The postseason this school year is going to look a little different for Missouri high school athletics, but so far, it has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic.
The Missouri State High School Activities Association will begin implementing what it calls the "championship factor," which will replace the multiplier rule for non-public schools, in addition to adding one class in nine different sports and two classes in a 10th sport.
According to MSHSAA communications director Jason West, both changes were proposed by the same ad hoc committee.
"The board of directors actually put together an ad hoc committee strictly for looking at the classification system," West said. "Based on the discussions within the classification system, the ad hoc committee for this championship factor determination formed, coming from a section of that subcommittee from private school representatives that were on the classification committee."
In years past, non-public schools submitted their enrollment to MSHSAA, and then it was adjusted with a 1.35 multiplier. For many non-public schools, the multiplier may have pushed them up a classification.
Under the championship factor, the 1.35 multiplier is gone, and a non-public school's enrollment will be treated the same as a public school's enrollment.
Instead, the championship factor will look at the performance from the previous six seasons of each non-public school program.
"I think one of the biggest pros is it is by sport and by gender, and not by the school," West said. "If you have a highly successful football team but your softball team is not as competitive, then now your softball team has the ability to play those schools that are closer to their size, and then they may be able to build up that competitiveness."
The following postseason points are applied to the non-public school's program:
- A district championship is worth 1 point.
- A third- or fourth-place finish in the state is worth 2 points.
- A state runner-up finish is worth 3 points.
- A state championship is worth 4 points.
The point totals are not cumulative. A program can only a receive a maximum of four points in a given season.
The point totals from the previous six seasons are then added up and compared to the reclassification table. If a program totals between 0 and 2 points, it remains in the same class; if the total is between 3 and 7 points, the team moves up one class; and if the total is 8 points or more, the team will move up two classes.
Under the championship factor, the Helias football team would accumulate 1 point for winning a district championship in 2014, so the Crusaders would not be reclassified for the 2020 season. The Helias softball team would accumulate 6 points (4 for winning the 2019 state championship, 2 for a fourth-place finish in state in 2015) and would move up one class. The Helias volleyball team would accumulate 11 points (4 each for the 2017 and '14 state championships, 1 each for winning district championships in 2018, '16 and '15) and would move up two classes from its initial classification.
"I think this was a good compromise," West said of the championship factor. "These discussions were taking place three or four years ago, and that was kind of in the middle or toward the end of a debate where schools were talking about if there was a need for separate championships (for public and non-public schools).
"Publicly, that's going to be a debate every year. But among the membership, it's not really ever been a hot debate topic."
However, there could be instances where a non-public school has the same head coach for both the boys and girls cross country teams, for example, and the teams are in different classes as a result of the championship factor. District competitions are the same day in multiple classes, and the two teams could end up competing in different parts of the state.
"That would probably be the most likely scenario," West said of sending the head coach with one team and the assistant coach with the other team. "We also have that issue in wrestling, with girls wrestling and boys wrestling. There are schools that have had that issue with having the same head coach for boys and girls, but when those teams are separated - either regular season or postseason - there may be times where the head coach is not the actual coach that is with the team."
West also noted although the 1.35 multiplier rule has been eliminated, boys-only non-public schools and girls-only non-public schools will still have their enrollments multiplied by two.
The other postseason change, adding classes to several sports, is meant to prevent two teams with a wide disparity in enrollment sizes from facing each other.
"What the ad hoc committee wanted to try to do was minimize that difference as much as possible, so there's not a school with a 900 enrollment playing a school with a 300 enrollment in the same classification," West said. "What they came up with was trying to keep that differential to a 2.0 or lower, with a little wiggle room.
"But they also didn't want to add 15 different classes, where now you're watering down your postseason. It's trying to keep that basically no more than double enrollment between the largest school in the class and the smallest school in the class."
For example, if the smallest enrollment in a class is 400, then the largest school in that same class cannot have an enrollment larger than 800. Last season in girls golf, the smallest school in Class 2 had 641 students, while the largest school had 1,855 students, nearly three times as many students.
As a result, more classes had to be added to sports to make the new classification system work. According to West, the following sports are adding classes for the 2020-21 school year:
- Baseball: from five to six classes.
- Boys basketball: from five to six classes.
- Girls basketball: from five to six classes.
- Boys golf: from four to five classes.
- Girls golf: from two to four classes.
- Fall softball: from four to five classes.
- Spring softball: from one to two classes.
- Boys tennis: from two to three classes.
- Girls tennis: from two to three classes.
- Volleyball: from four to five classes.
The change also affects the classification breaking system. Sports such as baseball, softball and volleyball had an equal number of schools per class. Other sports such as football, basketball and track and field had a modified system, where most classes had the same number of schools, but one class was a "catch all" and took the remaining schools available, regardless of number.
"One of the other factors that will go into this is trying to have more of a waterfall effect or a staircase and not a heartbeat," West said. "Class 2 may have 92 schools, Class 3 may have 75 and Class 4 may have 96. We're trying to level those out as much as possible, and still maintain that 2.0 differential."
However, West said the 2.0 differential will not be applicable to Class 1.
"We have schools with enrollments of 12," West said. "Class 1 is never going to meet that 2.0, so Class 1 is going to be a percentage of the number of schools, and the remaining schools that are registered for that sport will be divided up into those classifications based on the 2.0 differential."
West said the 2.0 differential will be implemented first for class breakdowns, and once that is decided, then the championship factor will be implemented. Only non-public schools can move up classes, and when that happens, only public schools, as well as the non-public schools that have a championship factor between 0 and 2 points, will move down.
West used Valle Catholic football as an example. Based on enrollment, Valle Catholic will be a Class 1 school, but the championship factor will move the football team up to Class 3, where it could be competing against teams with as much as three times its enrollment.
"It will look very weird if you're looking at the strict breakdowns of the enrollments," West said. "There will be some situations where the enrollment of the smallest school is even smaller than the smallest school in the class below it when those teams have to move up."
Classification breakdowns and district assignments for 2020 fall sports were scheduled to be posted online Friday, Aug. 21. However, MSHSAA announced last week it would postpone the announcement of assignments until Friday, Sept. 18. Schools have until Friday, Sept. 11, to notify MSHSAA of teams that will not compete in the postseason during the fall sports season.
"The extra benefit for this year is for schools to have a better idea of whether or not they're going to be able to field a team in a particular activity," West said. " We wanted to have as accurate a representation in the classification system as possible. That's why, for this year, it was pushed back to September, in order to give schools a little bit longer to come back, whether they're starting school after Labor Day or they're beginning practices on the 10th."
The biggest reason for the delay is the MSHSAA board of directors amended its by-laws for 2020-21, allowing virtual schools to compete in athletics.
Initially, MSHSAA said if schools didn't meet on campus, then they would not be allowed to compete in sports. However, the growing number of schools announcing their intent to go virtual would would vastly change the class and district landscape if they weren't allowed to play sports.
"They had also gotten some information from some of their local health officials, talking about how a virtual learning environment may be better for activities and may be safer for the activities to be able to happen," West said. "Those students would basically be self-isolating during the school day and then coming out to practice, instead of being exposed to whatever may be in the classroom and then exposing their teammates. That would actually limit their possible exposures."
The next month could be a hectic one for MSHSAA, as schools turn to local and state health departments for guidance. But when fall sports practice begins Monday, plans are to go forward with a full fall sports season.
"It's going to take everyone to play along and do what needs to be done in order to be able to have a season," West said. "Not only are you going to have to take care of yourself and do what needs to be done - wearing a mask, washing hands and taking those proper procedures - you have to trust that your teammates are doing it, and you also have to trust that your opponent is doing it.
"This will be the epitome of teamwork that would have to happen in order to keep everything running and doing it as safely as possible."