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Post by illini1 on Oct 26, 2006 18:13:01 GMT -5
One comment to the IHSA:
There is absolutely no need for class expansion in any sports. It's a bad idea, and it's going to come back to bite high school athletics in the state of Illinois square in the....you get the point.
Leave cross-country and track as a 2-class system, and hopefully you realize how bad you've screwed things up before it's too late.
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Post by LemontXC17 on Oct 26, 2006 18:44:42 GMT -5
i disagree with you completly. I want to know why you think that it should be kept at 2 classes. I think that it should be switch because there is a gap bewteen the small scholl wiht like 800 kids and the large school between 2,000-3,000. I go to lemont high school with there is about 1,300 kids. We get screwed into the hinsdale regional for xc where is imposibel for us to get out as a team. In track we were in the plainfield central sectional where there are tons of huge schools. I either say make it 3 classes or switch up the regionals and sectionals so its fair to all.
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Post by trackfan70 on Oct 27, 2006 15:11:53 GMT -5
If you think about it, adding one class doesn't really solve the numbers problem, if there is one. there will still be around a 1000 student gap in the middle class in which a school of approx 600 would have to compete against schools os 1500 or so. The disparity is still there. Although the competition is watered down, if you want it to be fair there should be four classes like Iowa where the school competitng are all simialr sizes. I thought the best choice would be to leave class A alone and split AA in half. thats my opinion and I could be wrong, and if yoou ask my wife, I probably am.
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Post by LemontXC17 on Oct 27, 2006 17:11:55 GMT -5
honeslty i really dont care how they would solve it. but i would jsut like it to be fair for all runners from all schools
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Post by acccoachk on Oct 27, 2006 21:58:21 GMT -5
Being someone who has coached at a private school for years; I think the IHSA is absolutely insane! Speaking for my program; I have always just recruited athletes that were already enrolled in school. With the multiplier being what it is; all of us might as well start aggressively recruiting,and running our programs like small college programs! We are currently barely considered Class A YET We will compete hard against anybody A or AA! However, the bottom line is still numbers. We have 429 co-ed enrollment and 52 athletes in CC. Great numbers for our size,but still not enough to race against the elite AA teams!
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Post by oldschool on Oct 31, 2006 9:40:43 GMT -5
It's the old story of who's ox is getting gored...
I've coached track at a downstate school for years. We have always been a mid-sized AA competitor (about 1300 students). We regularly compete against schools that are 2x to 4x our size, including traveling to specifically compete against large schools. While we can often be competitive in given events it is generally impossible to match up across the board with the larger schools. It will be refreshing for us to have a realistic opportunity to be class-competitive in a middle class. Naturally, the schools that now are large Class A and will move up to a new mid-sized Class AA will be less than thrilled, but they simply will be in the position that we have been in for decades.
If there is to be more than 1 class of competition, regardless of how many classes there are - 2, 3, or 15, the schools that are mid to small sized in their class will be unenthused, while those that are larger in their class will view the division as reasonable.
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Post by distancefan on Nov 2, 2006 15:49:28 GMT -5
Oldschool, you are so right.
Some people seem to be unaware that during the next school year cross country will remain at 2 classes, while track goes up to 3. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out.
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Post by oldschool on Nov 2, 2006 16:43:50 GMT -5
This thread actually has caused me to think about how significant the adverse effect of expansion to 3 classes was going to be. When I actually looked at the numbers I was shocked at how few schools will be impacted badly.
Current AA schools that become AAA will have no adverse effect in that they still will compete against the other very large schools that they already must compete against. This would have been a group of 190 schools this year.
Current AA schools that become "mid-sized" actually receive a benefit of no longer having to match up against those that are will be moved to the very large Class AAA. This would have been a group of 147 schools this year.
Schools that are currently A and that will remain "small school A" have no adverse impact, but rather have a positive impact in that the no longer have to face the larger current A schools. This would have been a group of 421 schools this year.
Thus, the only adverse affect will fall to those current A schools who move up to "mid-sized" and must face larger schools than they previously have had to meet.
The amazing thing to me was when I discovered that had 3 class competition been implemented this year, that of the 801 (I believe that is the current total) schools that are listed as members of IHSA only 43 would have been current A schools moving up to "mid-sized" and thus adversely effected by having to "move up" in competition- 43 is approximately 5.4%. No, the sky is not falling nor is this the end of civilization as we know it, but is actully a pretty reasonable position.
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Post by LemontXC17 on Nov 2, 2006 18:59:49 GMT -5
did they already make it offical that there are going to be 3 classes this year or is it going to be 2 classes
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Post by historian on Nov 2, 2006 20:34:48 GMT -5
Part of me agrees with "old school" - the number of schools actually affected by the change to three classes is not all that many. So three classes aren't a big issue. But...it sure is nice seeing Cahokia take on ESL - and those races would never happen in a three class system. Many times the best races could be AA rather than AAA (just like once in a while an A individual records better time / distance than the AA winner)
But part of me also hates to see too many "state champions". I wonder - could you ever have individual events contested without regard to school size, and relay events linked to a class system ? A little like IHSA wrestling - where they have individual champs and separate team champs. I haven't thought it through , but just wonder - any thoughts....
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Post by oldschool on Nov 3, 2006 0:04:08 GMT -5
A little like IHSA wrestling - where they have individual champs and separate team champs. I haven't thought it through , but just wonder - any thoughts.... I have long thought that the team/individual separate`championships would be appropriate...however I do understand the huge problem that such would create for IHSA scheduling and volunteer purposes...
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Post by devildo on Nov 3, 2006 7:37:16 GMT -5
The 3 classes will be interesting, but the actual state meet will be a nightmare. You guys are correct about AAA and A just going along, but I don't think most of the AA schools will be real happy. AA gets Cahokia, Normal U-High, Leo, Mahomet-Seymour, All the Springfield schools, All but Champaign Centennial from Champaign, All the Rich Twp. schools, etc. Yes AAA and A are now watered down a bit.
The issue still comes down to meet management of the state championship. We already have problems obtaining officials for sectionals and state since boys sectionals are the same evening as girls state. Add another class and create a greater nightmare. Our fear is that you have a severe shortage at both meets. Thats why we want the IHSA to rethink this situation.
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Post by oldschool on Nov 3, 2006 13:57:29 GMT -5
... but I don't think most of the AA schools will be real happy. AA gets Cahokia, Normal U-High, Leo, Mahomet-Seymour, All the Springfield schools, All but Champaign Centennial from Champaign, All the Rich Twp. schools, etc. Okay, it's not like we don't already already have them. They all are there now as well as EStL, Evanston, York, Nequa Valley, Palatine, Fremd, Warren, Jacobs, and so on. I don't picture any current AA school that becomes mid-sized complaining that things went from bad to worse.
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Post by NotSoFast on Nov 7, 2006 18:36:07 GMT -5
Change shouldn't made just for change's sake. There needs to be some real benefit derived from it. When track switches to 3 classes, there will NOT be any MORE athletes competing at the state meet, just a re-distribution of which schools they come from. How is this better for kids and for our sport? Some kids will win, others will lose out. Does that make it BETTER than our current system. In order reduce the qualifiers per class (in order to keep the total number of athletes the same), the qualifying standards will need to be raised. Does this benefit kids? Although some really good programs will be moving down to AA and will be providing some high quality AA qualifiers, in general, many better AAA athletes will be left at home because they will be replaced by some AA qualifiers. If you want to be fair to everyone, provide MORE opportunities, just don't re-arrange them. I suggest going to 4 classes to keep school sizes closer together and more importantly, hold 2 separate meets (A/AA and AAA/AAAA). I know that it's more work for the IHSA and will be harder to find good officials, but if it's better for kids, I believe people will step up and find a way to make it work.
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Post by oldschool on Nov 7, 2006 19:23:09 GMT -5
...When track switches to 3 classes, there will NOT be any MORE athletes competing at the state meet, just a re-distribution of which schools they come from... In order reduce the qualifiers per class (in order to keep the total number of athletes the same), the qualifying standards will need to be raised. Does this benefit kids? Although some really good programs will be moving down to AA and will be providing some high quality AA qualifiers, in general, many better AAA athletes will be left at home because they will be replaced by some AA qualifiers... I suggest going to 4 classes to keep school sizes closer together and more importantly, hold 2 separate meets (A/AA and AAA/AAAA). I know that it's more work for the IHSA and will be harder to find good officials, but if it's better for kids, I believe people will step up and find a way to make it work. I'm afraid that I don't understand your logic. I believe that there will almost certainly be more qualifiers than a mere redistribution`of the same number...what makes you believe that there will be the a redistribution and not more? I have spent over a decade working the Girls' State Meet and seen the numbers of officials and volunteers dwindle. I have been asked a number of times to be involved at the Boys' State Meet but simply cannot take a subsequent weekend to do so. If there were 2 weekends for both Girls' and Boys' meets there will be a overlapping total of either 8 weekends of Girls' and Boys' sectional and state meets involved and unfortunately I really do not think that the officials and volunteers necessary to produce meets of acceptable quality will appear. While I wholeheartedly would agree with the sentiment of additional expansion, unfortunately there is simply no realistic opportunity for such occurring. Additionally if expansion were available, I would be far more supportive of both team and individual meets ala wrestling than simply further expanding the number of T&F classes.
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Post by NotSoFast on Nov 8, 2006 9:35:20 GMT -5
The State Meet cannot handle many MORE qualifiers in a single prelim day. Just changing the format to include prelims for 3 classes instead of 2 even with the SAME amount of athletes, will dramatically lengthen the meet. There is NO benefit from that. Who wants their athletes competing until 8 or 9pm the night before Finals. In the current 2-class system, 15-20% of all state qualifiers are "extra" qualifiers that meet the standards. Even though the 3-class system promises a few more automatic qualifiers, I cannot realistically believe that the IHSA will continue to allow that high of a percentage of "extra" qualifiers. Qualifying standards will be raised and the total number of qualifiers will be end up at or very near the same level it currently sits. If you believe otherwise, I think you are naive.
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Post by dbandre on Nov 8, 2006 13:16:51 GMT -5
Old School:
You did not account for the A schools who don't run track and/or have CO-OP'd. That is the heart of the matter I think with the 3 class system. There won't be any need for the slow heats of the 3200m in the smallest class, unless the qualifying standards are lowered (time raised). I think when dealing with this particular issue, the IHSA faltered badly. When dealing with 3 classes you have to take into account that Small schools must be able to Coop thus the starting size of the middle schools must be at least 600 pupils. I argued long and hard on the old board about this. In terms of fairness, the cutoffs should be at 800 and 1700, that is taking into account the smaller the school the less extracuricular opportunities one has, so as the population of a school goes up so does it opportunities which takes away from a single sport, but there is no linear similarity to opportunities and student population it is curvilinear. Suggesting that it's fitted by some binomial form of regression. I have long argued that if a school of 1000 and a school 3000 have the same opportunities that the school of 3000 will have better athletes in all sports, however if the school of 1000 has a 1/3 less sports than the school of 3000, they should be able to be reasonably competitive or better than the school of 3000. However, the cutoff line for that number seems to fall around 800.
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Post by uhighxc on Nov 12, 2006 11:28:38 GMT -5
There is a story in the Tribune sports section today that suggests that waivers from the 1.65 multiplier could be renewed. He didn't seem optimistic about it, though. How likely is it that the amendment will pass?
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Post by dbandre on Nov 12, 2006 19:15:55 GMT -5
The sad part of this whole thing is that they don't believe population density applies. It does when you account for the number of non-boundaried institutions within a specified radius of 90% of student enrollment that you are measuring. You account for the overlap distribution.
Several Things are for certain about the IHSA:
1. They need a statistician or mathematician or engineer, not an educator, in charge of doing anything that involves counting (voting), graphing of shortest paths, optimization (class system and sectional assignments), and probably accounting for money made off parking fees at State XC meet.
2. They need a software engineer to change their system of state series Track and XC material from the front end client to backend database it needs replaced.
3. Or they could hire me to do both. Too much power for one person I know.
I was glad to see that they raised the cutoff for 3 classes to 594 instead of original 513 in that powerpoint, so that is a good starting point.
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Post by oldschool on Nov 12, 2006 22:11:54 GMT -5
I was glad to see that they raised the cutoff for 3 classes to 594 instead of original 513 in that powerpoint, so that is a good starting point. The change in the cutoff was simply a function of applying the 50% in Class A, 25% in Class AA, 25% in Class AAA formula to the changed number of member schools (which went from 375 to 380) and the size of the schools that happened to be at the breaking points. IHSA has remained constant in its method. It is a per-centage of total members and is unrelated to the specific size of the schools that sit at the class break points.
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Post by dbandre on Nov 12, 2006 22:42:37 GMT -5
My bad the old suggested cutoff was 527, but with regards to your point. There are more than 5 schools with an enrollment between 527 and 594. A simple adjustment? I think it was just made more realistic.
The IHSA does need to higher a full time person to deal with such scenarios beforehand, and that person need not be an educator or a group of educators, nor does the IHSA need to higher an outside group to do this type of analysis. I take it you agree with my other positions, not the 3rd since that was a joke.
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Post by oldschool on Nov 13, 2006 0:18:08 GMT -5
My bad the old suggested cutoff was 527, but with regards to your point. There are more than 5 schools with an enrollment between 527 and 594. A simple adjustment? I think it was just made more realistic. Sorry, it appears that I didn't fully clarify the numbers- the overall membership went up to 760 from 751 schools and the it was Class A that went from the 375 to 380 figure, while both Class AA and Class AAA went from 188 to 190 schools. Additionally, the previous IHSA computations were made on enrollment numbers from last year while the current numbers are based on this year's enrollments. The combination of an increase in the number of members and enrollment changes is the cause of the differing break points. IHSA still utilizes only the 50/25/25 formula without regard to what the erollment numbers themselves may be.
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Post by dbandre on Nov 13, 2006 13:42:39 GMT -5
Old School:
The IHSA still needs to hire someone to look at enrollment and participation numbers. This would help level the playing field. Educators are not qualified for those assumptions, they have for years based assumptions on qualitative reasoning and analysis, not a combination of qualitative and quantitative reasoning and analysis. Do you or do you not agree with this?
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Post by tc on Nov 13, 2006 22:29:43 GMT -5
They should pick 2 coaches that are single A from northern, central, and Southern Illinois as well as 2 coaches that are Double A from Northern, Central, and Southern Illinois to decide the cutoff lines. Those coaches should also be well known and well respected so that people would respect the decision.
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Post by dbandre on Nov 13, 2006 23:27:00 GMT -5
I could almost agree with that position tc.
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Post by acscoachp on Nov 21, 2006 23:51:56 GMT -5
I would volunteer for the job in a heartbeat. I am an A coach from northern, Il. I dont think they want our imput. They seem more than happy with their own......
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Post by coachwagz on Nov 25, 2006 7:58:11 GMT -5
In reading through this thread with great interest, there are a few things to consider:
1 - The "watered down" concern. I think we as coaches need to remember that although we may consider this change to be watering down competition, the athletes actually racing sure won't think so. If your schedule remains unchanged or adds/subtracts a few meets to allow prep for the class change, your athletes will still race against the same schools they always have. The only difference is, they may actually get to race at the state meet at the end of the season rather than clean out their lockers, if that ever happened in the past. Concerns for watered down competition make it sound like an athlete who becomes a "NEW" single A champion is less of a champion than the AA and AAA. If that's the case, then I guess all "CURRENT" A champs would be considered in the same vain given that logic, even though many of the championship times in both classes are starting to come even.
I don't think this cheapens competition, I think it puts the responsibility on us as coaches to prepare our athletes for competition. . .period. Regardless of the class they are in, we will need to prepare them, just like we always have, it just means a bigger change for us.
2 - "By the numbers" - I love the fact (and mean this sincerely) that so many of you in this thread have access to and understanding of the numbers you are sharing. Back when I coached in a private, catholic high school (1999-2003), there were far fewer coaches paying attention to the organization of the sport. Even when I personally ran in HS under biology teachers who new nothing of the sport other than how to cash the extra stipend, the coach educated in the ways of track and field organization were few and far between. With this many educated coaches, though, pointing at a problem believed "fixed" by the IHSA, how come we can't come up with a viable alternative worth listening to? The 3 class system has been looming for years and has lumbered toward Illinois Track & Field in town hall meetings at the ITCCCA meetings for as long as I can remember. Even though the IHSA asked for input, it couldn't be stopped. Now, if it truly is here, we either have to adjust to it or adjust it (the concept.) I think in the end, how we react to that will prove the strength of Illinois Track & Field and its coaches.
There are obvious flaws in the upcoming system, but if you look at the effect similar changes have had in the other IHSA sports, you'll find that they too are flawed. Almost annually, there are tweaks to the football system and the bugs have yet to be worked out. Our comfort zone has been the 2 class system, our challenge now is to be prepared, through boards like this, to fix whatever glitches we find so that Track & Field doesn't suffer for years to come and we iron out the bugs sooner than later.
Just my two cents. . .okay. . .maybe more like a quarter. . .
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Post by oldschool on Nov 25, 2006 9:44:54 GMT -5
...Just my two cents. . .okay. . .maybe more like a quarter. . . Seemed to me that it was worth more than a quarter.
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Post by historian on Nov 25, 2006 11:38:19 GMT -5
A few thoughts re class expansion...
Clearly - it does water down the state meet. I know all the athletes I talk with are against it - they feel it will only mean more champs with each champ meaning less. Two is enough as it is.
Under three classes, the fact is more athletes will qualify for the "experience" of the state meet . However, many of those that do qualify will be less elite. I personally feel this is to the detriment of track and field. Track and field has always been easily compared across different enrollments - the clock doesn't lie, the tapes all measure an inch as an inch. Individual events have always been compared - every year, track fans compare the times and distances from the AA competition to the A competition, and wonder how the A winners could have stacked up.
(by the way -I don't buy the "little schools never get a chance to compete with big schools, so they can't get ready" thing - the top athletes never use that excuse)
Relays are different -here, the size of the pool to draw from does have a great impact on the ability to compete. Maybe we should have individuals events with no class distinctions, and relays with three classes. I know this plays havoc with the"team champion" idea.
Another thought - in a different direction - what about letting a school "play up" in track and field if they wanted to. For example -this would allow Cahokia to go head to head against the proposed largest division schools.
Oh -and just curious - why does the IHSA persist in including "A" in every division - just go to Division I, Division II, and Division III, like an NCAA. Lots of other states use A,B,C,D, etc...
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Post by oldschool on Nov 25, 2006 12:35:10 GMT -5
Under three classes, the fact is more athletes will qualify for the "experience" of the state meet . However, many of those that do qualify will be less elite. I personally feel this is to the detriment of track and field... So the two class AA girls at our sectional in the 800m who each ran under 2:26.00 FAT at sectional and finished 3rd and 4th and thus failed to go to state were "less elite" than the 22 Class A qualifiers who ran slower but went to State? The "more elite" argument has no vitality if there is more than 1 class... Every year a great many Class A state qualifiers and medalists are "less elite" than many in Class AA who never set foot on the track at EIU in their careers.
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