When it comes to the debate about private schools and sports in Illinois, most fans probably see Joliet Catholic.
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I see Chicago Christian.
Joliet Catholic has won 12 state football titles since the Illinois High School Association began playoffs in the sport in 1974. That makes it a poster child of sorts for those who believe private schools have an unfair edge over public schools because they have no attendance boundaries.
Chicago Christian, which is in suburban Palos Heights, has made the football playoffs six times, has a 2-6 record in them and never has lasted past the second round.
A special IHSA task force has been studying the relationship between private and public schools since last spring. Partly based on that work, the IHSA staff will make recommendations to its Board of Directors at a March 19 meeting.
IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman said the board probably will act on those recommendations then, which means we may have an enrollment multiplier for the next school year. A multiplier would increase the enrollments of schools without attendance boundaries for purposes of assigning them to classes.
Multipliers, proponents say, level the playing field by making non-boundary schools, which are mainly private schools, play opponents with larger enrollments. The task force rejected a proposal to institute a multiplier, but it’s likely the IHSA will adopt one because 70 percent of member schools backed it in a survey.
A multiplier, though, could treat haves and have-nots alike. The haves, when it comes to state football titles, are mainly Joliet Catholic, Mt. Carmel, Providence and Driscoll, which have won 36 state football titles, or about half the titles the state’s 118 private schools have claimed.
The have-nots include Chicago Christian, a coed school with almost 500 students that hasn’t won a state title in any sport in the last 12 years. “We are not some sports factory,” athletic director and football coach Mark Vander Kooi said.
Some public school fans believe most private schools are exactly that, but most are closer to Chicago Christian, only about a dozen of whose 75 football players–including 30 varsity players–participated in organized tackle football before high school.
Few students pick Chicago Christian because of sports, Vander Kooi said, adding that no one chooses it unless he or she wants a Christian education that includes mandatory chapel and bible classes.
“If a kid was just here for sports, it would not be the environment for them,” he said.
An enrollment multiplier almost surely will be tied to the population density surrounding a school. Non-boundary schools in the Chicago area might therefore have their enrollments doubled for classification purposes.
In football, that would push Chicago Christian from Class 3A, where it competed the last two postseasons, to 4A or 5A.
“In 3A we have a chance to be very, very competitive at the state level,” Vander Kooi said. “In 5A . . . I’m too much of a competitor ever to concede before we play a game, but it would be a tough stretch.”
A 2.0 multiplier also would likely boost the Knights from Class A to AA in such two-class sports as basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball.
As Evergreen Park’s athletic director, Mike Laneve shouldn’t care. But he built Chicago Christian’s football program from practically the ground up during 19 seasons there and didn’t change perspectives after leaving in 2002 to become athletic director at a public school.
“I’ve been on both sides of the fence, and I don’t like it,” he said of a multiplier. “If we say the multiplier is due to an imbalance in the number of state championships won by private schools, why then are we addressing all private schools? Some are struggling to keep their programs alive.”
The IHSA’s response to this one-size-fits-all criticism had been to look at population density. Now, fortunately, it is studying schools’ state tournament success rates as well.
According to Hickman, public and private schools win at almost the same rates until their enrollments hit 400. Above that, he said, private schools’ success rates exceed those of public schools.
So don’t be surprised to see a multiplier that kicks in at about the 400 mark and is tied to population density.
That would make a multiplier more palatable, though it probably wouldn’t help schools such as Chicago Christian. What would help, in football, would be a decision not to move schools up more than one class above where they would be in the current setup.
Two-class sports don’t offer that possibility, which would still leave schools the size of Chicago Christian potentially playing opponents several times their enrollments.
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That likely would change if the IHSA goes to a four-class system. That is unlikely to take place next year, but Hickman expects the IHSA to study how such an expansion might work so members can decide if they want it.
“I think there is more momentum for additional classes than there has been in the past,” he said.
Two state champions in basketball are more than enough, thank you. A multiplier might work if it is devised with care.
Four classes is a bad idea no matter how you slice it.
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