By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur
LAPLACE — The landscape of Louisiana high school football has certainly evolved over the years, but Friday’s passing of Proposition 18 by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association looks to stand as one of its most drastic — and controversial — changes.
The proposition mandates that schools will be separated into “select” and “non-select” classifications in the postseason, essentially creating two new brackets to add to the existing five state championship tournaments.
Select schools — defined as private, charter, laboratory or parochial — will compete for two state championships. One bracket will consist of all Class 1A and 2A select schools, while the other will group select schools in Class 3A, 4A and 5A together.
The association member school principals overwhelmingly voted to approve the proposition by a margin of 206 votes to 119. Three voters abstained.
St. Charles football coach and athletic director Frank Monica was less than thrilled with the decision, as was Riverside football coach Bill Stubbs; the two lead the River Parishes’ only private schools respectively.
“The impact upon us is that it essentially makes us a Class 5A school for the playoffs,” said Monica. “It changes the dynamics of high school football drastically. It diminishes the championship, in my mind, on the public school level.
“I feel like we do things right here. But we were caught in the vice of this perception that all private schools aren’t on the up-and-up … Since I’ve been here, we’ve had four athletes sign Division I. We just won the first state championship in the history of our school. But that’s just been lumped in with everything else now.”
Stubbs was just as adamantly against it.
“I think it’s wrong,” he said. “I think we’re going to see plenty of fallout from this. It’s huge, and there are so many issues with it. I feel like it was a knee-jerk reaction that’s going to have major effects from finances down to fairness … It’s extremely unfair. I’m not sure how anyone looking at this objectively can say otherwise.”
Riverside will compete in the Class 1A/2A select bracket.
But for St. Charles, the ruling will force the Comets and other 3A teams to not only compete with the likes of state powers John Curtis and Evangel — which was already to be the case — but 5A schools like Jesuit and Rummel in the postseason.
“They’re saying that this is because things were inequitable under the old rules. We’re a 3A school with under 200 boys, now asked to compete against schools with 1,400 and 1,500 boys. How is that equitable? It’s a sad day.”
Private schools won four of the five state football championships last season.
West St. John will be directly impacted in other ways. The public school will continue to compete in Class 1A, but with select schools removed from the equation, the classification only has 27 football-playing members.
That means the usual 32-team playoff bracket will be altered to give the top five teams byes — and all 27 schools would, then, make the postseason.
WSJ football coach and athletic director Robert Valdez said he’s taking a wait and see approach with the new landscape.
“The state’s principals decided to give this a try. It’s a system that has worked in other states,” said Valdez. “I think they’re looking at this as something of a test run and see if it can work. If not, then go back to what it was.
“There’s a lot of skepticism and a lot of emotion coming out on both sides right now. Is this a better system? We need to see it unfold I think, before making a conclusion. People are often very unwilling to embrace change, especially one of this magnitude. ”
Valdez acknowledged that competitively, the most noticeable impact on 1A is the move of two-time defending champion Ouachita Christian into the select bracket.
But, he notes, the Rams still must deal with perennial 1A power Haynesville, who eliminated WSJ in the state semifinals this season.
“For us, I don’t see a real benefit directly,” said Valdez. “If we do well enough to get a bye, it’s a gate that we’ll lose in the first round.
“I can certainly symphasize with the Riverside and St. Charles viewpoint. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now.”
East St. John football coach and athletic director Phillip Banko was noncommittal as far as a defined opinion on the matter, simply stating that his team will be ready to compete no matter what system is in place at the start of next season.
“The principals of he state decided by a landslide margin that this was what they wanted, and this is where we are,” said Banko. “It shouldn’t affect us at all. As far as we go, we’re gonna play everyone and anyone we can. We’ve got Curtis on the schedule as it is.
“As far as our team goes, we just deal with what we’re given.
“We’ll play under whatever system that the LHSAA puts into place.”