Brother Neal Golden, S.C. '57 CJ sat down with Brother Martin Principal Ryan Gallagher '00 to talk about the recent formation of the Louisiana Select Association (LSA), an organization formed this summer as the result of a surprising vote by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) principals at their annual meeting in January. Principal Gallagher is a member of the Executive Committee of the LSA.
To understand why the January vote shocked so many people, recall that the LHSAA mandated that football playoffs be split starting with the 2013 season. Select schools, defined as all private schools plus magnet or charter public schools that attract more than 25% of their student body from outside their attendance zone, compete for the football championships separately from the rest of the public schools. The select schools were grouped into four divisions based on enrollment for their playoffs. Brother Martin is in Division I, which consists of just the twelve select schools in Class 5A.
In 2016, the LHSAA expanded the split playoffs to four other sports: boys and girls basketball, baseball, and softball.
The following year, the association made it harder to reunite schools in the playoffs by passing a proposal requiring a two-thirds vote to change the LHSAA constitution.
That brings us to January 2019 when the principals passed a proposal to allow the select schools to run their own playoffs.
“The whole way it played out was really shocking,” says Principal Gallagher. The first proposal to be voted on allowed the select schools to organize their own baseball playoffs. “Baseball got shot down. We all said, if baseball didn’t pass, none of them will pass. Then the principal of a non-select school asked for a revote on baseball.” The subsequent discussion centered around whether giving select schools control of their baseball playoffs would affect sponsorships. “We all felt like it wouldn’t since we’re all LHSAA schools. So the proposal passed on the revote.” Subsequent proposals for the other split playoff sports also passed. Since select schools make up only 1/3 of LHSAA membership, that meant that approximately half of the non-select schools approved the proposals.
So in June, the select schools formed their new organization. “All the LSA is trying to do is organize playoff structures and hold championship events. It’s just an organizing mechanism,” says Gallagher.
With football season beginning, the LSA Executive Committee will meet next Tuesday (September 3) to review the bids from colleges for hosting the four football championship games. “Tulane and Southeastern Louisiana are expected to bid on all four divisions. University of Louisiana at Lafayette said they could lease the stadium to us, but they could not host the event.” All three universities face the possibility of a conflict if they were to host their conference championship games or, in the case of SLU, an FCS playoff game, all of which would be the first weekend in December when the select school finals are scheduled. “Tulane is very concerned about that. They know they’ve got a pretty good team this year. So their bid may include a contingency that says Yulman Stadium is available only if the Green Wave are out of the running to host the American Athletic Conference championship game.”
“The ideal situation is to have all four championship games at the same location. If that’s not feasible, then we would spread them out over several venues.” The target dates are the first Friday and Saturday in December, which is a week ahead of the non-select schools traditional championship games in the Superdome.
Gallagher noted, “The last six or seven years, we’ve underestimated the brand of the select schools. Now that we’ve organized, we’re seeing that people want our business, which is really nice.”
Looking ahead to basketball, the LSA is discussing the logistics of hosting a Final Four in each division at a single site, as has been done by the LHSAA. Another question that has yet to be answered is whether or not boys and girls championship games can be played at a single site. The organization is in dialog with the LHSAA as to when those games would be played. Other committees are working on the playoffs for baseball and softball.
Sponsorships are a major issue between the LHSAA and the LSA. “LHSAA has contracted with Outfront Marketing, which is responsible for procuring sponsorships for the LHSAA to host the championship events. We’ve asked the LHSAA what sponsorships we can expect for the select school state championships. They sent a response from Outfront saying that select schools cannot get their own corporate sponsorships. But we don’t want separate sponsorships. We want a piece of the LHSAA sponsorships because we’re LHSAA schools. The LHSAA hasn’t recognized the LSA as a subgroup [like the Coaches Association or the Officials Association]. And that’s fine. All LSA is trying to do is organize playoff structures and hold championship events,” says Gallagher, “It’s just an organizing mechanism. We pay membership dues, and you don’t recognize us as anything different. We need to know what we can expect in order to run these events to make sure they’re as good as can be for the student athletes. That’s the crux of the sponsorship issue. I don’t think any of the sponsors are happy with the select schools not playing in the Superdome with non-select schools. Some will try to put that on us, but it’s important to remember that all LHSAA member schools were allowed to vote on this in January.”
Gallagher insists, “There has been no discussion of separating and forming our own organization. Some of the non-select school principals think that is what might happen. But since day one, we’ve said we’re not interested in splitting into two organizations. We don’t want to deal with eligibility. We don’t want to host a select school cross country championship or volleyball championship.” In addition, the select schools in North Louisiana are widely scattered. “If we ever broke off into two associations, we’d have to open up membership to non-select schools. Otherwise Loyola of Shreveport would have nobody to play. The association wouldn’t be able to sustain itself.”
Principal Gallagher sees movement toward reuniting all the schools in the playoffs. “Select schools organizing and pointing out flaws in the way things are done has us in the best position we’ve ever been in to reunify.” Proposals will be placed on the agenda of the January 2020 principals meeting to amend the bylaws to reunite the playoffs sport by sport. “You can do it in each of the sports individually outside the LHSAA constitution. It takes only 51% to change the bylaws. Even if football doesn’t pass, we hope to get the other three sports reunited.”
Stay tuned. The 2019-20 school year will be quite interesting on the athletic front.
- Article written by Brother Neal Golden, S.C. ' 57 CJ
