Competitive Balance put on hold by court

The OHSAA’s Competitive Balance measure has been put on hold after a Hamilton County Common Pleas Civil Court issued a temporary restraining order against the OHSAA on Aug. 15, according to a news release.

The OHSAA was informed on Aug. 15 that the restraining order prohibits the organization from continuing to use a component of the Competitive Balance process that member schools voted into place in 2014.

The ruling was specific to the Tier 1 factor and specifically to St. Bernard Roger Bacon High School and other members of its league, the Cincinnati Greater Catholic League’s coed division.

According to a report by Mike Dyer from WCPO in Cincinnati, the GCL and its member schools are claiming the competitive balance measure “unfairly discriminates against non-Division I Catholic schools by penalizing them for enrolling students from the Catholic feeder schools from which they have received students for decades, without regard to the historic level of success of a school’s athletic teams.”

The next court date, according to Dyer’s report, is a hearing whether the injunction should be permanent. It is scheduled for Aug. 28 in Hamilton County.

“The current status is that competitive balance has been put on hold pending the permanent hearing,” said Mike Schafer, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, in Dyer’s report.

The ruling has no effect on regular season schedules or contests, however the OHSAA had already announced the tournament divisional breakdowns for 2018-19 using Competitive Balance for the sports that it

affects – soccer, volleyball, football, basketball, baseball and softball.

“We were advised this afternoon of the court’s TRO,” said OHSAA Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass in a news release. “Although the court’s ruling was specific to one conference, the OHSAA is an organization that emphasizes treating all of our member schools fairly and consistently, so we will work diligently with our staff, Board of Directors and general counsel to determine the best course of action in light of the TRO.”

The Competitive Balance Plan, approved as a referendum issue by OHSAA member schools in 2014, adds factors to school enrollment figures that are based on the residence of students on rosters of public school teams and the educational history (feeder schools) of students on rosters of nonpublic school teams.

Enrollment figures are combined with the competitive balance factors to generate a tournament enrollment number for each school before they are assigned to an OHSAA postseason tournament division. The 2018-19 school year will be the second in which the Competitive Balance Plan is scheduled to be used.