State title format debated
PIAA has no plans to split postseason
Gene DiGirolamo, chairman of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s PIAA Legislative Oversight Committee, started off a hearing on whether the PIAA should separate boundary (public) and non-boundary (private) schools in the playoffs by plainly stating his opinion.
“I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a proponent of separating the championships,” Rep. DiGirolamo (R-Bucks) said during the hearing Tuesdayin Harrisburg. “But I think it’s the responsibility of the committee to listen to some of the concerns that are out there, and we are very, very much willing to do it.”
The six-member oversight committee has three House members and three senators.
As of now, PIAA private and public schools compete together in the postseason. Though public schools’ enrollment is typically limited to students living in their district, private schools are free from that limitation.
The dominance of private schools in the postseason, such as District 12 (Philadelphia Public and Catholic League) winning 29 basketball titles since 2009, has raised questions about whether boundary and nonboundary schools should compete for separate titles. PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said the PIAA competition committee plans to discuss how to keep classifications competitive.
“Because we are an inclusionary organization, and oppose discrimination or segregation, we are very reluctant to issue blanket rules excluding certain schools and teams from competition,” Lombardi said.
The issue overlaps with the PIAA’s transfer rule, which the Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association recently asked be changed to eliminate any vagueness, making a student-athlete ineligible if he or she transfers after the start of the freshman year.
The oversight committee weighed the pros and cons of separating boundary and non-boundary schools in the playoffs, but as of now there is no plan in motion to do so. DiGirolamo said one thing that could raise a red flag is tangible evidence a high school athlete’s tuition at a private school has been paid for by another party, implying an exchange of funds for their athletic performance. He said the complaints he had heard were limited to basketball and football.
“There have been complaints that have come to me personally from back in Bucks County and from other parts of the state that some of these athletes are getting subsidized with their tuition somehow, whether it be from the school, whether it be from alumni or alumni associations,” DiGirolamo said. “But nobody as far as I know has ever brought one shred of evidence or proof that that is going on.”
Philip Murren, legal counsel to the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, called excluding non-boundary schools from traditional championships unfair.
He mentioned if territorial constraints were the reason for non-boundary schools’ success, there would be stronger correlation across all sports .
“Any discriminatory retreat from the equal treatment mandated by the General Assembly in 1972 in order to alter the expected outcomes of athletic contests in the future would be an illconceived affront to the students and their families that have worked so diligently to produce their own success,” Murren said.