WPIAL creates diversity council
Looks for ways to impove inclusivity
The WPIAL board of directors voted Thursday to establish the WPIAL Diversity Advisory Council. The makeup of the council, and the group’s objectives and duties will be crafted over the next month. WPIAL associate executive director Amy Scheuneman gave the board directors an outline of the council, which she hopes will include five to seven members.
Scheuneman said the council could include representatives of the NAACP, which has offered the WPIAL help in some past situations.
“This [council] is something that I’ve actually been thinking about it for a while, and with the current situation of what is going on today, it leads us to expedite things and make this happen faster,” Scheuneman said. “This will not change our bylaws, but we want to understand and be educated by all segments of the population, so we can understand each other and allow for more opportunities of our member schools and student-athletes to learn.”
During the course of the meeting, board members discussed the idea of the diversity council and its possible role. The directors discussed possibly having a diversity council member sit in on athlete eligibility hearings.
Woodland Hills athletic director Ron Coursey, who officially will become the only black WPIAL board member July 1, attended Thursday’s meeting at Chartiers Valley Intermediate School.
“This is something that’s long overdue and 100% necessary,” Coursey told the board.
The WPIAL board of directors has 22 members, consisting mostly of superintendents, principals and athletic directors. Board positions are volunteer and are elected by WPIAL schools. Scheuneman said few minorities have run for board positions over the years.
“If minorities don’t run,
we can’t elect them,” Scheuneman said. “The perception out there is that we are under-represented with minorities. That’s something we don’t want to have. We want to include and have knowledge from people from all walks of life. It’s something that I think is important for our benefit, as much as the student-athletes.”
Scheuneman said she hopes to have the board in place by July or August and ready for the 2020-21 school year.
No more pairings meetings
At the end of every football and basketball regular season, the WPIAL has a meeting at a hotel ballroom to announce playoff pairings and go over other playoff information with schools. With all the head coaches, assistant coaches and athletic directors, attendance is usually a couple hundred.
Well, those meetings will be no more.
The WPIAL approved a budget for the 2020-21 school year that included some cost-saving measures. The proposed budget for 2020-21 is $1.69 million, as opposed to $1.78 million in previous years.
Abolishing the parings meetings was one of the costcutting measures.
But cost, however minor, wasn’t the only reason for doing away with the meetings. The COVID-19 pandemic also was a reason.
“A lot of people in a small room might not be a good idea,” Scheuneman said. “The uncertainty of everything helps make the decision.”
Some coaches and athletic directors have said in recent years that the WPIAL should step into the 21st century, do away with the pairings meetings and simply publish the pairings on the league’s web site.
But the pairings meetings were an anticipated event for some coaches. Scheuneman said there is still a possibility the announcement of the pairings would be somewhat of an “event.”
“Obviously we don’t have concrete plans yet, but live streaming them is a possibility, and maybe we can even look at some TV broadcasts,” Scheuneman said. “We’ve had some feelers from TV about ways they might want to get involved. We can explore options to still make it an event.”
The WPIAL used to give schools playoff tickets at the pairings meetings and would supply each school with playoff footballs and basketballs. But Scheuneman said the league might go to all online ticketing in the future. And athletic directors could come to the WPIAL office in Green Tree to pick up footballs and basketballs.