Delcohoops.com

By Matt DeGeorge

Dr. Robert Lombardi will from time to time talk with his hands, and in situations like Wednesday, the gesticulations proved extremely illustrative.In the hallway at the Penn Stater, the executive director of the PIAA used the airspace around him to map what had transpired in the last weeks and months with a special competition committee impaneled to discuss how to ease the PIAA’s competitive imbalance issue.

First, that committee recommended that the PIAA ban from postseason play any athlete transferring after the natural break from high school. Then the pendulum swung — like Lombardi’s hands in the retelling — to allow underclassmen to transfer and bar only transfers after the junior year. Finally, as Lombardi takes a shuffle-step to return to the middle ground from where he fielded the question, the end result upon consultation with districts was a compromise that is the new transfer law of the land, decreed Wednesday at the PIAA’s bimonthly board meeting.

That spirit of animated debate and ultimate compromise characterized a lengthy process that all parties in attendance Wednesday hope will ameliorate some of the PIAA’s competition balance issues. It’s not yet the perfect solution, should that white whale exist. But it’s a step forward.

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By Matt DeGeorge

When John Sarandrea said yes a year ago, he didn’t know how much weight was behind the question.

The WPIAL needed a new superintendent’s representative to its board, and Sarandrea, a former basketball coach now heading the New Castle Area School District, thought he was up to the task.

Soon into that endeavor, the role’s main task was explained: Superintendents wanted to delve into competitive balance in the PIAA. Would Sarandrea take the lead in canvassing District 7’s administrators?

That inquest led to the “PIAA Playoff Equity Summit” next Tuesday in State College, open to public-school administrators to ascertain how to rectify competitive imbalance that has led to an overwhelming proportion of PIAA championships won by private and charter (so-called “non-boundary”) schools. Topics on the agenda, like separate championships and even a possible secession from the PIAA, were once regarded as third rails in this conversation, but they’ve gained traction as animosity has mounted.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Scott Martin was a state championship wrestler at Lancaster Catholic. He was an instant standout on the football field at Millersville on the way to two All-American selections and an NFL training camp stint.

But when he returned home from his freshman year of college, none of those accolades prevented him from serving as a church handyman at his alma mater, fulfilling the number of hours needed to pay off grants to attend Lancaster Catholic. As the sixth of seven children to earn a Catholic education, from a blue-collar family as the son of a police officer, Martin understood the need to work for his opportunities.

“When I went through, I didn’t get scholarships,” Martin said by phone recently. “I got loans. I had to work them off, literally. I had to go back after I finished school because I still owed them a certain number of hours and I washed windows over the summer.”

The work ethic plays a part in how Martin, a Republican State Senator in the 13th District serving Lancaster County, ascended to such heights, athletically and professionally. It also sculpts his position on the Pennsylvania Athletic Oversight Committee (PAOC), a six-member body in the General Assembly that guides the PIAA’s operations.

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PaPrepLive’s five-part series on competitive balance in the PIAA

By Ed Palattella

Superintendents, other officials to hold statewide meeting to discuss “the possible formation of a separate entity” to oversee high school sports in Pennsylvania.

The call for separate playoffs for some high school sports in Pennsylvania has taken on another dimension — the possibility of replacing the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.

Superintendents and other officials from at least 75 public school districts from across the state are scheduled to meet in State College on July 24 to discuss “the current inequity” in the playoff system, which the PIAA now operates, according to an email that schools received on Tuesday about the meeting.

Another potential topic of discussion, according to the email, is “the possible formation of a separate entity to provide a fair, equitable playing field for all students and schools in Pennsylvania if appropriate action is not taken by either the PIAA or through legislation.”

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By Matthew DeGeorge

It was about an hour into a meeting in the bowels of the K. Leroy Irvis Building before the ill-fitting title of the committee meeting was broached.

“I’ve yet to hear anyone advocate that,” said State Sen. Scott Martin, R-13 of Lancaster.

The title of Monday’s meeting of the Pennsylvania Athletic Oversight Committee was a “Hearing on Public, Private Sports.” The subject that many public-school stakeholders want to discuss, separate championships for public and private schools, isn’t about to happen anytime soon.

But that fact doesn’t preclude progress on the issue of competitive imbalance, and the tone of optimism Monday indicates that it could be on the way sooner rather than later.

Public and private championships in a state of the size and sensibility of Pennsylvania are a non-starter. The mere terminology is prohibitively impenetrable: Monday’s meeting included Sean McAleer, executive director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, calling the distinction of boundary/non-boundary “a legal fiction,” while the testimony of PIAA executive director Dr. Robert Lombardi sought to cleave his body’s membership into “traditional schools” and “schools of choice.” It was a minor point in the proceedings, but rest assured that any attempt to put weight behind those terms would meet harsh rebuke.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

The PIAA is taking steps to address the competitive imbalance in district and state tournaments. The plan for evening the playing field, though, isn’t what the title of Monday’s hearing indicated.

At the Pennsylvania Athletic Oversight Committee’s meeting on, “Public, Private Sports,” the idea of conducting separate championships was not brought to the table for discussion. Instead, the PIAA is spearheading initiatives it hopes will lessen competitive imbalance by targeting the pressure points with which administrators and legislators are often presented.

“There’s no doubt that concern and criticism over this issue has intensified recently,” said Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, (R-18) of Bensalem, the chairman of the PAOC.

“Of all the issues, it’s one of the ones I hear about the most,” said Sen. Scott Martin (R-13) of Lancaster.

In the short-term, the PIAA has implemented or proposed several measures to root out and deter athletically motivated transfers. But as explained by PIAA Executive Director Dr. Robert Lombardi, a longer-term plan that has passed a first reading by the PIAA’s board would install a system that utilizes not just enrollment but transfers and a success factor to determine classification.

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