A couple of days ago a friend of mine mentioned to me that there may be a group of schools that will pull its football programs out of the WIAA if it implements its new proposal to eliminate conferences. I don’t know if the rumor is true, and I really haven’t said anything about it yet, but I do have some thoughts on what the WIAA should and shouldn’t be doing.
First off, there are so many arguments for or against the new regular season football system where varsity teams play only teams in their playoff districts, I really wouldn’t know where to start. Some schools like it because it makes their schedule easier playing schools more similar in size and can get into the playoffs with better records, other schools don’t because they would be traveling more and it would mess up consistency in their freshman and JV programs along with ruining long-standing traditions and rivalries. I get all that, but its too confusing and there is no consensus amongst athletic directors, coaches, or schools.
What I don’t get is why the WIAA believes it should be mandating which schools should be playing each other in the regular football season. Is it really its business? Even though the NCAA has had its Hitler moments recently, you don’t see it telling the Big Ten or the ACC who it should and shouldn’t be playing in the regular season, nor do you see it telling conferences which university belongs or which one doesn’t. Its just none of its business.
For the life of me, I just cannot figure out why the WIAA seems to feel it needs to get its hands on every little detail regarding high school athletics. I would consider the organization of conferences and and regular season play as one of those little details, and would also consider it micromanagement.
One of the first problems with the WIAA is that I’m not sure it has a clear mission statement. Considering a non-for-profit, a service group, or an association like the WIAA, one of the first things you will find on its website is a clearly defined paragraph about the entity which specifically and briefly defines the purpose for its existence. I looked for quite a while on the WIAA website – nothing. That says a lot.
The WIAA has no clear definable mission for it to follow on a daily basis, nor does it make its mission clear to its members and the public. Finally, after searching for a considerable amount of time, I found its “purpose” hidden in the Senior High Directory. Not on the front page – mind you. This is a PROBLEM.
Article II – Purpose
Section 1 – The purpose of this Association is threefold:
A. To organize, develop, direct, and control an interscholastic athletic program which will promote the ideals of its membership and opportunities for member schools’ participation.
B. To emphasize interscholastic athletics as a partner with other school activities in the total educational process, and formulate and maintain policies which will cultivate high ideals of good citizenship and sportsmanship.
C. To promote uniformity of standards in interscholastic athletic competition, and prevent exploitation by special interest groups of the school program and the individual’s ability.
I’m not sure if you can construe from this purpose that one of the goals of the WIAA should be controlling what scheduling goes on in the regular season. If it were so important, why is it not controlling the regular season scheduling of every sport?
I guess my point is that an organization without a simple mission statement is an organization that has no direction. This causes either not enough management, or too much. Unfortunately, in the case of the WIAA, I’ve argued in the past and continue to argue to this day that it has too much direction. Its employees have nothing to hang their hat on every day when they come into the office, and believe that their purpose is to get their hands on everything. It simply is not necessary.
This goes from petty little “in season” rules and regulations, all the up to now an attempt to control conference scheduling. And its finally gone to far. If indeed a group of schools gets together an pulls its football programs out of the WIAA and forms a new football associaiton, which it would have the legal right to do, it will be unfortunate for its football members as a whole, but the WIAA will have no one to blame but itself.
The WIAA has argued that the reason for the new football proposal is to level the playing field during the regular season, so that when it selects its playoff teams smaller schools, which play in larger conferences, have a fighting chance to have records that qualify them for the post season. So, if I understand this right, the WIAA is going to meddle in the regular business of schools because it cannot figure out how to implement a fair playoff system? Then how about making sure the playoff system is fair, rather than just blowing up the whole system that has worked for years?
I have a thought or two on that, and all it really takes is some thinking outside the box, while at the same time utilizing the current business model the WIAA already uses for basketball. Not too difficult.
If the problem is getting the right teams into the playoffs, and conference win-loss records are currently the benchmark for playoff qualification, then that criteria simply needs to be eliminated. Due to some conferences having wide ranges of enrollments, win-loss records often do not tell the whole story of the quality of a football program. I can fix that.
Since we already know which teams will be in a certain division of a regional or sectional based on enrollments, we can start with that pool of teams. Once the regular season ends, or its is almost over, much like basketball, just have the coaches get together for a seeding meeting. Since each division has only four sectionals of eight teams, then the top eight seeds voted in at the coaches meeting get into the playoffs. Simple. If you trust the system in hoops, why not trust the seeding system in football? Its the same thing.
Either way, the WIAA has no business in mandating regular season conferences football schedules, much less conference alignments. For crying out loud, if a certain school wants to play in a certain conference, and that conference wants the school in, why can’t the system just work itself out?
Unfortunately, the WIAA has a history of too much control, and I fear that its next football move may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The WIAA would be better of worrying about if Little Johnny lives in the right school district, and transferred out for “family reasons”, rather than bossing everyone around.
But, we see the word “control” in its purpose, and that just might not be enough.