The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
State polls flawed, but so is criticism
Nothing cleanses quite like a good, hard look in the mirror.
When something is wrong, it needs to be said — even when it directly involves or impacts people in your own line of work.
So let’s just say it: The state poll process across all high school sports is fundamentally flawed.
It always has been in some form — but perhaps no more so than now.
But here’s the problem: As justified as it is to criticize state polls when they are off-base, counterpoints are flawed, too. Because many people don’t take the broadest look required or the initiative to suggest a way to make it better.
In a way, we are all to blame for this quagmire.
A media panel from around Ohio is responsible for state polls in football and boys and girls basketball, while coaches associations conduct polls in baseball, cross country, hockey, soccer, softball and volleyball.
There is a fighting chance to get a state poll right — unlike the silliness of national polls that should be shelved by people who know better than to perpetrate that fraud at the high school level.
A realistic primary goal of a state poll should be to present a fairly accurate depiction of the current state of a sport’s division in Ohio that week.
There are always extenuating circumstances in a season — injuries, tough schedule, inconsistency, etc. — but you should look at the top half and expect that to be among the last teams in the postseason.
Sometimes, though, it can go horribly wrong.
To be fair, this happens all over Ohio in every sport at some point in the school year. But this is a prime area example:
Gilmour won the Division III state title in girls basketball — its first girls hoops crown in school history. The Lancers didn’t sniff the top five in the DIII state poll all season. That’s utter nonsense. If journalists don’t do due diligence and settle into geographic comfort zones — or fall into the dangerous assumption a team with fewer losses is automatically superior — teams that deserve recognition are ignored.
In a day and age during which it is increasingly challenging to find time and devote resources, it ruins the process for those who do their homework.
Of course people in Cleveland aren’t going to have intricate knowledge of what’s going on daily in Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo or anywhere else — or vice versa. But a quality win or a strong schedule should translate up and down our freeway system and across county lines, even if it needs to be communicated by their local writer to colleagues. Sometimes it is, but maybe not strongly enough.
By the way, media who yammer on about how unfair the state poll process is and publicly agree with their area coaches and teams about its flaws without suggesting or doing anything to solve the issue should shut up.
But this isn’t just a media issue — coaches polls also aren’t gospel. Whether it’s paying association membership dues for a team to be considered for a poll, proportional geography for top-10 candidates or not paying attention to results, those polls can occasionally be head-scratchers, too.
Algorithms are a great tool — provided all the information to make the formulas work properly is available. But if it’s not — or if the formula is off — those are flawed as well.
It should be simple enough, no matter who runs the poll: Look up a team’s results, find them in one place and make a determination. It shouldn’t take 10 years to find a team’s case, either.
If your school or team isn’t active on social media — or whose idea of a website is to put your athletic philosophy on a page and call it a day — you have no right to complain when someone can’t gauge how good you are without total concrete proof of it.
None of us should vent about a state poll without giving what goes into it full consideration and ensuring every avenue is available to get it right.
In the age of advanced metrics, maybe algorithms should be developed to take human error out of it.
Until then, do homework, and encourage others to do the same. Fight for your teams to ensure they earn what is rightfully theirs. Be sensible and understand Northeast Ohio is one of four geographic sections in the state — they contest sports in other places, too.
When anyone says a state poll only carries so much weight — bordering on little to none — to an extent they have a point.
It’s not going to get anyone a bye or make the road to state more efficient. Instead, it’s a nice, brief bit of recognition as a team pursues larger goals.
But it’s a nice, brief bit of recognition that should be a portrayal of reality — like a mirror you look into and see an accurate reflection and not the contorted one you see at a carnival.