Opinion: Schools are merging sports programs to be more competitive

Dear Editor,

I wrote a letter to the paper on Oct. 6 that I thought was straightforward and made sense, but evidently not to everyone. I was concerned that a significant number of schools were merging some of their sports programs in order to be more competitive, without being required to compete against schools with corresponding enrollments. That’s it. Period. Sorry for the confusion.

Private schools, Catholic and otherwise, already have tremendous advantage over public schools in that they are not limited by district boundaries in attracting student athletes, and they, apparently, are not bound to adhere to any of the state guidelines set to insure “fairness” in competition, either. At least none based on total student body enrollment, or the ability to recruit, etc. 

Public schools, however, have traditionally been classified by student body population; but this new policy has changed all that. In the interest of “good sportsmanship” and “fair play”, it should be mandated that all public schools, including ones with merged sports programs, be required to compete based on the old formula of total student enrollment. 

This is not to say a school should not be able to “play up” to face better competition, rather, that it should not be able to get “larger,” through merger, and still play in the same classification as before. At the risk of being redundant does this make clearer my point?

Sincerely,

Doug Graves

Tioga Center, N.Y.