By Jason Pike
ST. John’s, NL – Many years ago, when high school sports was called the Newfoundland High School athletics Association, the way schools competed were drafted out by the population of your school. Leap ahead several decades the name has changed but the structure has stayed the same!
1A through 4A still compete based on school size as they did from the very beginning, and yes, this is often the proper way to do things, because more students, gives you more players to choose from, and a greater chance of having the strongest team available to you.
But this is not always the case. There are those that have taken full advantage of this rule to win provincial championships in a lower division than they ever should have. Schools that absolutely decimated other schools year after year, and refusing to move up to a higher division to compete, because they don’t want to lose. Father Bernie Memorial High School in Burin, before it closed, was famous for this maneuver. Staying in the same division of 2A and 3A soccer and never moving up often times moving back after winning the higher division the year before.
It doesn’t stop there. Same is true for Holy Name of Mary Academy in Lawn. They must have won 2A soccer 10 years in a row and never moved up.
Small school greatness
Every now and then you get the opportunity to witness greatness from a small school that are probably a 1A classification and moving up and winning in the 4A categories. For instance Fatima Academy. They were a 1A School winning 4A provincial basketball in the nineties, the same is true for Stella Maris High School in Trespassey with their Women’s Basketball team.
But not everyone wants to risk losing by moving up in a higher Division, and last year after watching a team from Lakewood Academy in Glenwood, absolutely obliterate a team from St Joseph’s in Lamaline really made me realize that it’s time that the rules get tweaked a little.
Lakewood should never been in a 1A provincials for the last several years. Nobody could compete with them and they knew it. But they played it safe, stayed in that division and kept putting banners on the wall, instead of throwing their hat in the ring of the 2A Division and actually giving it a go. In my opinion they probably would have been the best team in 2A as well, but I guess we will never know.
Adjusting the rules
How do you adjust these rules you may ask? Well maybe something like this. The initial classification goes by school size, but if you win in your respective divisions, the next year needs to be evaluated by a ranking committee on whether or not you can stay in that same division or you have to move up and people would say, well how can you realistically do that?
Ranking
Obviously there have to be some allowances made, but, if for example, a team from Lakewood wins the 1A Provincial Championship and are extremely dominant and it’s reviewed that the core of their team are not graduating the following year, then they have to move up. If they are losing several of their starters or team in general, then they will be allowed to remain where they are.
Some will argue, well what about the teams that are in 3A and 4A just because they have large numbers they can’t compete against most schools like Holy Heart or Gonzaga? How is that fair to them? Well it’s not! So what needs to be done has already been done off and on in 2000s, there needs to be a tiered structure.
For instance, this year 4A soccer will feature Tier 1 and Tier 2 under the 4A Banner. The only other sport that I know of that has done something similar has been basketball, off and on there has been for a tier one and for a tier 2. And there was many years ago when high school sports was called Newfoundland High School athletics Association the way schools competed or drafted out by the population of your school. Several decades later the name has changed but the structure has stayed the same.
And there’s possibility volleyball has done it in the past as well,.
I think these few changes would allow it to be fair for everybody, while remaining competitive, because if you are monitoring what’s happening in the respective divisions and then you offer a multi-tier system for the bigger schools, everybody can compete and everybody can play. The Newfoundland and Labrador Athletic Association maybe called school sports NL now but when it comes to the whole structure of the rules nothing much has changed, and it’s high time that it does.
