Changes today at NCHSAA meetings

from www.hpe.com:

CHAPEL HILL – A new executive director and a handful of minor changes to the sports landscape were handled Wednesday at the close of the N.C. High School Athletic Association Board of Directors’ three-day winter meeting.

The meeting concluded with a press conference where executive director-elect Davis Whitfield, currently associate commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, was introduced. Whitfield spoke about continuing the NCHSAA’s legacy of service and leadership while continuing to build relationships and develop consensus.

The Board also took actions honoring retiring executive director Charlie Adams. The main conference room in the Terrell Building has been named the Charlie Adams Conference Room. A Distinguished Service Award for regional meetings, one per region, was established to start in the fall of 2010, and the Most Valuable Player award given in the boys basketball championships will be named in his honor.

Also, Brooks Matthews, principal at Triton High School, was named as vice-president of the Board to replace former Trinity and Wheatmore leader Daryl Barnes, who is retiring.

Among other items approved by the Board:

– a committee will be convened to study size of playoff brackets in all sports, number of games, etc., to report to Board at May meeting with recommendations

– the MVP awards given for girls basketball championships will be named in memory of Kay Yow

– approved a change in policy in all sports: If a team is disqualified due to an ineligible player after the first round of the playoffs and won the opening-round game, the losing team will advance in its place

– approved lacrosse playoff structure: 32-team bracket for men, 24 for women

17 thoughts on “Changes today at NCHSAA meetings

  1. – approved a change in policy in all sports: If a team is disqualified due to an ineligible player after the first round of the playoffs and won the opening-round game, the losing team will advance in its place

    Go ahead and name that one the Terry Sanford rule

  2. They should have also made a new football playoff rule that states ” If a team drops a non-conference loss and later meets that team in the playoffs, the team that won in the prior meeting shall host the playoff meeting”

  3. 77 hornet…

    I think you are right… I think that Ragsdale should have won that game, they claimed that the Dudley field was full of mud with no grass at all..

  4. I know the field is a mess but both teams had to the play of the field. Would the field be getting so much attention if Ragsdale would have won the game? The better team won game folks lets move on. You guys are forgetting in the first game of the season if Dudley does not turn the ball over twice inside the 5 yard line they win the first game at Ragsdale. After we lost to Ragsdale in week two we made no complaints we went back to the drawing board and figured out what we could do better. Like someone said on another forum the Ragsdale lost made us realize we neeed to develop a kicking, which we did I think we’ve only missed 1 PAT for in the playoffs. We need to eliminate big plays on defense, which we did. Guys stop complainig about the field Dudley has won 2 out of 3 times. Instead of complaining now is the time that Ragsdale returning playing should be hitting the weight room trying to get stronger and bigger for next year. I know that is what the Dudley players will do regardless if the season ends tonight or after next week final game.

  5. I guess some of you guys just will not “MAN UP” and give Dudley credit for winning the game! It’s football folks the playing conditions are not always perfect. The Ragsdale program has had it’s season end to the hand to one of the State top programs. Ragsdale fans you guys have a good program as well just do not use a sloopy field as crutch.

  6. “They should have also made a new football playoff rule that states ” If a team drops a non-conference loss and later meets that team in the playoffs, the team that won in the prior meeting shall host the playoff meeting”

    77 Hornet, you are absolutely correct!

    The contention of this is that the game should have never been played at Dudley! The rule needs to be changed. It is not fair to the TRULY Undefeated team(s) that they “draw” a lower seed than a team that they BEAT in regular season – whether it is non-conference or not – A Loss is A Loss! With thay being said no one from Ragsdale ever asked that the game be moved to Ragsdale! They simply stated that the game should not be played on Dudley’s field. Ragsdale was only asking for a SAFE and FAIR playing field condition. There were plenty of other fields that the game could have and should have been played on! And, no all of the other fields do not look or play as bad as Dudley’s. And, of course Dudley team played well on this field…they are used to the horrible field conditions and know where to run and where not to run on the field. And, they know where the sprinkler heads are and how to avoid them!
    A “sloppy field” is not being used as a crutch, we understand that we got beat! The point is that Ragsdale was robbed of the home field advantage throughout the playoffs due to an UNFAIR and RIDICULOUS NCHSAA Rule, a rule that needs to be changed!

  7. tiger10

    I understand your point Dudley went 11-0 last year just as Ragsdale did this year and the same process played out. We to had to have our playoff seeding come down to what team came out of the cup 1st, 2nd or 3rd. We ended up being a 2 seed.

    Take your complaint to the State of North Carolina. We will not talk about what Dudley has been robbed of over the years!!!!!!!!!!!! But that is another conversation.

  8. Hardin: Coaches can blame only themselves for H.S. playoffs mess
    Friday, November 13, 2009 (Updated 7:44 am)
    By Ed Hardin
    Staff Writer
    Related Links Article: 2009 high school football playoffs schedule and results (Dec. 3) Article: Prep notes: Rainy weather puts damper on area schedules (Nov. 13) Article: High school football capsules: First-round games (Nov. 13) What do you think? 4 comment(s) Read other visitors’ comments. GREENSBORO — The regular season ended, and the chaos ensued. After a tempest-tossed year in which Ragsdale beat Dudley, and R.J. Reynolds beat everybody else, all three somehow finished in a tie that created about what you’d expect: the perfect storm.

    The imperfect system that is the N.C. High School Athletics Association football playoffs will begin again tonight on soggy fields of controversy stretching from the hills to the dunes and casting an ill-fitting shadow over the Triad.

    Once again, a decision made years ago by the coaches themselves to open the playoffs to virtually everybody has come back to haunt those with the most to lose. In this case, the loser is undefeated and unsuspecting Ragsdale.

    After a run to a conference title and an assumed top ranking in the state 4-A playoffs, Ragsdale found itself seeded third behind Winston-Salem’s Reynolds and a team it had already beaten this year — Dudley. Almost immediately, the phone started ringing on Rick Strunk’s desk at the NCHSAA offices in Chapel Hill.

    “Phone calls and e-mails,” he said. “They all started the same way. ‘You idiots!’ I knew it was coming.”

    It comes every year, in part because the football playoffs are so vast and because the only way to pull it off and get all 256 teams seeded and scheduled is to stick to predetermined rules voted on by the coaches years ago. And the most controversial rule of all is how to handle tiebreakers.

    Years ago, before the NCHSAA decided to get all democratic about things, playoffs were handled pretty much by the conferences themselves. The teams that got out of their own conferences went to the playoffs, and those that couldn’t, well, they didn’t deserve it anyway.

    That meant that every now and then, an 8-2 team or a 9-1 team from a strong conference was left home while some 5-5 pretender from another weak league got in.

    The 1-A coaches moved first, voting to split the playoffs according to enrollment, then invite almost every small school in the state to compete in two-tiered playoffs. The coaches from the higher classifications decided they wanted that, too, so the NCHSAA relented and let the coaches have it their way.

    There’s been controversy ever since, mostly because of the endowment games the NCHSAA has allowed for years. Schools now schedule an extra nonconference game each season, an “endowment” game early in the year. Endowment is a better term than what it really is — a cash grab. The sanctioning body, however, only recognizes 10 games played. Thus, schools have come to count the endowment game as a win or don’t count it at all if they lose. They can, in fact, drop any nonconference game they please at the end of the year to get down to the 10-game limit.

    Yes, it’s crazy, but that’s the way it is. Dudley called the NCHSAA last week just to make sure. So the Panthers dropped their loss to Ragsdale, which made them 10-0, just like Ragsdale and just like Reynolds, thus forcing a three-way tie among three conference champions. Dudley had no control over the tiebreaker, which came Saturday morning.

    “Right, wrong, good or bad, this is the system,” Strunk, the associate executive director of the NCHSAA, said Thursday in between irate phone calls. “For seeding purposes there wasn’t a two-way tie, there was a three-way tie. The head-to-head game didn’t work in this case.”

    In other words, according to the rules by which the schools themselves play, since there was a three-way tie among champions from three conferences, Ragsdale didn’t beat Dudley this year. Had there been a two-way tie, then yes, the head-to-head would’ve counted as it did in a case involving conference champions Matthews Butler and Richmond County, which had lost to Butler but was seeded higher before the NCHSAA resolved the matter.

    There was no such matter here. A three-way tie, even one made possible by a team dropping a loss to another team involved in the tie, is handled according to the rules.

    “We don’t have anything to do with it,” Strunk said. “It’s a straight draw by the executive director of the N.C. Football Coaches Association. It’s done alphabetically according to how the schools are listed in the directory.”

    The names of the schools were put in a hat. Jim Taylor, from the Cleveland County school system and the former Shelby coach, reached in and pulled out Dudley’s seed number. The No. 2 came out. Taylor then reached in and pulled out Ragsdale’s number. The No. 3 came out. Reynolds’ number was never even drawn. There were 30 other ties to break before the playoffs were set.

    “It’s an onerous process,” Strunk said. “But it’s approved by the schools beforehand. I actually had an AD call and ask me why we can’t just arrange the games.”

    In the old days, there were all sorts of arrangements to get schools in the proper regions and to make sure conference foes didn’t meet in opening rounds and to make sure the regular season remained significant. But that wasn’t good enough for the coaches, who wanted to extend their seasons no matter what, and for the schools, who wanted to make a little more money. So the NCHSAA relented, and now we have 256 playoff teams in eight classifications seeded according to games played and not played, with conferences split along enrollment and wiggly geographic lines and with boosters and coaches and ADs with no real idea how it all works.

    It’s a perfect mess. But there’s nothing insidious about it. Dudley did nothing wrong.

  9. Knew that, but trying to tell the rich,selfish group that . . . well you can see from these idiotic coments,they don’t know and the bad part about it they still don’t know even after reading how it (tie braking involving three teams) plays out. Self centered and just not wanting to understand”the second time around is always better than the first” ! Maybe next,next year Tigahs !

  10. So looks like the Ragsdale fans can blame there Coach as well since the article states the Coaches agreed to the current format.

  11. “…rich and selfish…” ??? How ridiculous! Ragsdale having over 50% of their students on free and reduced lunch hardly constitutes being a rich school!!!!! We all know what the rules are and read the article…has nothing to do with that! And, we never said Dudley did anything wrong, just that the rule needs to be changed! Most votes are passed with a majority, doesn’t mean that Ragsdale’s coach voted for the rule! If the roles were reversed and Dudley was in Ragsdale’s position, you’d all be screaming a lot worse things than unfair! Stop putting words in our mouths and read the statement for what it is…an opinion, just like you have your opinion!

  12. The roles were reveresed for Dudley just last year. We went undeated and was the number 1 ranked team in the State but yet received a 2 seed. Our attitude was regarldess on were the game is played we have to perform or go home? So you are saying if Ragsdale would have played the game at home the results would have been different? Never did i hear you mention Ragsdale offense hardly moved the ball against Dudley defense on Friday. In fact the high powered offese of Ragsdale was shut down Friday. With all that said you guys were still just a touchdown and PAT away from winning. I’m kind of annoyed because i feel like some of the Ragsdale fans will not give Dudley credit for winning a game. As a Dudley support i take my hats off to Ragsdale you guys have given us three tough games over the last two seasons but we were fortunate enough to come on top in the two biggest games. Dang can we all just come together and pull for these kids to bring a third staight title back to Dudley, Back to the community, back to Guilford County!!!!!!!

  13. Yep, my Tigers could hardly move the ball last week and the defense didn’t feel a sense of urgency in trying to stop dudley’s offense until they were like 2 yards from the endzone. I’d say our guys choked this season away and possible a shot at playing for a state title next week. ohhh well, i guess there is always 20 years from now….

  14. Our complaint last week was not about playing the game at Ragsdale, never said anything about that. The issue was fair playing field…literally. By your own admission Dudley’s field is terrible! But, if you’re talking about Ragsdale’s seeding…now that’s another issue. Ragsdale was the only truly undefeated team, just as we were last year. Our record is 26-2 for the last two years!
    Clearly Dudley outperformed Ragsdale last week, no one is saying they didn’t. But, do I believe that it may have been a different outcome had we had the homefield advantage? Well, yes I do – but here again that’s just my opinion.

  15. Tiger10…..The major problem here has not even been mentioned. WHY WAS DUDLEY EVEN SEATED IN THE WEST. Ragsdale has traditionally been a Western Regional team, while Dudley has been a traditional Eastern Regional team. If the seeds remained as they have always been, this conversation would not even exist.

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