(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
AURORA — History was made Tuesday at the Classification and League Organization Committee meeting. Three times.
For the first time in the history of the Colorado High School Activities Association, schools were allowed to be reclassified as opposed to electing to play down. The CHSAA bylaws were amended in January to allow schools to be reclassified based on a criteria that has more to do than just competitiveness within their current classification.
“That’s the first step in the direction we have to go to keep competitive balance among schools so that they aren’t losing programs due to lack of interest,” CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico said. “We have to do stuff that keeps kids having some degree of success so that they will want to continue to play the sports they’re playing.”
After the new classification enrollment numbers were voted on, the issue reclassification took center stage as Greeley Central and Montezuma-Cortez looked for reclassification in all sports while Estes Park sought it only for football.
Schools that are reclassified are eligible for postseason play while schools who play down in classification are not.
Greeley Central athletic director Rick Schmitz was the first to present his case. He laid out the socio-economic status of his student body as well as the approximate number of students who are on free and reduced lunch. The fact that the Wildcats have not been overly competitive in team sports also came into play as he made his case.
When pressed about how the Northern League felt about the Wildcats remaining in Class 4A, Niwot athletic director Chase McBride stood up on behalf of the league and said they would continue to welcome Greeley Central with open arms.
“It was a league-motivated decision,” McBride said. “They’ve been a good league member to us and we would like to keep our ties to them as they are.”
In the end, the committee voted to allow the reclassification of Greeley Central marking the first time in state history that a school has been reclassified.
“For our programs, it’s huge,” Schmitz said. “We were concerned about being classified 5A in the team sports. I feel that we met the (reclassification) criteria that they were looking for. And in the future, for other schools who fall in the same situation that we do, I think it can make a huge impact.”
The committee also approved the total reclassification of Montezuma-Cortez, who would’ve classified at 4A under the new enrollment numbers. Citing the socio-economic make-up of the school as well as other factors such as the burden of what it would do to their traveling expenses, athletic director Stacey Hall successfully petitioned CLOC to reclassify the Panthers in all sports.
The committee had earlier granted Estes Park a reclassification in football, keeping them at 1A where they had been in the previous cycle.
The reclassification process is unlike anything the Association has done and is using it as a means to keep schools competitiveness intact. When CLOC first began going down this road, it knew there would be challenges, but overall the committee was pleased with Tuesday’s results.
“When we started this process a year ago, we knew there were going to be some hurdles but we tried to provide as much information as we could from the get go,” said Randy Holmen, the principal at Holly High School who chairs CLOC. “When it got to today we were prepared and we felt like the committee was prepared to answer those questions and to tackle any situations that came up.”
Angelico stressed that the purpose of reclassification was not to simply drop down if a school couldn’t remain competitive in certain sports. He’s confident that CLOC has a system in place that will prevent schools from taking advantage of the system.
“That’s always a concern,” Angelico said. “We operate, though, on a system of trust and integrity. I think as long as we continue to stress the corner stone of how this works and we have a committee that keeps really high standards about what they’ll accept, then I won’t have those concerns.”
Notables
- CLOC approved probationary membership for two new schools: Denver Academy of the Torah (Denver) and Prospect Ridge Academy (Brighton). If approved by the Legislative Council, it would bring CHSAA’s membership to 354 schools.
- Abraham Lincoln, Arvada, Cripple Creek-Victor and Del Norte all successfully requested to play down in football.