PIAA’s reps from WPIAL split on future of competitive-balance rule

By: Chris Harlan
Monday, October 17, 2022 | 8:51 PM

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The WPIAL has three seats on the PIAA board, and its representatives usually vote together, but that didn’t happen when asked about making major changes to the state’s competitive-balance rule.

Those WPIAL reps, like the PIAA board itself, were split.

Should the PIAA eliminate the transfer element from the rule, meaning teams could be promoted to a higher classification based on their postseason success alone?

Should the rule that currently forces only football and basketball teams into a higher classification expand to include all team sports?

For now, the WPIAL is undecided on those key questions.

“That’s something we talked about a little today,” WPIAL vice president Brian Geyer said Monday after the WPIAL board met in Green Tree. “We want to get a consensus on what this board wants and take that up for the final vote in December.”

The WPIAL has seven weeks to decide.

The proposed rule changes survived a narrow 14-13 vote last week by the PIAA board, which was considering them on a second reading. PIAA rule changes must pass three separate votes, so the third and final reading is expected in December.

Geyer, the athletic director at Peters Township, voted in favor of the rule changes last week but said he did so with apprehension. If that vote were the final vote, he might have made a different decision, but a second vote just moved the process along.

“We were kind of split because (the PIAA) made some changes that I think we weren’t all aware of and on board with,” Geyer said of removing transfers from the formula. “We have people who are all across the board and can see both sides of it. After today’s meeting, I think we need to take a look at transfers a little bit more and see if that’s really beneficial to everybody.”

West Allegheny athletic director David McBain voted against the rule change last week, and Hopewell principal Michael Allison voted in favor. McBain is WPIAL board president, and Allison is the treasurer.

North Allegheny athletic director Bob Bozzuto, who has a PIAA board seat as Pennsylvania State Athletic Directors Association president, also voted against the rule change.

The PIAA board meets again Dec. 7. Before then, the WPIAL intends to find out what its member schools want.

“We asked this group to investigate and talk to member schools about what they would like to do,” Geyer said, “and we can take up a vote (next month) about what this board wants and what the WPIAL wants.”

The competitive-balance rule was created in 2018 as a way to address complaints about successful football and basketball teams that reloaded year after year with transfers. As currently written, a team that makes two runs deep into the state playoffs and surpasses the threshold for transfers (three for football, one for basketball) is moved up in classification.

However, the PIAA’s focus has shifted from transfers to overall success.

If enacted, the PIAA would monitor the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years and make classification changes in 2024-25.

If the proposed changes had been in place for the past two-year cycle, a number of teams would have been forced up this year. Among them would have been the powerhouse Southern Columbia football team, which has won five consecutive 2A titles but never met the three-player transfer threshold for promotion.

Yet so could have programs such as the Armstrong softball team, which was the state runner-up two years in a row, or the Montour baseball team that won a state title last spring and was runner-up in 2021.

If the changes are approved, teams in their position two years from now would be moved up regardless of their transfer situation.

That makes some administrators take pause.

“The rule was established to address transfers because there was a transfer issue,” said WPIAL executive director Scott Seltzer, a PIAA board member in 2018. “To change that, I don’t know. That was the purpose of the rule.”

The PIAA further addressed the transfer dilemma since then by making most transfers ineligible for the postseason for one year. PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said the proposed changes to the competitive-balance rule were made in response to feedback from its member schools.

“What I think has happened is, now that it includes all team sports and it’s success only, some of the ADs are feeling pressure from their schools who are saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a successful program. We’ve worked hard. Why are you punishing us?’ ” Lombardi said last week. “I don’t think it’s a punishment. It’s a balance thing because people are tired of the same folks winning every time.”

Seltzer said he would email information about the proposed changes to all WPIAL schools, allowing them to provide informed feedback to the WPIAL board.

“There needs to be a discussion among board members, who represent all of the member schools,” Seltzer said. “If they get that consensus back, then it’s easier.”

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.