COLUMBUS — The fourth time was the charm for the Ohio High School Athletic Association and its member schools.
OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross announced Friday that the Competitive Balance Plan was approved during the annual referendum voting period between May 1 and 15. The new initiative, which passed by a vote of 411 to 323 (with three abstaining ballots) will become effective for the 2016-17 school year.
“On behalf of the (OHSAA) Board of Directors and Competitive Balance Committee, I want to thank the membership for having the confidence in this plan and voting to move forward with implementation,” Ross said in a statement. “While passing the plan was a major step and truly exciting, our work is just beginning since the Competitive Balance Committee will continue to clarify any unanswered questions and our staff will put all the wheels in motion to finalize the electronic roster collection system.
“As we’ve said before, this plan is similar to last year’s, but this version is the result of a compilation of input from our superintendents, principals, athletic administrators and coaches. I’m most proud that we were able to work together and come up with a solution that will create a better system than we currently have because it looks at how schools secure the enrollment of their students participating in interscholastic athletics.”
Previous versions of the competitive balance plans were voted down each of the past three years.
The first referendum was put on the ballot in 2011 and attempted to address the competitive balance problem by making additions or subtractions to a school’s enrollment figure based on district boundaries, as well as socioeconomic and tradition factors. It was voted down by a 332-303 margin.
The 2012 plan again took into account a school’s boundaries and a socioeconomic factor, but significantly altered the tradition portion of the equation. That measure failed 339-301.
The new proposal expands on the 2013 “multiplier” initiative that was voted down last May by a vote of 327-308. That plan sought to determine a school’s athletic count based on school enrollment and roster composition. Under that proposal, a school’s athletic count would increase if players on the roster resided outside the district or enrollment zone.
The new plan also will take into account how long a student/athlete has been enrolled in the school district or, in the case of non-public schools, has attended a “feeder” school. If the athlete lives outside the enrollment zone but has been enrolled in the district or attended a determined “feeder” school since the start of his or her seventh grade year, the multiplier penalty would not be as severe.
In a conference call Friday afternoon, Ross stressed that passage of the initiative was just the beginning of a long process to leveling the playing field in Ohio high school athletics.
“I very, very strongly believe and I think our committee believes — and, honestly, I do believe most of the people in our schools believe — that this is a start. It’s probably a very, very good start,” Ross said. “Any time that you put anything in place, there’s always going to be things up that you didn’t think about. There’s a nuance here or a situation there. What we will do is bring the committee back together and keep them together and when we run across those things, we’re going to have to committee deal with those.
“One other piece that I think our schools really appreciate is that if there is a change in the (proposed) formula … it goes back to our schools for a vote. So they are going to control those changes and have input in those changes and I really like that. We’re going to do it exactly like we did it this year.”
The new competitive balance plan is unlike anything else out there, Ross said.
“I don’t think there’s any that are similar to this,” he said. “There are some (states) that have multipliers but they have absolute flat multipliers for every non-public schools.
“This is probably the only one in the country like this.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
