High School Cross-Country to get 30% cut at HHSAA

   

Leileihua Boys were crowned state champions Fall 2008

I’ve been coaching high school cross-country for over 20 years and have watched the number of participants in the sport grow by leaps and bounds.

    That is why I find it strange that at the Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association meeting on Oahu there is a proposal to reduce the state tournament size (not just for cross country, but air rifle and bowling)  by 30 percent as a means of saving money.

    Last year there were nearly 200 cross-country boys and another 200 girls running in the state championship at Hawaii Prep and if the HIADA has their way they will reduce that number by 60 boys and 60 girls.

    In all the years I’ve been coaching cross-country not once has the Hawaii High School Athletic Association ever offered to pay for my runner’s air or ground transportation or for our hotel accommodations.

    My runners at Molokai, Pahoa and Waiakea High School have always had to fundraiser and then their parents had to come up with the extra monies needed to pay for the entire cost.

    Kudos to the Big Island Interscholastic Federation for voting against all state tournament reductions and for them to openly wonder whether the economic and financial reasons given for the reductions would actually help the schools, but instead would leave the athletes as the only ones that would be suffering.

   I applaud Kamehameha-Hawaii athletic director, Bob Wagner, for going on record as being opposed to the reductions by saying, “It’s just really eliminating opportunities for young people.”

   In October 2009 the HHSAA cross-country championships will be held on Kauai, but with 120 fewer runners, and fewer coaches and parents, what will be the economic impact be for that island’s visitor industry?

   (Final decision by the AD’s at HIADA, a day after I posted this story, was to cut cross-country participation at the state championships by 20 percent which still means 40 fewer boys and 40 fewer girls.)

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Does Size Matter?

    HBA defeated Hilo in volleyball at the Division II state championship.  Should size matter when playing Division I or Division II?  Currently no rules govern a sports teams decision to play and some small schools are upset. 

Hawaii Baptist Academy defeated Hilo in Division II volleyball

High school sports were divided into Division I and Division II a few years ago and there are no rules governing which division a school might play in.  Not only that, a school can play Division I football and participate in Division II volleyball, which is the case with Hilo High.

    An interesting article on the subject appears today in both the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and West Hawaii Today and part of the story from West Hawaii is reprinted below.

   School size still doesn’t matter

Hiada defeats proposal to classify schools by enrollment

HONOLULU — Small Big Island schools — frustrated with having to face powerhouse programs on Oahu backed by larger enrollments in Hawaii High School Athletic Association state tournaments — must wait at least one more year before the playing field is leveled, at least in terms of comparable school size.

A Big Island Interscholastic Federation proposal to classify schools in divisions based on enrollment or population was defeated in committee Friday at the 49th annual Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association meetings here in Honolulu.

The population-based proposal was initially defeated in a straw-vote poll in committee Thursday at the HIADA meetings. On Friday, the proposal was officially voted on by the committee and was easily defeated.

To read the rest of the story go to www.westhawaiitoday.com