There will always be a reason why people and teams don’t win. Wrote one Press Pros respondent: “I remind that it’s usually the size of the fight in the dog, not the size of the dog in the fight.” (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Dozens of people have written since Monday’s post of Alan Brad’s story on the OHSAA moving to seven divisions next year. Most have complained, many have supported, which only says…no one can really blame Columbus.
Tempe, AZ – I had a wise uncle once who was fond of saying, “We get the kind of government we ask for.”
Now he said this back in the days of Richard Nixon, Watergate, and that first contemporary recognition that our leaders are not clean as Chlorox, or not above pursuing their own interests as a priority over yours and mine.
It’s now been fifty years since Nixon and Watergate, but time has only proven that his words are ‘timeless’. We always get what we allow for, whether it’s president or dog catcher; and in this case, Alan Brads’ column last week about the OHSAA expanding divisions to seven for the 2024-’25 high school sports calendar.
Alan, by the way, is an excellent young journalism student at Cedarville, finishing up his senior year. His future is bright, and I’m personally proud of his contribution to this website.
But following his post, dozens of people have sent emails, texts, and commented on social media about the OHSAA’s vote to facilitate the expansion, calling it, in Executive Director Doug Ute’s words, “member generated.”
He said, in an interview with Brads: “This change isn’t generated from our office. Members are what started this conversation, and they’re still driving it today.”
Ute also added: “We want to put our student-athletes in the same tournament environment that the schools would play in their conferences in terms of enrollment numbers.”
To which a reader from Scioto County said in a text, “Please remind Mr. Ute that competition is about the size of the fight in the dog, and not the size of the dog in the fight. Leave it alone.”
Ute says it’s member driven, but a number of member schools say they’ve never been asked. That’s their words, of course, and subject to convenient memory, I’m sure. But it is hard to believe that all 800 member schools of the OHSAA have made additional divisions a priority, either. Believe it or not, there are still many districts in Ohio more concerned with science than sports.
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By actual count, more than half of the comments we received say they do not support expanding divisions for the sake of making smaller Division I baseball schools, like Vandalia Butler, “more competitive against Springboro,” quoting long-time Butler coach Trent Dues in the article.
Doug Blankenship wrote, “Remind the coach that on any given day a team can beat another in baseball if you have pitching. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter the size of the school you’re playing.”
And of course there were those who were solid in their support of more divisions, and more opportunity for kids to win, because as Dues also suggested, “You just can’t have enough champions, can you?”
“If people think there’s too many state champions, I think they’re crazy,” he added.
But someone else asked, “Who pays for all those trophies? $25 dollars to see a high school [baseball] game?”
Regardless of how you feel, this much is fact. It will never be equitably resolved among the populace, as Doug Ute conceded. “Nothing is going to have 100% approval.”
But to the apparent majority of those who wrote to complain, or disagree, I invoke the words once again. Where have you been? You get what you accept!
Because for years many school districts, and the people thereof, have simply accepted the governing measures of the OHSAA without much attention because as people we tend to follow, and not lead. Some people simply have different priorities. And frankly, who ever believed it would come to seven divisions for high school baseball and softball?
Who ever believed that we would see a day of political correctness and ‘woke’ when people would worry about the stigmatization of adolescents because they weren’t good enough to beat the best, just those who look like them?
Now, we’re banging the drum for mediocrity. And let’s call it what it is when we say…let’s make it so kids can win against people just like them.
As an athlete fifty years ago, I would not have been satisfied with that. Even in college, I never wanted to pitch against Otterbein, I wanted to pitch against Michigan. Now the message we’re sending to kids is that Otterbein is their ceiling.
“Nothing is going to have universal approval.” – Doug Ute
So understand, as easy a mark as they are…I don’t blame the OHSAA, or Doug Ute, for any of this. To them it is what it is. More divisions, more games, more tickets, more promotion, and more revenue. Who wouldn’t find a reason to do it?
No, the people I point to are the ones who have been silent for too long – those who probably read Modern Psychology.
For actually believing that just because you rub elbows with champions you deserve a trophy the same as Marion Local.
But it wasn’t Doug Ute who figured out that schools who haven’t won, can win, if they just stay in their lane. And ironically, the people who started this now write to Press Pros to complain that Marion Local doesn’t belong with people their own size…because, you guessed it, they’ve won 14 titles in football by playing those people. Now they want them “challenged”, to make it fair!
Editor/publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Big Ten sports for Press Pros Magazine.
There is no solution. There is no appeasement. Like Ute says, there’s no 100%. There are people who would complain if they were hung with a new rope. Given the choice of a ‘feel good’, or something tougher, they’ll always choose the ‘feel good’.
Or, like in past decades, they’ll suffer in silence because they have no dog in the fight. Lopsided football games between 2-8 versus 9-1 are fine because some PHD who never played football said it was a good idea.
In many ways this is like the dissatisfaction with government. No one likes the choice for president, but they don’t care enough to demand better. We just go with the one that promises you the most.
The majority opinion in all the responses we got was this. “What’s wrong with kids learning through reality?” wrote Ken Lutner. “Sometimes you learn better when you get your butt kicked.”
That’s true, like when we found out that Richard Nixon really was a crook?
And don’t you think it better that we teach them…EARLY?
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