Should OHSAA add tournament divisions in seven sports? Central Ohio coaches say yes
The Ohio High School Athletic Association will not formally gather feedback on its proposal to add tournament divisions in seven sports until January, but early indications are that central Ohio coaches are in favor.
An informal survey of area coaches revealed approval for the idea, with the coaches believing that adding at least one division would help level the postseason playing field.
The Dispatch reached out to coaches following the OHSAA’s announcement Dec. 13 that it will consider adding divisions in baseball, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, softball and girls volleyball. Such a move would even out the number of schools in each division, trickling down from the notable disparity in enrollment from the top to bottom of Division I, and more closely resemble the seven-division setup football has used since 2013.
Changes could take effect as soon as the 2024-25 athletic year.
“Football has been seven divisions for a long time and there are a lot more basketball teams in the state (1,571) than there are football teams (701),” DeSales boys basketball coach Pat Murphy said. “If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for the rest of us.”
According to the OHSAA release announcing potential changes, the enrollment difference from the top to the bottom of schools in baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and girls volleyball in Division I is an average of 939 students, with highs of 955 in boys soccer (346-1,301), 954 in boys basketball (346-1,300), 944 in baseball (356-1,300) and 940 in girls volleyball (319-1,249).
All of those sports have four divisions with the exception of soccer, which is split into three.
The OHSAA did not specify how many divisions might be added, but coaches such as Lakewood softball’s Jon Griffin said expansion should help improve competition. His school is tied for the smallest adjusted enrollment in Division II with one more girl (193) than the largest Division III school, Canton South.
Adjusted enrollment, part of the OHSAA’s competitive balance formula, is specific to each sport and combines the school’s enrollment in grades 9-11 with the students on a respective team. Athletes on the team’s roster are placed into one of three tiers, tied to whether the student resides in the school’s attendance zone or home district, or attends via open enrollment.
“The greatest thing (expansion would do) is bring the divisions closer,” Griffin said. “It evens the playing field.”
Bridging the disparity
Most of Ohio’s largest high schools are in the Cincinnati area. Mason, in Warren County, is the biggest with 1,300 boys and 1,251 girls, according to the most recent OHSAA numbers.
Gahanna Lincoln (1,853 total students), Reynoldsburg (1,775), Hilliard Davidson (1,499), Pickerington Central (1,490) and Groveport (1,478) are central Ohio’s largest schools in most sports, although the numbers can vary by sport because of competitive balance.
Of the state’s 800 boys basketball teams, 198 are in Division I, followed by 201 in divisions II and III and 200 in IV. Ohio’s 771 girls teams are split almost as evenly, with 193 in Division I, 192 in II and III and 194 in IV.
But the issue lies in the disparity within Division I, where in boys basketball, for example, only 20 schools fall in the top half of enrollment.
In football, Division I consists of the top 10% of schools based on enrollment, which equated to 71 schools for the 2023 season. The other six divisions are split as evenly as possible.
“Parity is what they’re looking at,” said DeSales’ Murphy, who called the disparity in Division I “laughable.” “The smallest D-I’s, I don’t know if you’ll ever fix that.”
DeSales made the Division II state final in 2021, losing to Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, and moved up to Division I before the 2022-23 season. Its boys basketball enrollment of 386 makes it the second-smallest Division I school in central Ohio, ahead of only Columbus South (358), and the 27th-smallest statewide.
The potential talent gap is paramount for many coaches such as Wellington girls basketball’s Jordan Johnson, who previously spent 10 years on staff at Independence and saw the 76ers bounce between divisions I and II.
“I don’t care how much talent you bring in, if a school has 1,000 girls, they have more chance to find talent,” Johnson said. “We’d be Division II (at Independence) but then if we added 10 girls, we were D-I with something like 388 girls and in the same division with Pickerington (Central) that has 700 or more. There shouldn’t be that discrepancy.”
Heath boys soccer coach C.J. Davis hopes to see a fourth division, a change that should put his team in Division III. The Bulldogs are in a three-way tie for the smallest school in Division II, directly on the cutoff of 182.
“I like playing in Division II; it is very competitive and I have gotten to know a lot of the coaches very well over the years, (but) it is tough for us to compete with some of the larger schools,” Davis said. “There are some schools that are so small in (Division III) they have just enough kids to make a team and some have to make their teams a coed team. You really just want kids to come out and play soccer and to play some games that are at least level in terms of competition.”
What are the next steps?
The OHSAA plans to meet with member schools in January to present data and gather feedback. A vote could follow in the spring.
Any proposed changes to the number of divisions would need to be approved by a majority vote of the OHSAA board of directors because those are part of the organization’s General Sports Regulations, the OHSAA release said.
Executive director Doug Ute did not rule out division expansion in the remaining sports of bowling, cross country, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, swimming and diving, tennis, boys volleyball and wrestling.
Field hockey, gymnastics and hockey, which have far fewer teams statewide, are single-division sports. Bowling, golf, lacrosse, swimming, tennis and boys volleyball have two divisions and cross country and wrestling are split into three.
Central Ohio’s largest and smallest schools do not anticipate much change.
“Our (division) number might change, but it will be close to the same schools,” Grove City Christian athletic director Brian Leland said. “I didn’t really think that it was needed. We play the same schedule no matter what. It’s just the tournament that's different.”
Several coaches think more divisions will lead to fewer tournament blowouts, especially in early rounds.
“I think it’s going to make for really good games, a lot more competitive games,” Reynoldsburg boys basketball coach and assistant athletic director Andrew Moore said. “That’s a good thing. People want to see the best teams play the best teams, and I think you’ll have that now.”
Dispatch reporter Frank DiRenna contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Should OHSAA add divisions in 7 sports? Central Ohio coaches say yes
