Leading off today: What's old is new again when it comes to keeping the New York State Public High School Athletic Association moving forward. It works that way in life, the premise being that you don't just decide something without returning to it every few years to evaluate whether it still works as intended.
That's a theme emerging from the agenda for Wednesday's quarterly NYSPHSAA Executive Committee meeting in Saratoga Springs. There will be fairly routine votes finishing off recent business, but much of what awaits the 22-member committee involves reviews of old business to see if there's a need to revisit and perhaps revamp.
An example:
Responding to the number of schools that were dropping programs because of declining enrollments and/or interest, the NYSPHSAA stepped in to allow the combining of teams from two or more schools in 2012. That first school year, six such teams placed in the top eight in state championships.
The numbers grew to eight and then 19 in the next two school years, setting off concerns and inspring changes -- the key one being the use of a graduated scale determining the percentage of the schools' BEDS numbers that count toward classification placement.
More combined teas continued to emerge and there were 29 top-eight championship performers in the last full pre-pandemic school year. But success has remained level since, and the same number of combined teams made the top eight in the 2024-25 school year.
On April 17, the NYSPHSAA committee dealing with combined teams met to review several aspects of the program. Much of the discussion focused on the graduated scale, and six of the 11 sectional reps said there was no current need to delve into potential adjustments.
The Executive Committee will hear that report on Wednesday, after which members will return to their respective sections to report. The local athletic councils may not see a need to push for a new discussion, but they'll at least know that the topic has had a recent airing.
More examples of how what's old is new
One topic that's definitely going to be back in play for at least the remainder on 2026 is the future of officiating in the state. The ranks in many sections and many sports are thin, and addressing that should qualify as an all-hands-on-deck issue.
Formulating a plan with everyone pulling in the same direction will be a big undertaking, but the shortage of officials isn't going to fix itself.
A big-picture concern was aired during the NYSPHSAA's Budget/Audit Committee meeting at the end of March. According to Executive Director Robert Zayas, New York is the only state association that does not compile a registry of its officials, who serve in 269 local chapters.
Chapters in the same sport in the same section can have different requirements and recruitment strategies for prospective new officials, and there's not comprehensive data at the state level to easily spot specific areas of need. If the officials boards are on board, the data could help identify priority areas.
At the same committee meeting, Zayas gave a heads-up to the people charged with keeping track of dollars and cents that the NYSPHSAA Transfer Committee has discussed centralizing transfer decisions at the state level. It would improve consistency early in the process, presumably reducing the number of appeals and more efficiently resolving complex cases that put student-athletes on hold. However, it would also require additional staffing and money.
What's fairly recent is also new
Whereas the above topics involve new looks at old decisions, the Executive Committee made a pair of calls just months ago that didn't fully put issues to rest.
Obviously, the big one was Section 1's push to exclude non-public and charter schools from postseason championships. The Executive Committee went in a different direction by a 20-2 vote in October, and the committee that's studied the topic for two years reaffirmed the decision last month.
Section 1 administrators, who are clearly upset, are pursuing a course of action at the local level and are free to put forth another proposal at the quarterly meeting. How that plays out figures to be the day's top story.
On another front, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee lobbied last year for changes to the Central and Executive Committees that would have carved out voting power for the representatives from the Big Five Districts.
That failed, and the Big Five's efforts to get elected officials and the Department of Education involved don't seem to be going anywhere. Still, the NYSPHSAA made increasing minority representation on sectional and state committees an objective in its most recent five-year plan. The Executive Committee will hear an update Wednesday.
Routine housekeeping
All 11 sections have submitted breakdowns of the number of schools per class that will field teams in the fall in each sport, and the association office will lock in the regional playoff rotation details by the end of the week. Also, the Regional Rotation Committee will reconvene in the fall and draw upon a year's worth of data and observations to evaluate the need for potential revisions.
Some of the agenda items scheduled for a vote:
Joshua Dann, the principal at Saranac Lake High School, has been recommended as the next NYSPHSAA officer. If approved, he will become 2nd vice president in the fall and begin a two-year term as president in 2030.
Dann was selected as the 2026 New York State High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State.
Though the Plumeri Sports Complex in Section 2 submitted a bid, the girls soccer committee unanimously endorsed keeping the final fours in Cortland through 2029, a decision that will be confirmed Wednesday.
The hang up with SUNY Cortland is that the college is always a threat to host an NCAA regional that weekend, which would require moving more games to local high schools.
The next batch of championship venue approvals will come at the July meeting, when boys swimming, girls ice hockey, and the boys wrestling duals are formally decided.
There will be 14 such decisions made during the following 12 months, and the ongoing concern is that many of the requests for proposals only attract one or two bidders. That has been consistently driving up costs for the NYSPHSAA.
Also scheduled for votes
I don't recall the particulars of the discussion at the February meeting, though I go recall that gamesmanship was mentioned, but the Executive Committee is set to vote on the softball committee's request to set a pre-game timeline and protocol for regular-season contests.
The 30-minute window is designed in part to assure that games start on time following the visiting team's on-field warmup.
I usually don't delve into topics only affecting sub-varsity sports, but the field hockey committee is seeking approval for a two-year pilot program allowing 9-on-9 games for JV and modified teams. The contests would be played on narrower fields and with quarters reduced from 15 to 12 minutes.
Field hockey is one of the struggling sports I alluded to in a recent blog note about the need to balance more opportunities for students with strategies for maintaining sustainability of existing programs.
Also, the competitive cheerleading committee is seeking approval for new classification cutoffs, which would bring the overcrowded Class B back in line with the divisions.
Scheduled for discussion
The items on Executive Committee agendas marked as discussion items typically come back for a vote at the next quarterly meeting. A couple of Wednesday's discussions should be particularly interesting:
• The Sportsmanship Committee was been working for awhile on guidance for reducing the number of lopsided scores "in a manner consistent with the values of education-based athletics" and has a proposal that could go into the NYSPHSAA Handbook as a recommendation rather than a rule.
It hits on all the expected suggestions such as calling off defensive pressure, rotating in less-experienced players more liberally, and toning down celebrations. If adopted at a later date, it would give schools and sections discretion in establishing thresholds that should trigger adjustments.
There could also be a mechanism for reporting out-of-control scores to a local committee for review and potentially for action.
• From the department of ideas whose time has come, the bowling committee has been toying with a single-elimination format for its state championships for individuals, and the proposal got a unanimous thumbs-up from the Championship Advisory Committee last month.
Competitors would still start by rolling a six-game block in the qualifying round. The top two finishers would be seeded into the semifinals, with the next eight going through the first two rounds of single-elimination games to set up a final four bracket.
Rules-wise, the only significant tweak needed is to up the maximum number of games rolled in a day to 10.
Coming attractions
Flag football will join the roster of Unified Sports this fall. NYSPHSAA Assistant Director Todd Nelson says Special Olympics NY, the Buffalo Bills, New York Giants, and
the New York Jets are positioned to assist schools in launching their participation.
Possible coming attraction in baseball
This idea hasn't reached the discussion stage yet and there's plenty of time to move it through the system, but Section 2 will be ... uh, "pitching" the idea of allowing pitchers and catchers to begin baseball practice one week before the scheduled start of practice for spring sports.
Obviously, the idea is to get (hopefully) well-rested No. 1 and 2 arms back into shape a bit earlier in the season and allow coaches to develop the rest of the staff more effectively.
