Hoping to replace OSSAA, Republicans don't know what they don't know and it's everything
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The great Murray Evans, who’s returned to his roots as sports editor of the Lawton Constitution, offered a story the other day that, between the lines, explains a great deal.
For it, he spoke to Lawton Public Schools superintendent Kevin Hime, who happens to be president of the board of directors of the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association.
Also, as you may know, saying so much about something he understands so little, Gov. Kevin Stitt said this about the OSSAA on Feb. 2.
“Last year, we heard stories of students who followed the rules, did everything right to transfer schools and yet the OSSAA denied them the chance to play basketball at their new school,” he said.
“Your ability to play sports shouldn’t be contingent on your parents’ ability to afford an attorney,” he quickly added. “It’s time to eliminate the OSSAA and secure our progress with open transfer.”
On the off chance you’re thinking … That’s crazy, the governor wants to uproot Oklahoma’s entire high school sports paradigm just because it enforced a few rules he disagrees with? … you’re exactly right.
In that same story, which you can read here, Hime told Evans he’d been in the middle of an education campaign.
“I talk to legislators, just to … make sure [they] know there’s more to this than one or two [eligibility] decisions,” he said. “We run all the state championships. We run the band championship. We run fine arts. We run cheer. We run swimming … It’s not just a deal where we can pick five people, set up a board and all of a sudden do what the OSSAA does.”
To be fair, the bill introduced by state senator Casey Murdock (R-Felt) to replace the OSSAA — Senate Bill 1890 — does not call for picking five people, but 19.
Still, the idea that Hime, speaking to legislators, must first explain what the OSSAA actually does before moving on to defend it, lobbying it not be thrown out with the bathwater in favor of Murdock’s bill … well, that totally tracks, because if there’s one thing Republican legislators in this state don’t know, it’s what they don’t know.
Given that, it makes perfect sense they would blow something up before understanding what they’re blowing up.
As I’ve often said about Stitt and, ahem, the less thoughtful members of his party who make up so much of our legislative supermajorities:
What could go wrong?
Inevitably, a lot.
To explain, let’s begin with how the 19 members of the Oklahoma Athletics and Activities Commission — what Murdock wants to call it — would be chosen.
If you’re thinking it would be by public school districts and schools, as the OSSAA’s 17-member board is selected, you’d be wrong.
Instead, 18 of the 19 would be selected by the governor, Senate president pro tempore and house speaker — in concert or separately, the bill does not make it entirely clear — leaving the 19th spot to the state superintendent or a designee.
All but one of the 19 would fall into certain parameters:
• Three public school district administrators or athletic directors from districts with average daily membership of 1,500 students or more.
• Three public school district administrators or athletic directors from districts with an ADM of fewer than 1,500 students.
• Three parents or guardians of students enrolled in public school districts with an ADM of 750 or more.
• Three parents or guardians of students enrolled in public school districts with an ADM of fewer than 750.
• Three parents or guardians of students enrolled in private schools with enrollment of 300 or more.
• Three parents or guardians of students enrolled in private schools with enrollment of fewer than 300.
Problems abound:
• The OSSAA serves 482 schools and fewer than 30 are private. Yet, Murdock’s proposed commission gives six spots to private school parents or guardians, the same number allotted to public school parents or guardians, which hardly seems fair.
• Larger public schools from larger districts may suffer a serious lack of representation, given only three commission members are guaranteed to come from them.
• Because the delineation of parent or guardian commission members falls on both sides of 750 ADM, rather than 1,500, all six such appointees could be from districts the size of Class 4A Chickasha or smaller.
• Still, the biggest issue remains who commission members would be loyal to.
The types of schools from which Murdock’s delineations arise? Their own sense of the right thing to do? Or the people who appointed them — the governor, senate president pro tempore and speaker: Stitt, Paxton and Kyle Hilbert — all Republicans, who would have until Aug. 1 to make their appointments?
If it’s the latter, and why wouldn’t it be given Republican office-holders’ and legislators’ preference for politics over problem-solving, corruption’s bound to become the name of the game.
• Given the disdain legislative Republicans appear to have for public education generally, regulations the OSSAA has introduced to keep public and private schools competitive could well be abandoned by a new OAAC.
• Finally, there are nuts and bolts: Who hires officials? Where do playoffs and state championships take place? Who creates the brackets? Can we finally get coaches’ polls from every sport? Who is on site when events demand commission representation and hands-on involvement? Who takes the tickets? Who makes sure media has space to work and watch the game? Who designs credentials and who sends them out?
The devil is in the details, of course, and the only way a new OAAC could know the details needing addressing would be to hire something approaching 100 percent of the OSSAA’s outgoing staff.
But if you must do that, why replace it at all?
Murdock has his take.
“The OSSAA is governed by a group of unaccountable, out-of-touch bureaucrats who are making money on the backs of Oklahoma children while issuing arbitrary decisions preventing students from participating in school sports,” he said, wrong on the facts all around, in the press release trumpeting his bill. “Past attempts to reform the OSSAA have failed, and it has become impossible to reason with its board of directors.”
Now, does that sound like a guy who badly wants to build a better mousetrap, with real imagination, marketing and the professional communication skills to platform its participants?
Or does it sound like someone who hasn’t gotten his way, whose solution is to eliminate the institution and all of its expertise just because, damn the consequences?
Clearly, it’s door No. 2.
Door No. 2 sucks.
I am waiting for the coaches, cheer coaches, forensics (speech and debate), choir directors, band directors, academic bowl sponsors, e-sports coaches and so on to figure out that this is happening. The pushback, when it happens, should be strong and broad-based. OSSAA has people everywhere.