Debate continues on PIAA classifications

Should the PIAA have more than four classifications for football?

At its July meeting, the state governing body voted against expanding to six classifications and reducing the 16-week football season (including state playoffs) to 15 weeks.

But the issue of increasing the number of classifications for football has come up again with the PIAA's release this week of its classifications for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. For football, the classifications are based on a school's male enrollment in grades nine through 11.

Six District 1 schools will move from Class AAA to Class AAAA based on the revised male enrollment parameters. The schools are Great Valley, Kennett, West Chester Rustin, West Chester Henderson, Lower Merion and Unionville.

They will join a classification that includes North Penn (1,538 male students), Upper Darby (1,498), Pennsbury (1,395), and Neshaminy (1,295). At 513 male students, Great Valley is at the cutoff for Class AAAA.

Kennett, Rustin, Henderson, Unionville and Lower Merion all have fewer than 540 male students.

With the new enrollment parameters, the number of Class AAAA schools in District 1 will go from 41 to 45. That is the largest number of Class AAAA schools in any of the 12 PIAA districts. District 3, the Lancaster-Harrisburg area, has 30, followed by District 7, in Western Pennsylvania, with 25.

Great Valley athletic director Russ Wren is one of those advocating for increasing the number of classifications.

"There is such a large disparity in the number of students between those at the top [of the classification] and those at the other end," Wren said.

Wren and fellow athletic directors Chris Lunardi at Rustin and Jeff Thomas at Kennett said can they direct comments to district representatives on the PIAA board. But the PIAA's July decision is not likely to be changed for the next two school years. Unlike other large states - such as California, Ohio and Texas - Pennsylvania is the only one with just four classifications.

Kennett's Thomas said schools like his have to learn to deal with the situation.

"There's always going to be a cutoff that impacts someone. In the last cycle [for basketball], we had 472 students for basketball and the cutoff was 472," Thomas said.

Lunardi, who has watched Rustin become a Class AAA football power since opening three years ago, agreed with Thomas that teams would have to deal with the situation.

"I'm still puzzled, however, by the fact that while our enrollment went down, we went up a class," Lunardi said. "Two years ago, we reported 537 boys. This time, we reported 519."

Rustin football coach Mike St. Clair would like to see a fifth classification. He coached the Golden Knights to the District 1 Class AAA title last season, and they reached the semifinals this year before being eliminated by Pottsgrove.

"It will be a challenge for us when it comes to playoff time," St. Clair said.

PIAA executive director Brad Cashman had pushed for six classifications and a 15-week season when the issues were before the board in July. He was particularly interested in eliminating the overlap between football season, which can go well into December with playoffs, and the start of the winter sports season.

A 15-week fall season would have done that, but it would also have disrupted some league football playoffs, particularly in Western Pennsylvania, and shortened the regular season by one game in the eastern part of the state unless the football season was started earlier, before Labor Day.

"The playoffs are moneymakers for the leagues, and in the east nobody wanted to go down to a nine-game regular season," Cashman said in explaining how the July vote went. "The board could look at classifications again at its December meeting, but I don't expect it to."

Contact staff writer Don Beideman at 267-815-0733 or dbeideman@phillynews.com.