PIAA endorses potential changes to competitive-balance rule, could allow appeals on health and safety grounds

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, July 17, 2024 | 4:14 PM

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STATE COLLEGE — The PIAA board wants to remove some much-maligned words from its competitive-balance rule: those that have prohibited health and safety as grounds for an appeal.

The Competition Formula currently says: “… a change in classification would not be cause for a health and safety concern. A claim of such risk will not be considered.” But the board Wednesday voted to strike that language, which became a focal point of Aliquippa School District’s lawsuit against the PIAA.

Bylaws changes require three votes, so the edit must pass the board twice more.

The PIAA board met for a two-day summer workshop at the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center in State College. The health and safety edit wasn’t on the original agenda, but PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said board members requested it.

“Feedback from around the table,” Lombardi said was the motivation. “They wanted to take it out.”

The move was one of several potential changes to the competitive-balance rule approved Wednesday, all on a first-reading basis.

Among the others:

• The number of success points required to move up would increase from six to seven.

The board tentatively approved a caveat that only teams that win state championships can move up, but that idea will be revisited later.

To accumulate seven points, a team would need to reach a state final (four points) and semifinal (three) in consecutive years.

“We were having teams go to the championship game and not go up,” Lombardi said, “while a team goes to two semifinals, doesn’t win and goes up.”

• The number of transfers needed to trigger a promotion would increase from one to two for basketball and tennis, and from three to four for football.

• Teams that already have moved up and accumulated four, five or six success points in subsequent years would remain in a higher classification. Those teams with one, two or three points could drop back down.

• The board tabled a novel proposal that would’ve moved a team into a higher classification after winning consecutive state titles, regardless of the number of transfers added. The board saw potential problems with the plan since the PIAA operates on two-year enrollment cycles.

Must the two state titles be won in the same cycle? What if a team won a title in the second year of one cycle and the first year of another?

The competitive-balance rule targets teams that have success in the state playoffs, as measured by the Competition Formula, and surpass the threshold for transfers in a two-year cycle. The PIAA moves teams that meet both criteria into a higher classification to play against schools with larger enrollments.

The rule was triggered by 206 teams since its implementation in 2020, according to PIAA statistics. Of those teams, 88 were moved to a higher classification.

“It’s doing what it’s supposed to do, but we need to tweak it,” Lombardi said. “We’re having situations come up where we think we need to have a little better balance or fairness or objectivity because they seem to be falling outside of what was intended.”

Greensburg Central Catholic girls basketball was one of the teams moved into a higher classification without reaching the state finals.

Aliquippa and the PIAA have been locked in ongoing litigation over an attempt to move the school’s football team to Class 5A next season.

The Quips successfully avoided a similar promotion to 5A in 2022, in part by arguing health and safety concerns in their PIAA appeal. Aliquippa administrators had insisted it was unsafe for a team with a small-school enrollment to face opponents with three times more students.

However, the PIAA board later added the language to the rule saying health and safety concerns were not grounds for an appeal. Removing those restrictions now would seemingly clear the way for schools wanting to make that argument in future appeals.

“By striking that language, it doesn’t take health and safety out of the equation,” Lombardi said. “That eliminates that (the board) can’t consider it. The way it’s been interpreted is, ‘That’s not a consideration.’ The board doesn’t feel that way. That’s part of every sport.”

The PIAA had defended the restrictions by saying only the most successful teams were affected by the competitive-balance rule, and therefore moving up wouldn’t put them at increased risk.

“That’s what the board believes,” Lombardi said. “We have not found any research or any documentation or any surveys to substantiate that (increased risk).”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.