What they are saying about playoffs debate
Blanchard Superintendent Jim Beckham’s proposal to the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association Board of Directors on Wednesday continues the public vs. private debate.
Here is what people around the state are saying about the proposal:
Washington athletic director Stuart McPherson
“Me, personally, I don’t have a problem with the financial end of it. My deal is their biggest advantage is they can control their enrollment. We can’t control our enrollment. We have to take every student that comes to our doors, if they live in our school district. They count towards our ADM, which determines what class we’re in.
“Private schools, they can say yay or nay. They can have policies that say students have to participate in something. We can’t. They have an advantage over us in that sense.
“The money issue, I don’t care. If that’s where they want to go to school, they make that choice and parents do. That’s fine.”
McGuinness athletic director Gary Savely
“Just putting us in our own class doesn’t make sense,” Savely said. “There’s not enough of us to form a class. To put us all in one class wouldn’t be beneficial to anybody. We enjoy competing against some of the best schools in the state in 5A. We certainly don’t win every game by any means. We like to think we try to be competitive at all times, and that’s what we strive for.”
Tulsa Public Schools athletic director Gil Cloud
“Here’s the problem, there’s not enough and the discrepancy from the top to bottom in numbers really negates that. We’re not Texas. We don’t have 400 private schools. We’ve got about 40. To go from top to bottom, you’re taking Corn Bible with 14 or 15 and then you’ve got McGuinness or (Tulsa) Kelley at the other end. You can’t play 800 against 14. What do you have in common?
“It’s continued unrest that, in my opinion, has come up because of tennis and volleyball. I don’t know that there’s an advantage one way or another to it.”
Kingfisher football coach Jeff Myers
“To my knowledge, I think Rule 14, I don’t know if it’s really doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Now that we’ve reclassified, everything resets. I’m not in total agreement with that. Heritage Hall was playing in 4A, Cascia Hall was playing in 4A, Metro Christian was playing in 4A and now that we’ve re-classified Metro Christian goes down to 2A and Heritage Hall and all of those teams are back in 3A after being in 4A. So now we have a team that won 4A’s state championship back in 3A. I don’t think that is right. I think that’s something that needs to be changed.
“But you just can’t kick them out for one thing and then allow them to do something on another.”
Dibble football coach Chad Stone
“When it comes down to it, I think we all want a situation that is fair and equitable for all our programs to compete in. There are some private schools that we have played against that we have beaten all four times.
“That’s not necessarily saying that all of them are at an unobtainable level, but their ability to control their enrollment, and the big areas they can pull from in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, can give them a big leg up.
“Really, we just want some conversation to start up and see which way we want to go.
“It’s a deal where you wish there was an easy fix, but I see all the points from the private school and I get what their struggles are, but at the end of the day we are a lower socioeconomic community out here 7 miles south of Blanchard and we don’t have nearly the same advantages.”