An age old question…

…and it involves high school athletics. Here goes:

“Do private high schools have an inherent unfair advantage in athletics over public high schools?”

Different state activities associations have attempted to tackle the perceived advantage private schools have over public schools with regards to talent and revenue. Seven years ago, Missouri joined Georgia in instituting a multiplier, which artificially increases a private school's population to account for a possible talent increase. Generally works, but my qualms about it are not central to this particular commentary.

In Arkansas, several athletic directors still steaming over the success the Shiloh Christian Saints (operated by the First Baptist Church of Springdale) had during the last football season, losing to national powerhouse Evangel in Shreveport, La. before obliterating their competition in Class 4A. By obliterate, I mean wins of 65-0 over Berryville and 84-10 over Clarksville, among others. Now while Shiloh Christian, located in the heart of Springdale, can attract the brightest, strongest and potentially the wealthiest from around Northwest Arkansas and even neighboring McDonald County, Mo., the remaining schools in Shiloh's conference are towns of approximately 2,000 residents each, with the nearest incorporated communities on average 10 miles away. With this in mind, the small-town coaches have submitted to the entire Arkansas Activities Association a proposal to place schools that offer need-based scholarships to attend their schools in a completely different division. Should the proposal pass in August, it takes effect the following season.

On the surface, it appears all fine and dandy. If you're having to go up against a school that could easily operate their athletic program like a Big 12 or SEC university, then the odds appear stacked against you. To make it fair for you and your public school kin, you push the private schools out of the way. But then you get to some underlying problems with the issue and how it'll ultimately fail. Most noticably, you will have two state champions of equal size in just about every sport: one public (Division 1) and one scholarship-providing private (Division 2). Then you'll have pundits speculate regularly as to who the real state champion is. Would the D2 champ actually mercy-rule the D1 champ? Would the D2 school, in spite of being able (and under this provision essentially given free reign to) recruit, always be treated second-rate just because they can?

And what of the student athletes on these teams? Will their state title feel truly like a title if a segment of their competition (particularly the most challenging) was not able to challenge them for it? And will the quality of play that builds these athletes remain or improve? Most critically, what will this teach tomorrow's leaders about inclusion and citizenship as a whole? We're dealing mostly with Christian schools here. Should public schools, instruments of a relatively secular state, get their way with this proposal, will this result in private schools encouraging their students to essentially shut away from non-religious elements of society altogether? Worse, could this issue morph into a church vs. state debate, or even one on ethnocentrism and socio-economic disparity??

The haste and anger behind this particular provision, while understandable, will ultimately cause this proposal to unravel among schools not directly affected. To put it in a rather precarious paradigm, this is another form of segregation. While the intent is to encourage citizenship during play and among coaching staffs, the end result will result in different societal issues arising and only keep that age old question ripe in everyone's mind.

And I'm saying this as having graduated from a high school where whoever won our football district (already the toughest in the state) wound up playing Rockhurst in the sectionals. Putting them in a private-only division (complete with their students from Johnson County, Kansas!) wouldn't have made a state title any more attainable. Not to mention the multiplier is moot once you're large enough for the largest class to begin with.