Leading off today: The quarterly meeting of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association's Executive Committee is scheduled for Wednesday in Saratoga Springs.
Just when you thought the issue of private and charter schools competing against public schools for NYSPHSAA championships had been moved to the back burner for a while, school administrators are turning up the heat again.
Nothing will change on Wednesday, but we're potentially heading back down the road of making a fresh set of changes, though there will be some complicated logistics to resolve first.
Here's what's on Wednesday's agenda:
New life for the topic that won't die
The agenda for Executive Committee meetings provides an opportunity for the delegates to raise sectional concerns, and two or three topics usually get raised and are typically referred to the appropriate committee for consideration.
This time around, Section 1 has already forwarded a concern, and it's likely to turn into an all-hands-on-board deal by the time all is said in done. At the behest of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, which represents 78 school districts and 4 BOCES across Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester counties, the section is requesting a re-examination of whether private and charter schools should be competing against public schools in NYSPHSAA championships.
The NYSPHSAA wrapped up a lengthy look a the issue last year and adopted changes that give teeth to its seven-member Championship Oversight Committee in determining when it's appropriate to move public and charter schools up or down in classification.
That's not good enough for that superintendents group, which is pushing for the NYSPHSAA to adopt New Jersey's model of keeping private schools on regular-season schedules but moving them into their own playoff classification(s).
In a Dec. 26, 2025, letter to the Section 1 and 9 executive directors, the superintendents concluded:
"We expect NYSPHSAA to formally reexamine this issue and present a proposed plan developed through inclusive, statewide feedback to the membership no later than the Central Committee meeting scheduled for July 28-29, 2026."
Where this leads is anyone's guess, though the work involved in reaching a consensus on a plan -- let alone getting it approved -- will be a distraction at a time when the NYSPHSAA is focused on reeling in the size of certain championship meets while maintaining consistency between sports.
There is a bill in committee in the State Assembly and the Senate that advocates what the superintendents group is pushing. Separately, Alabama has just moved to place private schools in their own championships. Though that has excited some people in New York, there are political dynamics behind the Alabama situation that don't apply in New York.
Four hosting contracts up for approval
Four sports should have future championship venues approved this week:
• After wrapping up in Arlington next fall, the field hockey final fours are targeted for Baldwinsville from 2027-29 after the sport's committee supported the Section 3 venue by a 5-4 vote over Arlington.
• Game Day Cheerleading, which finishes its current contract next fall, is slated to stay put at Hudson Valley Community College through 2029. Baseball is going down a similar path, with the Binghamton area keeping the finals. There were no other bidders to host either of the two sports.
• The most interesting of the four deals is for flag football. The final fours will return to Cortland High School this spring and then seem destined for a three-year stay in Section 5: the Greece school district in 2027 and then a joint bid utilizing St. John Fisher University and nearby Pittsford Sutherland High the following two years.
The interesting aspect is that the Buffalo Bills, who have been holding a portion of training camp at Fisher since July 2000, threw strong support behind the bid. The NFL team is putting up $10,000 in funding each year.
Considering that the 2025 tournament (which expanded to three classes) lost $3,008 on a budget of $19,462, the finals in Section 5 seem all but certain to operate comfortably in the black.
Speaking of championships, the final weekends of the recent fall competitions in several sports were duds that resulted in a collective loss of $41,505. Attendance, often at the mercy of weather, dropped 10.1% from a year ago and 21% from the Fall 2023 championships. Combined football attendance for the semifinals and finals plunged from 14,682 to 11,315 to drop the sport back into the red with a loss of $11,214.
On the plus side, Game Day Cheerleading swung from a $1,936 loss to a $3,224 profit, and boys soccer remained a well-oiled machine by nearly doubling its profit to $22,552 despite a 14.5% drop in attendance.
Other business on the agenda
• The Executive Committee will vote on a change that will make it easier for schools to move seventh- and eighth-graders up to the junior varsity or varsity following the conclusion of the season's modified sports schedule. In this era of shrinking enrollments in many districts, capable athletes are sometimes held down at the modified level in order to keep the team viable.
Under the current rule, junior-high athletes still on the modified team at the midpoint of the season are not eligible to move up.
• As noted above, the Executive Committee has been examining the size of championship fields in certain sports, with facilities capacity one of several concerns. To that end, proposals have been circulating, and Wednesday's meeting is likely to be the final step before a vote in May that would end the practice of skiers, swimmers, and track and field athletes making qualifying marks for the championships based solely on a performance during the regular season.
In fact, outdoor track's proposal that an athlete must finish in the top five in the state qualifier meet in order to use the defined super standard will be up for a vote Wednesday. The sport's committee projects that measure could trim the meet from last year's 2,593 athletes to about 2,300.
The NYSPHSAA has been operating with a goal of advancing 5-8% of participants to individual state championship meets. There's growing sentiment in favor of more aggressive enforcement of the upper limit, which would put skiing, gymnastics, boys swimming, and girls
wrestling in the position of having to justify the size of their fields. Again, the Executive Committee could he headed to a May vote.
• On the subject of girls wrestling, the sport continues to grow in impressive fashion -- to the point where there's a proposal on the table that would end the practice of girls competing on their school's boys team during the season and then participating in the girls state meet. If the Executive Committee votes in favor on Wednesday, it would help considerably in seeding the girls tournament.
The 11 NYSPHSAA sections had 1,346 certified female wrestlers two seasons ago. The count this winter stands at 2,586.
Long Island sweeps wrestling finals
Long Island showed up big on Saturday at SRC Arena in Central New York as Massapequa (Division I) and Miller Place (Div. II) captured titles in the NYSPHSAA Dual Meet Championships.
Massapequa took out defending champ Minisink Valley, a finalist the five previous state tournaments, in the semifinals and then avenged an early-season loss to Shenendehowa with a 42-21 triumph.
Miller Place won an all-Suffolk County final over Shoreham-Wading River by a 45-24 margin. Miller Place, which dropped down to Division II this season, swept S-WR in three head-to-head battles this season.
"It's a close match every time with Shoreham," winning coach Matt Kaszubski told Newsday. "We had to make some adjustments to get the right matchups or it could go the other way. Our guys really came through tonight."
Extra points
•
Sean O'Neil maxxed out on Valley Stream Central's senior day on Saturday, scoring 51 points (to go with 10 rebounds and eight steals) to become the first boys basketball player in school history to score 1,000 in his career. Valley Stream Central posted an 80-50 victory over Cold Spring Harbor.
• After a couple of false starts, Benjamin Cardozo coach Ron Naclerio, 68, is the state's all-time winningest basketball coach. He posted victory No. 973 on Friday with a 69-46 win over Julia Richman.
He moved past legendary Archbishop Molloy coach Jack Curran, who finished with 972 wins.
We'll be back with more later this week
That's all I have for now so that I can prepare for Wednesday, after which I strongly suspect I'll be dropping Nick Muzashvili's name into my meeting recap. First, though, I have to refresh my memory about how he achieved near-legendary status in New York high school sports three decades ago.
