Here we go again.
For seemingly the thousandth time, the Illinois High School Association will consider tinkering with its rules regarding private school athletic programs.
Blame Tim Racki.
When the IHSA’s state football playoffs increased from six to eight classes in 2001, officials and fans at many small public schools hoped the fallout would include more titles for them. A key to that hope was Class 4A, which no longer would have behemoths such as Joliet Catholic and Providence slurping up all the title hardware.
Well, guess what? Private school Driscoll, with Racki as coach, won the last three titles in the “new” Class 4A. That helped spark a recommendation from the IHSA’s public school-dominated football advisory committee to double the enrollment of private schools for purposes of classification in the playoffs.
The IHSA Board of Directors tabled that proposal Saturday, instead deciding to form a task force to study a variety of issues, among them how to classify private schools as well as public schools without boundaries.
This is just the latest sign that the athletic marriage between the state’s private and public high schools will never be totally harmonious.
Private school critics, many of them from Class A public schools, argue that private schools enjoy an unfair advantage because they are not restricted by attendance boundaries the way public schools are.
Private school officials respond that public schools can offer tuition-free education in tax-supported facilities. They also argue that transfer rules favor public schools.
Recent IHSA history is replete with public school-inspired shots across the bow of private school sports.
In 1990, member schools voted down a proposal that would have put all private schools regardless of enrollment into Class AA in most sports that differentiate by class. Private schools would have been moved up one class in the football playoffs.
In 1995, the IHSA’s Legislative Commission rejected a proposal to ban private high schools from state tournament competition altogether, but the commission recommended that a special committee study private and public school issues. The result was a task force and rules that, among other things, limited private schools, with a few exceptions, from drawing students from beyond a 30-mile radius.
In 2002, another committee studied the relationship between private and public schools, without major changes.
The newest task force stems from a concern that private schools are hogging state trophies in football, and girls volleyball too for that matter. Catherine Finch, the principal at Stockton and an IHSA board member, said there is “a large questioning across the state” about the disproportionate amount of private school success in football.
“That’s a concern,” she said, “but the big thing we need to look at is not just the football issue but all activities of the IHSA.”
So imagine the fun if a private school wins the Class A boys basketball title for a second straight year Saturday.
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Racki believes critics of his program’s success focus too much on where his players live and not enough on how hard they work.
“When we were getting beaten by public schools my first couple years, it didn’t seem to be much of an issue,” he said. “Now it makes it sound like we are going to Florida and Texas to get players.”
Doubling his school’s 465-student enrollment would put Driscoll in Class 5A in football, which Racki said he would welcome as a way for his players to face better competition and earn more respect.
“I’d rather concede and say, `What do you want?’ if that would put an end to it,” he said.
“What if we go to 5A and succeed? Is it 6A next? I just want to know when the kids will get the kudos they deserve.”
Enrollment multipliers, of course, are aimed at private school powers such as Driscoll and Providence, which can handle it. One wonders about some 5-4 or 6-3 private school team, which might win a game or two under the current setup but might get blown out one class up.
New rules often are aimed at what the best teams and players are doing without enough consideration of how changes will affect everyone else.
Private schools and public schools both have their advantages. Private schools, however, do have the ultimate edge because their ability to draw students from a relatively large area gives them a better chance to sustain success than a public school enjoys.
Past rules changes have been attempts to level the playing field, and they have gotten close enough that the new task force needs to move carefully. Anything beyond tweaking likely will be a mistake.
What the IHSA should do is put more effort into making sure private schools–and public schools too–are obeying recruiting rules already in place.
Whatever this newest task force does, the private-public debate will continue . . . right through to the formation of the next task force in, say, 2010.
“I don’t think the issue will ever be settled to everyone’s satisfaction,” Finch said.
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