Leading off today: You need to be at least 35 or so years old to be able to say you remember the days when newspapers were almost always the leading source of news and information in their respective markets.
Many publishers saw the future beginning in 1995 or so and began cautiously embracing the internet, with "cautiously" being the operative word. Concerned about cannibalizing their dominance in classified and display advertising, most were reluctant to give away content for free online. Instead, they played a lot of buzz-word bingo, touting "reader interaction" and "engagement" as their online strategies and objectives.
That meant that many of the bigger players employed message-board software to allow readers to yap back and forth about assorted topics. My paper at the time, the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, was among them. However, our message boards never attracted much of an audience.
On the other hand, Syracuse.com's message boards had a fairly robust online community, and high school sports consumed a lot of bandwidth. Invariably, one topic dominated around the time of sectional and state playoffs for each season: Private schools playing (and sometimes winning) in the NYSPHSAA tournaments.
Well, a lot of newspapers have died or on life support these days, and their message boards faded away long ago as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook et al found better ways to engage audiences. However, the debate over public vs. private and charter schools remains, although not with as much intensity.
The impetus for the latest mild surge in interest has to do with this weekend's state large-school final in central New York, where Albany CBA will play Syracuse CBA for the Class AA championship. It's the first time in the three-decade history of the NYSPHSAA football tournament that two non-public schools are facing off in a final in any class.
I haven't seen much commentary about two private schools going head-to-head in the title game for an organization where the "P" stands for "Public," other than a couple of stray comments on X.com (formerly known as Twitter).
However, Kevin Devaney Jr., who has been doing an amazing job covering high schools sports in a variety of roles in the metro NYC area over the years, dialed up NYSPHSAA Executive Director Robert Zayas this week for a 40-minute interview that focused almost exclusively on how the organization has come to include 71 private or charter schools in its 783-school membership and what the future holds.
Not surprisingly, Devaney asked excellent questions. Not surprisingly, Zayas offered answers without deflecting or ducking. That's how both have done it over the years. It's a must-see interview for everyone with an interest in New York scholastic sports, from adults whose children just made the junior varsity for the first time to reporters who've been on the beat for 20 years.
Early on, Devaney asked how it came to be that private schools joined the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. Zayas explained:
"Decades ago our sections allowed non-public schools to become members of their sections. When you become a member of the section, then you become a member of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. I'm talking decades ago, before you and I were born, these non-public schools were given membership status within the sections.
Now that they've been given membership status, it's very difficult to say, 'Well, you're having success in the sport of football or you're very successful in the sport of girls basketball, so therefore we're now going to say you're no longer a member.'
That's not going to bode well for us as an association to say you were a member in good standing for 40 years (and) now all of a sudden we don't want you anymore. That's going to be perceived as being punitive or discriminatory, and that's not going to bode well for us as an association."
That's why Zayas wasn't being flippant in referring to the CBA vs. CBA title game as being "just another day in the office for us."
Zayas said he routinely hears suggestions for removing private and charter schools from the NYSPHSAA by giving them separate playoff structures. The primary problem with that concept, which was studied in-depth in 2016-17 after a flare-up in Section 5, is that there are only 71 such schools across a huge geographic footprint, and the schools vary greatly in size.
He also referenced a comment I first heard Zayas make in October at the organization's quarterly Executive Committee meeting: Any action taken against a member school that feels punitive or discriminatory is likely to be met with a lawsuit. The NYSPHSAA is typically already engaged in a number of lawsuits at any given time, and the prospect of ringing up additional expenses wouldn't sit well with much of the membership.
The NYSPHSAA recently convened an ad hoc committee to look at schools not bound by geographic restrictions, and it's possible the Executive Committee will hear its findings at the February 2025 Executive Committee meeting. From my perspective, however, critics of the non-public schools shouldn't get too excited for a couple of reasons.
First, the 2016-17 episode resulted in numerous potential remedies being studied at great length. Some were interesting and new to the conversation that has literally been going on for decades, but all were flawed in one significant way or another.
Second, people need to be aware of unintended collateral damage. Some of the ideas kicked around over the years, had they been adopted, probably could have also been applied to public schools, especially in districts with multiple high schools or in situations where neighboring districts join forces to field a single team.
The bottom line today is thesame as it has always been: There are no easy answers.
