PIERRE A rule change that was seen as a way to help struggling high school football teams died for a lack of a motion Wednesday at the meeting of the South Dakota High School Activities Association board of directors.
The change, offered to the board by its classification subcommittee, would have allowed any school to drop down to the next lower classification. Classifications are determined by a schools average daily membership. An ADM is used in each sport and activity to determine a schools level of competition. Football is the only sport that determines its classifications by using an ADM of male students. Classifications are set for two-year intervals.
The rule offered by the subcommittee said that once a school goes down a classification in a sport, it wont be eligible for post-season competition in that sport.
While the rule change would have affected all high school sports, SDHSAA Executive Director Dan Swartos said it was aimed at school districts with struggling football teams that may want to go down a classification to work on their program.
According to Swartos, there are teams that have difficulty throughout all seven football classifications used by the SDHSAA. There are schools thatstruggle, Swartos said, noting that some nine-man football teams often see their games finish after the first half because they are so far behind that a mercy rule is enforced.
How do we throw them a lifejacket? Swartos asked.
Its difficult for schools to recruit players, Swartos said, if they lose consistently or get beaten badly every year in the playoffs. Its more about participation numbers, Swartos said.
Board members struggled to understand why a community would allow its team to go down a classification and forfeit the right to be in post-season play.
Board chairman Kelly Messmer of Harding County said the two-year classification cycle means telling juniors youll never participate in the playoffs.
Board member Randy Hartmann of Pierre questioned the wisdom of allowing a bigger school to go down a classification. It doesnt make sense to me, Hartmann said, that we would penalize the schools in the lower classification.
The classification system was set up for the safety of players, Swartos noted. This kind of throws that away, he said, referring to the proposed rule change.
No matter how much they need to rebuild their program, Messmer said, it would be a tough sell for a school district to convince its patrons that missing the playoffs for two years is a good idea.
I dont think you can sell that to parents, Messmer said. I dont think you can sell that to kids.
Messmer said he would like to see a system where a team that moves down in classification be allowed to play in the playoffs. Winning a game there, however, would send them back to their original classification when the two-year cycle is over.
I dont believe they should be able to stay there (in the lower classification) forever, Messmer said.
That rule change died for a lack of a motion. Swartos was directed to take the rule to the next meeting of athletic directors.
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