Proposals to end the public-private school split in postseason play for football, basketball, baseball, and softball high school sports failed to pass on the final day of the LHSAA annual convention. LHSAA executive director Eddie Bonine has worked for the last five years to end the split.
“There’s underlying angst between the private and public schools and it’s been brewing for some time and it’s not going to change right now,” said Bonine.
Bonine says they are about 50 votes short shy of ending the split.
A majority of principals voted for North Vermilion High School principal Tommy Byler’s proposal to bring the association back together. It would have created six classes and eight in all other sports and many select schools would play at a higher classification. But Byler’s proposal needed to receive a two-thirds vote in favor.
“There were some great things part of the plan, maybe someone down the road will have to do it in pieces, maybe do the classification piece, everybody can see where they are and then come back and do individual sports, I think you maybe have a chance to get football back together and that would be the start,” said Byler.
High School principals can not vote again on another proposal to unify the association until next year. Bonine says in the meantime they’ll look to better define what is a select or private school.
“Cleaning that piece up, because I truly believe as we move forward, I think it’s just going continue to splinter, splinter, and splinter to where we potentially have everything split in all sports,” said Bonine.
