No, it’s not ‘sectionals,’ ‘districts’ or ‘states’

In his weekly News-Herald high school sports opinion column, Chris Lillstrung keeps it light and laments the use of the words sectionals, districts or states in the landscape’s vernacular.

We’ve been dealing with some heavy topics in the last couple months in this space, especially this past week with the importance of combating mental health stigma in high school sports. So this week, let’s keep things just a little lighter in the grand scheme of things, shall we?

There are certain aspects of high school sports vernacular and habit that are aggravating — minor, but nonetheless aggravating.

In 2018, for example, I shared my long-standing disdain for anyone stating a score backward — such as, “Our team put up a great fight, but lost, 21-28.”

(No, you didn’t. And like writing in cursive in a basketball scorebook, there should be laws against that one, by the way.)

Another minor aggravation that ranks right up there, without question or fail, is one that comes into focus around postseason time every single year.

How this originated is beyond me.

But this tendency to call one singular postseason tournament event “sectionals,” “districts” or “states.” Why?!

You hear it from coaches: “We can’t wait to make an impact at districts.”

You hear it from student-athletes: “My goal is to make it to states.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with postseason aspiration, but let’s remember where the competition is actually taking place.

If you’re involved in one meet that advances to the next level of the postseason, hosted at one site or as part of one field, it’s a singular event.

So if you’re an area Division

I district qualifier in wrestling, you compete at the D-I Mentor District.

If you’re a D-II track and field athlete locally, you compete at the D-II Austintown-Fitch Regional for a shot at state.

With the changeover to a super-district format for soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc., you’re competing within a singular numbered district for the right to qualify for the regional level.

So no, you’re not competing at sectionals or districts. You’re competing at a singular sectional or a singular district.

The implication of plurality makes it sound unusual.

Full disclosure: If one of our area’s coaches or student-athletes ever speaks in plurality during the postseason like this in an interview, I automatically change it by default if I use that quote in my story.

If you say, “I’m going to sectionals,” what exactly does that look like?

Are you competing at one sectional, then driving to another sectional to compete later?

In that instance, yes, you’re going to sectionals, because you’ll physically be at more than one sectional.

As always, there are exceptions.

It’s a little different if the terms are used as a gauge in comparison to other competition sites.

If you’re a 100-yard backstroker in swimming, and you have the fastest time among all the state qualifiers around Ohio emerging from district competition, you indeed are the districts’ fastest qualifier.

Or, say this year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, all Greater Cleveland hockey teams will play at Brooklyn for district. There is typically a Brooklyn District and a Kent District. With Kent State’s ice arena closed indefinitely, the change this year will be to have essentially west and east portions of the Brooklyn District.

Technically, as a result, if you’re going there to play there, you are going to the Brooklyn Districts. Sort of.

Sectionals and districts is one thing.

But the runaway winner, without a doubt, because of how out-of-place it sounds, is “states.”

“I’m going to states.” “We’re going to states.” “I won states.”

“We won states.”

Did you really? As awesome as it would be to have some sort of a tournament to crown a regional or even national champion — unfortunately, logistics and red tape would never allow that to happen — the highest goal to which high school student-athletes can aspire is vying for a state championship in Ohio.

You don’t advance to the Great Lakes Regional or the United States tournament.

You don’t leapfrog to Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Kentucky to compete for their state title as well.

So no, please ... you’re not going to “states.”

You’re competing for the state championship in Ohio — and that is a tremendous honor and distinction.

But it’s not in plurality. I’d love to know the thought process of the originator of this manner of speaking and how it spread like it has over the years.

If we’re lucky, it’s the fault of the same person who thought saying a score backward sounded correct — then, we can just blame one person and be done with it.

Maybe it’s just an unspoken, subtle intention to add importance to an event without even thinking about it.

I remember in 2016, Perry was in a Division IV football state semifinal at Boardman against Steubenville.

One prevailing memory will always be when a clearly inebriated Steubenville fan briefly took control of the public-address system at halftime to encourage his fellow Big Red fans to, “get off their butts.” And suffice to say, that one fan is not fully representative of a proud fan base.

The PA announcer, stunned by the sequence, said, “I honestly thought there was an emergency,” when the fan asked for the microphone.

Right up there in the memories of that night, though, was a pregame graphic on the scoreboard.

There was the Pirate logo representing Perry, along with the Big Red logo for Steubenville.

And underneath it specified the game was a “Division IV state semifinal championship.” Yikes.

When I’ve told this story in this space in the past, I joked about where exactly a “state semifinal championship” leads.

After the game, are you presented with half a trophy? And then if you’re successful in winning the state final, do you then acquire the other half of the trophy and piece it together like a treasure map or a prize for conquering a video-game level?

Obviously, if you’ve made it this far, you know I’m being facetious. It’s not a big deal in the broader realm of life.

Nobody’s existence is worse off because those words are spoken out loud.

It’s just annoying. Nothing more, nothing less.