Illinois 'multiplier' leaves high schools in the dark
Reporters on the cops and courts beat most likely never dream of becoming sportswriters.
In the Illinois high school sports community, however, such versatility has become more than just a quirky talent. It’s now a matter of survival in most places.
Wrestling has seen its share of court battles. Not only did I cover Chicago Mount Carmel’s lawsuit against the Illinois High School Association over their participation in the Class AA dual-team state series just over a decade ago, I was an expert witness for the defense. As big a story as that was — and it was national news — it paled in comparison to the confusion created over the new private-school multiplier instituted by the IHSA for this season.
The 1.65 multiplier instituted for non-boundary schools with enrollments greater than 450 students resulted in 17 wrestling programs, including three-time defending champion Lombard Montini High and four-time titlist Sandwich High, moving up from Class A to AA this season, by far an all-time record in a single year.
In fact, Montini and Sandwich were just the beginning. Add in Burlington Central High, Fairbury Prairie Central High, Rock Falls High and Rock Island Alleman High and the multiplier resulted in six of the 25 teams — nearly a quarter of the total — in last year’s season-ending ranking of The Illinois Best Weekly moving up a class.
It’s interesting to note that, though non-boundary — A.K.A. private — schools were the focus of the multiplier, four of the six Top 25 schools moving up a class are public schools. With seven of the 17 schools with wrestling programs and half of the 34 schools moving up overall being public, the multiplier appears, so far, to have had an equal-opportunity impact.
The enforcement of the multiplier didn’t last one athletic season. On Sept. 27, 32 such non-boundaried schools, including Montini and AA powers Chicago St. Rita High, New Lenox Providence High and Chicago Marist High sued the IHSA to block the multiplier’s implementation. On Oct. 5, the suit was settled, with the IHSA agreeing to shelve the multiplier and issue waivers to teams for the fall sports seasons, including football.
That settlement also threw all classification decisions for the winter and spring sports into question.
So is Montini in Class AA? Or Class A? How about Sandwich? Prairie Central?
“We have no clue,” said IHSA assistant executive director Dave Gannaway, who effectively speaks for all of us at this point.
Gannaway is not stupid. He truly doesn’t know. None of us do; not in the IHSA offices, not anywhere between South Beloit and Cairo.
As part of the settlement, future decisions regarding classification — multiplier or not — will have to go through the IHSA’s legislative by-law process. Member schools had until Oct. 28 to submit proposals and a half-dozen or more are expected to be submitted. Those proposals are addressed at IHSA Town Meetings in November and will be voted on by member school principals in early December.
What all this means is that the Illinois high school wrestling season will start with about two dozen of its wrestling programs — including some of the state’s best — not knowing whether they’ll be competing in Class A or AA this season. With the proposals submitted to date having an effective date of Feb. 1, 2006 … and the individual regional tournaments scheduled to take place Feb. 4 … it’s conceivable teams might not know the field they’ll be going against until three days prior to the regional.
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