re a private school, but it should be the same at public schools,” Bolwerk said.

“(With) like Living Word and KML, I wouldn’t say they have an unfair advantage,” Thelen said. “You get what you put in. They have to put in the work just like the others.”

Reach sports editor Nicholas Dettmann at ndettmann@conleynet.com.