RON KANTOWSKI:

Top concern should be playing at all

Players and parents can get used to new opponents as long as there’s still a game

LEILA NAVIDI / LAS VEGAS SUN file

Clark High School football players cheer during a 2008 game against Rancho High. Under a realignment plan proposed by the NIAA, Clark and other less competitive large schools would play more of their games against smaller schools.

By Ron Kantowski (contact)

Monday, May 18, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Now & Then

Realignment proposed for high school sports (5-11-2009)

High School Sports

Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association

This talk about realigning the high school sports divisions in an attempt to save some money apparently isn’t going over very well.

The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association says it can cut costs by 10 percent by contracting from four classes (based on enrollment) to three (based on winning and losing), which would result in some of the big schools dropping down to the middle class, or Division II.

In Las Vegas that would mean competing against Boulder City instead of Bishop Gorman.

Anyway, that’s the idea the NIAA ran up the flagpole a few days ago, only to see it come crashing down like a lead zeppelin. Or Led Zeppelin. Coaches and parents at the big schools that haven’t been winning have been wailing like Robert Plant in the “Immigrant Song” ever since the word got out.

I totally understand it.

I attended high school in Indiana where until 1974, they didn’t have a class structure. My school, which had an enrollment of about 400, played in a conference against schools four and five times our size. In football, we were like the Detroit Lions (only we didn’t change our logo or uniforms).

In 1974, my junior year, Indiana adopted a three-class system for football. Our team lost in the state championship game. A lot of grown-ups at my school thought that was a big deal. Not the football players. Big whoop, they said. We beat a bunch of farmers.

To be the best, you must beat the best. Or so we thought.

But gradually, that attitude changed. Our football players graduated, at least some of them, and over time the ones who succeeded them got used to the idea of playing against schools their own size, or at least not waking up Saturday morning with multiple cuts and bruises. Eventually, beating the farmers became a big deal.

I’d be surprised if the same thing didn’t happen here.

Eventually, beating the ranchers, or at least guys their own size and speed, will become a big deal for the schools moving down.

Yeah, but what about rivalries that have existed for years? Nearly everybody agrees it would be a shame if Disco Tech couldn’t play Monolithic High because they’re no longer in the same division.

But these rivalries don’t have to be sacrificed. It has been 35 years since they went to the class system in Indiana but my little school still plays the great big one down the street. Notre Dame still plays USC for the Jeweled Shillelagh. UNLV still plays UNR for the Fremont Cannon. Rancho could still play Las Vegas High for Sir Herkimer’s Bone, if they wanted.

Give every school one nonconference game and let it play whomever it wants. Rancho could play Las Vegas. Basic could play Green Valley. Bishop Gorman could play the Dallas Cowboys.

As for the argument that talent on the athletic field is cyclical, what goes around comes around and that it’s only a matter of time until the schools that aren’t winning start doing so again, well, I’ve spent a lot of time around the Clark High football team the past few seasons. And unless they redraw the zoning boundary lines to the way they were in the old days, I just don’t see the Chargers returning to glory any time soon. (I will, however, continue to admire the Clark kids for trying as hard as they do.)

But should Clark turn it around, where is it written these new divisions have to be set in stone?

If they’re not based on enrollment but on a point system, then why not just keep the point system in place? The top three schools in Division II could change places with the bottom three schools in Division I, like they do in soccer. You could do this every year.

With a relegation system, which is what soccer calls its method for grouping teams, it could come down to a girls softball game or a boys golf match deciding whether a school remains in Division II for another year or moves up to Division I. Yeah, that might be a lot of pressure for a shortstop with a ponytail. But I bet the football team would show up to cheer.

If you took a poll among the athletes, I’d bet most would rather play the Chicago Bears than the Bad News Bears. That’s natural. That’s what you want. That’s what makes an athlete an athlete.

But playing the Bad News Bears is better than playing no Bears at all, which is where local high school sports might be headed if there’s no money in Carson City with which to fund them.

It’s hard to say where this talk of realignment will wind up, other than when it does, a lot of people are going to be upset.

But eventually, like night games in Wrigley Field, Oregon’s football uniforms and the new Coke, we’ll all get used to it.

Discussion: 7 comments so far…

By Reno6

5/18/09 at 7 a.m.

Suggest removal

WOW!
Calling smaller schools bad news bears is a pretty bad statement to put in your article.
WOW
By kidsrfuture

5/18/09 at 12:32 p.m.

Suggest removal

Good thing this writer isn't making decisions that affect kids' lives. Hopefully the NIAA isn't really as out of touch as he is.
By BBallFan

5/18/09 at 1:16 p.m.

Suggest removal

Its hard to argue with the logic of this article. Sports can be taken away in the high schools just like they have in the middle schools. All we have in the M.S. is basketball for boys and girls and cheer, nothing else. People get so caught up in status that they lose sight of the fact that sports are about participation, motivation and competition. Sports are not about who you play or what division you play in when it comes down to it. And for Reno6, REALLY, he was making a point, not insulting smaller schools so calm down.
By Ron Kantowski (Staff)

5/18/09 at 4:05 p.m.

Suggest removal

Thanks for getting my back, Bball. Bad News Bears is just a euphemism for somebody smaller than the Chicago Bears. Having once attended a small high school (albeit a long time ago), I would be the last to ridicule one.
By BBallFan

5/18/09 at 8:31 p.m.

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I went to a very small school in Colorado (175 kids 9-12) and never thought about a state championship in the 3A there (CO goes 1A-5A) as being less than the other bigger schools. We still played the one 4A school near us each year in each sport and it worked out very well.
By Reno6

5/20/09 at 11:01 a.m.

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You're right; it was the perfect way to describe other schools ;-)
By ctoe

5/20/09 at 5:42 p.m.

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Do I want to have Basic High School travel to Moapa Valley or Pahrump for a week day game? No. But I do want the Administration to see the worth of having a successful athletic program. Many CCSD school administrators like Basic do not really care about actually competing in sports. Bad coaches are rampant. But if this new system compelled administrators to improve their program, I would travel to Pahrump for those games. But I am afraid that mediocrity is the rule now and will be the rule in the furure.