The Florida High School Athletic Association finds itself stuck between the clock and a hard case.
There seems to be no easy answer for the question its 16-person board of directors must once again try to tackle when it meets Monday at FHSAA headquarters in Gainesville:
What is the association going to do about reclassifying its 500-plus football teams for a 2022 season that is fast approaching?
A vocal number of coaches and athletic directors have been calling for nearly two months for the association to halt the discussion and roll out its realignment plan for football’s eight classes (1A through 8A) so they can finally complete 10-game schedules for the fall and lock in events such as homecoming. In years past, reclassification has been finalized in January — or sooner.
But another cadre of coaches, determined to convince the association to scrap its antiquated classification system now rather than later, successfully persuaded the FHSAA Athletic Directors Advisory Committee, by a shaky 8-7 vote in January, to pump the brakes on realignment and bring a revolutionary proposal to the board meeting in Gainesville.
The plan, authored by Dunnellon High football coach Price Harris as a means to restore competitive balance, would split schools above the 1A rural division roughly in half to create separate classes for two new divisions. It was endorsed unanimously by the FHSAA Football Advisory Committee.
Suburban schools, including those in Osceola, Volusia and Lake counties, would have their own playoff paths — away from big city teams that are dominating FHSAA football finals.
The Metro division, as presented by Harris for a two-year cycle (2022 and 2023), would have four championships classes and encompass about 270 teams from eight counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Duval and Central Florida’s Orange and Seminole.
Roughly the same number of squads from the 59 less densely populated counties would go to the Suburban side and be divided into four classes. The 1A division, reserved for small-town teams with 600 or fewer students, would stay intact.
It would be a seismic shift for an association that has used one factor — student enrollment counts — to align teams since it created a second classification in its second year of football playoffs in 1964.
“It’s not going to make it easy to win a state championship. But it’s against like competition, which is fair,” Harris said in his pitch to the panel of athletic directors. “Splitting allows us to achieve competitive balance. It would create really good matchups. Not as many blowouts.”
Teams on the Metro list have won 88% of the available football state championships above 1A over the past 11 seasons (68 of 77).
Harris said in an age where transfers by high school athletes are commonplace, urban powerhouses have a sizable advantage because they have access to a much larger pool of players and can replenish their rosters each season.
Venice, which beat Apopka last season’s 8A final, is the only Suburban champion outside the rural division in the past three years. That’s one of 21.
Outgoing FHSAA executive director George Tomyn is on record recommending that the board not approve the Metro-Suburban proposal.
“The Executive Director does not endorse the proposal as written and does endorse the continued work of the Athletic Directors Advisory Committee to review classification,” said the written message to board members (and the public) as part of the recently posted meeting agenda.
Following the A.D. committee vote in November, Tomyn told the Sentinel the Suburban-Metro plan had potential. But with such a narrow voting margin and so many conflicting concerns he said more review is required.
Doug Patterson, who oversees Orange County Public Schools athletics, agrees.
“I’m 100% on board with the executive director’s position on this,” Patterson said. “I’m not against it. I think it actually does have some strong support. But it’s a major change and it has not been fully vetted.”
Another concern is how a landmark change in football realignment would impact other sports.
Patterson is on the A.D. committee and in its January meeting he said the FHSAA and its advisory panels must buckle down to study solutions.
“We know change is needed. However, we have not done a good enough job of taking things that have been discussed and getting our hands dirty to bring about change that works for the membership,” he said during the discussion. “We need to do a better job and work through this, so we have options.”
Ryan Adams, the athletics director for Osceola County schools, said the same to the Sentinel.
“I’m not against the proposal. I’m not in favor of the timing,” Adams said. “I didn’t know anything about this until Jan. 6 or 7 at the [Florida Athletic Coaches Association] conference and here they are voting on at the end of February.”
Critics of the waiting game say requests to level the playing field are nothing new.
“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road, hoping something’s going to change,” said Shelton Crews, the executive director of the Florida Athletic Coaches Association and a longtime former football coach. “It’s time to act.”
Harris said surveys have shown most football coaches are in favor of change. But a poll distributed by Polk County athletics director Dan Talbot on behalf of the FHSAA A.D. committee does show a distinct dividing line.
Athletic directors and football coaches from schools on the Suburban list voted 95-11 in favor of separate Metro and Suburban divisions. But those from schools in the eight Metro counties voted 105-38 against.
The proposal would increase state championships from eight to nine, but it would reduce the titles available to teams on the Metro list from seven to four.
That’s not an easy pill to swallow for urban schools that swept all seven championships above 1A in 2019 and 2020.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which threatened to sideline high school sports and caused numerous cancellations over the past two school years, the FHSAA board voted last March to classify teams for all sports in a one-year cycle for the 2021-22 school year.
In that meeting, it was said that the FHSAA and its advisory committees would spend the year studying potential plans to achieve better competitive balance. But a year has passed, and to date not one suggestion by the FHSAA or others has garnered widespread support.
In a 2018 effort, FHSAA staffers toured the state touting a plan that would use computerized power rankings rather than school size to align teams. That concept, which would have put the top-rated teams in one “super” division, was applauded by some but vehemently opposed by others, particularly South Florida powerhouse programs that had no interest in all playing for one top-tier championship.
Complicating the conversation now is Tomyn’s retirement in June after four years atop Florida’s high school sports governing body. The board is in the process of interviewing candidates and selecting his successor.
And then there’s the seldom-mentioned dark cloud brewing in Tallahassee. State legislators are considering a statutory amendment that would allow the State Board of Education to approve other nonprofit athletic associations.
The FHSAA has been the sports governing body for all public schools and the great majority of private schools in Florida since the association was founded in 1920.
House Bill 443, authored by Republican Mike Beltran of Hillsborough County, and a companion Senate bill, would permit schools to leave the FHSAA altogether or pick and choose the sports they would prefer to play in other approved associations.
Last season 473 schools were spread across the eight FHSAA football classes. There were 64 others that opted out of state playoff contention. Many dropped out because they didn’t believe their teams could be competitive in the current system.
The current FHSAA formula puts the state’s largest schools in 8A for football, which had schools with 2,356 students or more in 2021. The smallest schools are in 2A (360 and below) and 1A.
This report was first published at Orlandosentinel.com. Varsity Content Editor Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.
