Last week the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association tabled a decision about reclassifying and structure of its current divisions. The Board of Control of the state’s governing body for high school sports now expects to vote July 12 on classification.
There always has been at least one problem in high school sports. Depending on someone’s point of view, there generally are more than one, whether it’s a lack of coverage, an over-abundance of attention toward some schools, competitive imbalances or financial discrepancies. There are next to zero true solutions, however.
So it goes when you are trying to answer multilayered questions that involve thousands of athletes, and there are no true yes-or-no questions. Every issue has a “Yeah, but …” exception to it.
And once there is an answer, the questions and the problems change.
The original TSSAA split between Division I (public schools and private schools that do not offer financial aid for athletic prowess) and Division II (private schools that do offer financial aid for athletics) was designed in an effort to curb the recruitment of star athletes to the big-time private schools, and if not curb it, then allow those schools to compete among themselves. And it worked for the upper-level private schools.