Randy Dickson: Small-school playoff system is broken

The athletics gap between small rural schools and small schools in suburban areas, most of which are private, has been a big area of contention in several states for many years.

Florida is no exception to that problem. But because of the state’s unique geographic shape and uneven population distribution, coaches here in Northwest Florida feel the issue has not been given adequate attention.

Small schools from metropolitan areas have dominated state competition in Class 1A and 2A for the better part of the last 20 years. That’s not to say they have won every state championship in every sport, but the monopoly is definitely apparent.

All you have to do is look at the state series records in any sport on the FHSAA Web site (www.fhsaa.org) and the problem is easy to see.

Most coaches and administrators, even at the rural public schools, don’t want to make it a public school vs. private school battle.

Yet more often than not it boils down to just that.

In no sport is the seeming lack of balance between public schools and private schools more obvious than in baseball.

Walton County neighbor Paxton has been the last public school left in the Class 1A playoffs the last three years. In each of those years the Bobcats, who are coached by Baker graduate Jeff Bradley, have been eliminated by Eagle’s View Christian, a private school from Jacksonville. Eagle’s View has sent as many players to college and the pros in the last few years as local 5A power Niceville.

That one example hardly scratches the surface to show the real problem.

You have to go back to 1982 to find the last public school to win a Class 1A baseball championship. And that school, Ernest Ward High School in Walnut Hill, is no longer open. Jay won a small school state baseball championship in 1970 when Class B was the lowest classification.

Two public school champions in a classification in 40 years is not a level playing field.

Last fall five of the eight state champions in football were private schools.

Pahokee is a small public school power with several state titles, but even that is a bit misleading. It is true that the population of Pahokee is 6,000, but it is located in Palm Beach County, the third-most populous county in the state with more than 1.3 million residents.

I was able to tag along with Baker head football coach and athletic director Bob Kellogg to the meeting of small school coaches and administrators in Graceville last week.

One football coach said he had done some research and found one perennial private school football power that often faces panhandle programs in the playoffs has had more players sign Division I scholarships than all the small rural public schools in the panhandle combined.

I’ll take it a step further. In a typical year most small private schools will send more players to big-time college programs than all of the schools in Okaloosa County combined. That’s a school of 400 students or so getting more football scholarships than schools with a combined population of about 8,000.

The concerns raised in the meeting aren’t new to those in this part of the state. What was new was the meeting was attended by new FHSAA Executive Director Dr. Roger Dearing. Dearing seemed to have a genuine interest in putting some new structure into a system that needs to be corrected.

Dearing warned it will take time to make the desired changes, and a first model for restructuring things might not work.

At least he gave the small public schools some hope that brighter days are ahead.

Realistically there are no easy answers to the problem.

In the long run Baker, Laurel Hill and their small school partners across the panhandle need to feel they have a real opportunity to compete.

It’s past time to make it happen.

Read a full report from the Graceville meeting in the April 29 edition of the Crestview News Bulletin