Split retroactively ratified, focus turns to Friday votes

If coaches left area meetings last week perplexed as to what the future held for prep football and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, at least 2016-17 has some version of an answer, for now.
While Friday is when member schools will look at various proposals regarding splits and much more, Wednesday another declaration by the organization has changed the game again.
Some three years after its initial passing by a general assembly of member principals, the LHSAA executive committee retroactively approved the non-select/select split with a majority vote Wednesday.
This after weeks of confusion, differing reports on what would happen and after Executive Director Eddie Bonine’s surprising announcement that the split was “unconstitutional” as deemed by attorney Mark Boyer and parliamentarian Brian LeJeune.
So what does this mean now?
Well, if none of the other proposals pass Friday, the prep football playoffs will be just the same as they were since 2013 with five non-select state champions and four select state champions crowned.
LeJeune warned the Executive Committee that ratifying the split and going outside the bounds of the LHSAA rulebook could potentially open the LHSAA up to litigation from their members. One of the main sticking points before the vote among members of the Executive Committee is that they didn’t believe they had done anything wrong for them to have to ratify the vote in the first place.
Two members of the Executive Committee voted against the ratification, while one abstained.
The vote goes against the legal and parliamentarian advice given to the Executive Committee and, in Boyer’s previously stated legal opinion, skirts the existing rules in the LHSAA handbook.
Sophie B. Wright principal and Executive Committee member Sharon Clark made an impassioned speech in favor of the ratification, saying she wanted to best represent the principals of the state, who have voted in favor of the split three times since 2013.
Clark received a round of applause from the roughly 70 principals, coaches and athletic directors who had gathered in the room.
After the split was ratified, Bonine asked the authors of the differing proposals to pull their proposals from the agenda, essentially to not allow the principals to vote on them Friday, and keep the current split intact for the 2016-17 season. The Executive Committee would then meet at the school relations committee meeting to put together a plan, or come to an agreement, on what to be done moving forward.
Essentially, Bonine asked for another year to work toward unifying the Executive Committee and get the entire state moving toward one objective, whether that be in favor of any kind of split or of unification.
If the Executive Committee could not come up with a plan at the school relations committee meeting in February, the Executive Committee would call a special session in June to further the talks.
It was a plea that may still fall on deaf ears from principals and athletic directors that have seemingly now lost all of their trust in the LHSAA.
One proposal was pulled Wednesday – the 32-team Class 6A proposal was pulled by the author.
The remaining items, however, continue to sit on the agenda though further action Thursday may remove more.
Bonine as well as the coaches’ association Director Terence Williams also suggested the metro/rural plan be removed, but as of now it still remains.
But three big measures also remain on the agenda. Mandeville Principal Bruce Bundy has a proposal up to return to the five-class system.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are a tabled proposal from the School-Relations Committee last year calling for the split in 3A, 2A and 1A instead of all five classes.
Then, there’s the big one. A proposal by Many Principal Norman Booker that would expand the select/non-select playoff split to basketball, softball and baseball, effective immediately.
In many ways it is that final tid bit – “effective immediately” – that is causing the biggest issue with LHSAA officials as it would throw the LHSAA’s currently negotiated contracts with venues for state championships in jeopard.
During his comments, Booker said he would consider pulling his proposal from the agenda, but said he would need some convincing because he was fighting for “hundreds of other principals” who wanted to see it passed.