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Tennessee: TSSAA’s Division I an uneasy alliance

By: Stephen Hargis
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The questions that remain from this past week’s TSSAA reclassification decision likely won’t be answered for another three to four months. That’s how long it will take until the state’s governing body has the fall enrollments from its member schools and can begin aligning teams in their proper classifications and districts.

Even then, however, the decades-long debate over whether public and private schools should be separated likely will continue.

Besides reclassification, the TSSAA Board of Control also voted Wednesday to continue through 2012 using the multiplier for private schools that opt to play with public schools in Division I. Had the multiplier been voted out, it likely would have been the first step in a complete split.

“A lot of the private schools didn’t want to do away with the multiplier because they knew what it would have meant,” said Sequatchie County principal and Board of Control member Tommy Layne.

Many public-school coaches already had hinted at the possibility of suggesting a vote be taken across the state to determine whether all private schools should automatically be placed in Division II.

In 2003 a similar poll of TSSAA members was taken, with 205 favoring a complete split and 81 voting against it. Despite that mandate by member schools, the TSSAA’s Legislative Council, which writes the organization’s bylaws, voted 5-3 against a complete split. The multiplier was then voted in by the nine-member Board of Control, which has no private school representation.

There remains a steady undercurrent of uncertainty and distrust that has lingered since the late 1980s. Despite TSSAA executive director Ronnie Carter’s recommendation to eliminate the multiplier, the board voted 5-3 to keep it in place.

“I don’t have anything against Boyd-Buchanan, Chattanooga Christian, Notre Dame or any of our local private schools,” said Layne, who voted to keep the multiplier. “But we (public schools) have to play with who comes through our door. How many special-education kids do they have? How many of their kids come from broken homes or foster homes? I guarantee the headmaster at a private school doesn’t have to deal with the issues that I do.

“I’m not saying those schools recruit, but they can bring in athletes from places we can’t. Because of that, I think they need to play up.”

Before the multiplier went into effect, private schools won five consecutive Class 1A state football titles, including a three-year run in which both teams in the finals were private schools. Although the complaints by 1A schools have subsided, the argument has since been picked up by 2A and 3A programs. In the three years since the multiplier was implemented, seven of the 12 teams that competed in 2A and 3A football title games were private schools.

“A few years ago we voted by a wide margin to put all the private schools in D-II,” Tyner athletic director and football coach Wayne Turner said. “It wasn’t even a close vote, but instead of doing that they created the multiplier. All that did was move the problem from 1A to 2A and 3A.

“I don’t mind playing anybody in the regular season, but come playoff time it makes a big difference. They’ve got better depth, better facilities and more coaches than we have. There’s no question the private schools have an unfair advantage. The multiplier isn’t working, and we probably won’t have peace until they finally completely split.”

Turner added that according to a TSSAA survey in 2003, more than 60 percent of students attending private schools play sports while only about 30 percent of public-school students are athletes.

As evidence of the significance of the public-private debate, there was more discussion by board members at Wednesday’s meeting over whether to keep the multiplier than over reclassification.

“A public-private split is the largest subgroup (public schools) with the most power deciding whether or not they will tolerate a minority subgroup (Division I private schools) whose occasional successes have been a source of annoyance,” Grace Academy athletic director Les Compton said. “All private schools do not have the same mission statement, the same values, the same entrance requirements and certainly not the same financial backing or facilities.

“Essentially what the multiplier is is a people tax.”

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