Football championships
Next month, the WPIAL will announce a playoff format and also will announce championship sites at some point in the future. Here’s a prediction: The Class 5A championship will not be at Heinz Field.
Class 5A will have 24 teams next season and the WPIAL most likely will have 16 teams in the playoffs. Some of the other classifications will have eight-team playoff fields. Thus, the Class 5A playoffs will last a week longer and the championship game won’t be the same weekend as other classifications. So, the 5A title game would have to be played somewhere other than Heinz Field because the WPIAL will not go into Heinz Field twice.
There is a possibility that only three championship games will be played at Heinz, but there is still a possibility of four. Prediction No. 2 is the Class 6A, 4A, 3A and 1A will have eight-team playoff fields and their title games will be played at Heinz. Class 2A and 5A will be played elsewhere.
Comment on parents
A great comment about high school sports parents came last week from a successful boys basketball coach in Minnesota. Scott Stanfield has decided to resign after his seventh season at Brainerd High School, mainly because he can’t take parents any longer. Stanfield is a retired policeman.
“I go from a cop to this, and it’s one stressful job to another and it’s time for a break,” Stanfield said to the Brainerd Dispatch. “Coaching was worse. Coaching has been way worse. … If you win, it doesn’t matter. If you lose, it doesn’t matter. If their kid doesn’t get enough playing time — look out.”
That’s from a coach in Minnesota, but unfortunately it could come from a coach anywhere.
Not his school team
From the strange but true department: The WPIAL is bringing in Penn Hills administrators for a hearing next month to explain why the school used a wrestler in two tournaments and a match who doesn’t even go to Penn Hills. The wrestler attends Serra Catholic. WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said Penn Hills apparently thought the wrestler could participate for Penn Hills because he lives in the district and Serra doesn’t have a wrestling team.
Wrong. Violation of PIAA and WPIAL rules.
Penn Hills, by the way, turned itself in to the WPIAL. The Indians forfeited the match that the wrestler participated.