Another Kansas Class Disparity

Originally Posted, Thursday, November 12, 2009

    The Louisburg Wildcats face the ultimate in class disparity this week as they take on the Bishop Miege Stags in one of the Kansas State Class 4A Sectional Playoff games tomorrow night.

    The Cats are sporting a stellar 10-1 record, losing only to one of the best teams in Class 5A, the Gardner-Edgerton Trailblazers. Now the Cats have to face Bishop Miege in the Sectional championship. The problem is not facing the Stags, that will be difficult enough, but Miege isn’t a 4A school.

    They are playing at the 4A level this year, but they are classified in all other sports as a 5A school. In fact, Miege has already finished second in soccer and first in volleyball at the 5A level! Now, they’re working on winning a state football championship, and have a pretty good shot, with at least two and maybe more Division 1 athletes, at the 4A Level!

    This is not unusual. The Paola Panthers won their first state championship at the 5A level, while classified as a 4A school. It happens all the time, but why?

    The state feels, in it’s infinite wisdom, that the football classifications need to be made on a two year basis, so the districts can be scheduled on a home and home basis. Thus making the football classifications change every two years. The problem is, the state reclassifies all the schools in the state on a yearly basis. Schools at the top and bottom of classifications move up or down each year with changes in enrollment, thus the fun times ahead for the Wildcats.

    There’s two solutions to this mess, first, re-align the football district every year, but that would make scheduling harder for schools, so that is not a practical solution.

    The simpler solution is to re-classify all school on a two year basis. If the school is a 4A school, it will remain 4A for two years, in ALL sports, not just football. It won’t change the fact that private schools, like Meige, seem to win the lion’s share of state titles, that’s another argument al together. But it will, at least have schools playing at consistent classifications throughout each season.