Leading off today: Remember how excited you were last Labor Day weekend when Uncle Steve and Aunt Edna invited you to come up to Toronto in a couple of weeks to watch the Blue Jays in their battle to win the American League East Division?
That vibe has gone AWOL this summer as the Jays are bringing up the rear in the division.
It's not entirely unlike the difference between NYSPHSAA Central Committee meetings in 2025 and '26. Last year's meeting brought closure (or close to it) to three big issues facing delegates to the state's largest governing body for high school sports. Chief among them was giving the office staff the go-ahead to implement the Three-Region Format for state tournaments effective immediately.
Additionally, the Central Committee decided not to move forward with a diversity initiative that would have required changes to its constitution, and members cleared the way for the Executive Committee to meet in October to adopt an ad hoc panel's decision on classifying non-public and charter schools.
This year's meeting, which takes place in Buffalo on Tuesday and Wednesday, has another full agenda but not much in the way of pivotal decisions or potentially spirited discussion.
What's the difference between meetings?
The Executive Committee of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association meets quarterly, with each of the 11 sections sending two delegates -- a male athletic rep and a female athletic rep. They cast votes during the three- to five-hour session on action items that reflect the views of their section's governing bodies.
The summer quarterly gathering is the two-day Central Committee meeting that functions similarly, though with two additional voting delegates per section -- a chief school officers (CSO) rep and a principals rep.
The additional votes generally do not affect outcomes since it's rare for a section to split its votes 3-1 or 2-2 on an issue.
However, the annual meeting like this one in Buffalo is an opportunity for the CSOs and principals to be heard in breakout groups preceding the Day 2 meeting. A year ago, for instance, it was apparent that they did not look favorably upon amending the NYSPHSAA constitution to add a bloc of voting members on the Executive Committee as part of its focus on diversity. There had already been concerns expressed at the previous Executive Committee meeting, and the additional input led to agreement to seek other paths to more minority inclusion.
What's up for a vote in Buffalo?
Aside from what I mentioned in the introduction, the biggest votes at the 2025 Central Committee meeting in Schenectady included raising ticket prices for state championship events and converting the indoor track meet to two days of competition instead of one to address overcrowding.
Barring a sport committee showing up with an urgent, time-sensitive matter that's only recently arisen, there aren't any stop-the-presses decisions expected to come out of this meeting.
The closest thing to something constituting drama might be the venue vote for the 2028-30 boys swimming championships. The NYSPHSAA office staff previously threw its support behind the Nassau Aquatic Center, but the sport committee recommended the Webster Aquatic Center in Section 5 in a 7-4 vote. Geography may disproportionately influence how eight of the sections vote, so it potentially comes down to how Sections 2, 7 and 10 weigh in.
In all likelihood, the Central Committee will also be signing off on two proposals from the boys and girls bowling committees that will allow a format change at the state championships in which the top 10 finishers in qualifying advance to a head-to-head playoff bracket in pursuit of the title. It's a spectator-friendly initiative that should add drama to the event and attract more attention for a sport often overshadowed on the winter championship schedule.
Other than that, expect the meeting reps to approve new classification cutoffs for football and girls volleyball, updated weight classes in girls wrestling, and inclusion into the state handbook of recommendations for avoiding lopsided scores.
Members will also be asked to approve the officials fees and policies contract covering all sports for the next three school years.
The one topic above all others deserving a healthy discussion
In a perfect work flow, changes in NYSPHSAA policies begin with ideas originating in one of the 11 member sections. Representatives bring their idea or concern to the Executive Committee, whose reps return home to convey the information to the local athletic councils. Discussions and potential refinements for a proposal take place at one or two more Executive Committee meetings, and then it becomes an action item to be voted upon at the next meeting.
There are roughly a dozen discussion items on the Buffalo agenda that have the potential to go to a vote when the Executive Committee gathers again in Saratoga Springs this fall. Without a doubt, the No. 1 item up for discussion is how to proceed with right-sizing the fields for sports that conduct individual championships, such as track and field, swimming, and skiing.
It's a complicated issue because there are multiple moving parts. For example, should there be automatic qualifying via regular-season meets? Hard caps on the number of qualifiers per event per section? Should the previous goal of advancing 5-8% of a sport's participants to the championship meets fall by the wayside?
The minutes from last month's Championship Philosophy Committee show that progress has been made, but it's also apparent that there's not a consensus yet.
Quite frankly, most of the hard decisions should have been made by now. It felt like a priority on the NYSPHSAA to-do list in March 2025 when it became apparent that the indoor track meet was too big for its facility and the three-class outdoor meet was going to be large enough to require its own zip code. And it's always been ludicrous that a section's 10th-fastest swimmer in an event could qualify for a single-classification state championship meet.
Alas, a downstate superintendents organization started a figurative food fight over what seemed to be settled policy last summer regarding participation in championships by non-public and charter schools, so aspects of the meet parameters discussion got pushed to a back burner.
Thus, it would be huge if the discussion at the Central Committee meeting advanced one or more pieces of an updated policy far enough to set the stage for voting in October and/or February.
More discussion items
Some of the scheduled discussions figure to be discussions in name only. The proposed biennial changes to the
classification cutoffs for flag football look radical on paper, but the numbers are realistic in the context of how quickly the sport has grown.
And the wrestling committee's desire to add teeth to the policy of having competitors wear their section-designated singlet through all but the final match for top placers is a no-brainer. The media and -- more importantly -- officials need to be able to easily identify the home section of competitors stepping onto the mat.
A few other topics that will get a mention:
• Girls wrestling has continued its growth, reaching the point at which it may be ready for a state dual-meet championship. Reclassifying it as a "team/individual sport" is the first step in that direction.
• As I noted earlier this year, the baseball committee wants to allow pitchers and catchers to start practice one week prior to the official start date to give hurlers a jump on building arm strength while also allowing coaches to identify more pitching prospects.
• The baseball committee has also been looking at a potential slight tweak of the rule on pitch counts. Most of the maximum numbers requiring an additional night of rest might be lowered, but not dramatically so.
• The Handbook Committee has proposed tidying up the wording regarding exceeding the maximum number of permitted contests to clarify the penalties for team and individual violations.
Also worth knowing
• The sections have submitted their winter sport declarations, which allows the NYSPHSAA office to firm up regional rotations for the state tournament brackets, including the allocation of at-large berths where necessary. Sectional executive directors will have the data available for review early next month.
As for the spring season, the NYSPHSAA office has compiled the sectional decisions on classifications for non-public and charter schools and provided it to the sections to evaluate for possible appeals to the Classification Oversight Committee.
• The NYSPHSAA is still awaiting a few invoices from June contests, but state championships for the year appear to have broken even despite attendance slipping below 100,000 to continue a frustrating trend. One bright spot: Outdoor track and field, a sport that no school wanted to host largely because it fell so close to final exams, attracted 6,148 fans over two days at Webster Schroeder.
• The NYSPHSAA budget year ends on Aug. 31, but the financial numbers in general look solid, thanks in no small part to investment income. One line on the ledger that does stick out: The Schools Without Boundaries ad hoc committee incurred unbudgeted expenses totaling $13,463. In a just world, the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents would be footing the bill.
•The awarding of contracts for hosting future championships may or may not be a significant story in the upcoming school year. Requests for bids will be going out for more than two dozen sports, and the paucity of venues showing interest in recent years has contributed to driving up costs.
