2 Major Changes Affecting Reclassification Could Be Coming to GHSA in Near Future
Talks are underway at the GHSA regarding classification that could dramatically alter the future landscape of Georgia high school athletics.
Classification Could Be Based on Competitive Balance, Not Enrollment Size
Is it possible that student enrollment size will no longer be the primary factor in determining how schools are placed in classifications? If competitive-balance reclassification gets enough support and approval, that could very well be the case for GHSA member schools.
The Competitive Balance Reclassification Model was introduced to the GHSA at the Board of Trustees meeting on July 18, 2024, then discussed further at a GHSA State Executive Committee meeting on Oct. 7, 2024, and at the GHSA Board of Trustees meeting on Nov. 20, 2024.
The proposal’s basic concept is fairly straightforward: Enrollment size, or FTE, would no longer be the sole determining factor in assigning schools to classifications. In fact, enrollment size could end up playing no role in GHSA classification, according to Adam Lindsey, who is one of the state’s leading voices on the competitive-balance model.
“That is the plan, to take enrollment out of the picture,” Lindsey said.
Instead, a points system would be used to rank each schools’ overall athletics success over a three-year period across all sports. As determined by that ranking, the five schools in each classification with the most overall athletics success would move up one classification, while the five schools in each classification with the least overall athletics success would move down one classification.
Lindsey is a high school athletic director and a member of the committee that first introduced the competitive-balance proposal to the GHSA almost a decade ago. That same proposal is essentially the one that was reintroduced in 2024 and recently discussed at a GHSA Reclassification Committee meeting on Jan. 24, 2025.
Lindsey said minor tweaks and adjustments have been made to the proposal since that first draft nine years ago.
“I think the first proposal was a bit too much too soon,” Lindsey said.
Perhaps the proposal was a little ahead of its time?
“That’s a safe assumption,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey decided to simplify the plan so that the proposal was easier to understand and has worked to educate coaches and athletic directors about the advantages of the competitive-balance model.
“I bring it up every reclassification cycle,” Lindsey said.
However, following the last cycle, which placed schools in their current classifications for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, Lindsey said he decided that he needed to ramp up his efforts if his competitive-balance proposal was ever going to advance further within the GHSA.
“I decided to start spending my own time and money traveling around and educating athletic directors in the state to see if I could get some momentum going on it,” Lindsey said. “The more people I talked to, the more they seemed to like it.”
With renewed interest, the revised and simplified plan that Lindsey first proposed nine years ago has made its way back in front of the GHSA Reclassification Committee and will likely be on the agenda for further discussion at the GHSA’s next Reclassification Committee meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2025.
The plan has some significant support among the members of the GHSA, including GHSA Executive Director Tim Scott, who said one of the proposal’s primary goals is to keep schools on “level footing,” especially in the state playoffs.
“There is still a lot of discussions on it, trying to work some things out within the Reclassification Committee,” Scott said. “But we are looking at how schools perform in the state playoffs, and we have a formula (as part of the competitive-balance proposal) that looks at that, with points. And there has been all kinds of questions that have come up, such as, ‘What happens when a school has 32 sports versus a school that has 10 sports in the same classification?’ Obviously, the school with 32 sports is going to score more points towards the state playoffs just for the fact that they have more activities.”
Scott said this is where part of the new proposal comes in and accounts for that exact scenario.
“What we would do is take the number of points that they have and divide it by the number of sports that they participate in,” Scott said. “That gives us what we call our Next Gen Number.”
That would ultimately be the number used in the competitive-balance model to determine which classification a GHSA member school would be placed in, thus replacing enrollment size as the determining factor.
However, there’s still much discussion to be had before that proposal becomes reality.
“Ultimately, it has to go before the executive committee before anything can be voted on, and we’re a long way from that right now,” Scott said.
Number of Classifications Could Be Reduced From 8 to 4
At the end of the GHSA Reclassification Committee meeting on Jan. 24, 2025, committee member Eli Connell raised the topic of the GHSA going from eight classifications down to four classifications.
“It’s still very much just a concept right now,” Connell said in an interview with ITG Next about addressing the move to four classifications.
Connell is the athletic director for Monroe Area High School located in Monroe, Georgia, and as a committee member, he is working on a proposal that he said will outline the advantages of reducing to four classifications.
“Travel has always been the biggest issue for just about every member school, and I hope to present something that would cut travel for everyone,” Connell said.
His concept would include just four classifications, but with more regions, which would create less travel and more natural rivalries with nearby schools.
“There’s no reason we need to stop with just eight regions,” he said.
Connell said his plan would include a power ranking system to determine playoff seeding and that each classification would include two separate playoff brackets, thus keeping the total number of state champions at eight.
Although Connell introduced the four-classification concept, he said the idea was not solely his.
“This (idea) has spawned from me talking to many people around the state,” Connell said. “I think there are several areas that need addressing through reclassification.”
Connell said much more information is needed before he presents his proposal to the Reclassification Committee at their next meeting on Feb. 25.
At Connell’s request, the GHSA sent out a brief survey to all member schools. Connell said he’ll weigh the information collected in the survey as he moves forward with his proposal for four classifications.
