Home → Sports ( August 1, 2018 )
The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association is in the process of attempting to address two of its most controversial subjects.
The PIAA has held discussions and adopted changes meant to address issues regarding the fairness of competition between public and private schools and the transfers that can increase potential advantages for private schools.
New provisions were added to existing eligibility rules July 18 and were the subject of a PIAA press release two days later attempting to explain the organization's position on some of the related issues.
According to that press release, the PIAA has made 10 modifications to its by-laws since its Board of Directors initiated a review of transfer rules and their implication on competitive balance. Those changes have taken place in 15 months since the PIAA Competition Committee was created.
The changes include:
"PIAA recognizes the challenges of having member schools compete against each other," Shamokin superintendent and PIAA president James Zack said. "The lack of enrollment boundaries, success and perceived competitive advantage over other schools are major issues of which the Board of Directors is well aware and actively pursuing equitable resolution."
The PIAA is identified in the Public School Code as the overseer of interscholastic athletic competition in the state.
Schools are not required to join the PIAA, but any school or group of schools operating on its own would need to train and certify officials, develop playing rules, obtain insurance and defend itself against any litigation.
"It is far more reasonable and favorable to everyone if we work cooperatively to improve competitive equity that is fair to all students and schools," Zack said in the press release, noting that the PIAA has been in place for 105 years.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly determined in 1972 that it was not in the best interest of schools to continue the state championships for parochial schools that had not been part of the PIAA. The PIAA was directed to include private schools as members at that time.
KINGSTON – Nicholas Spitler, a professional disc golfer from Union Dale, posted the lowest score among 27 competitors in Sunday's Keystone State Games and Pennsylvania Senior Games Disc Golf Tournament on the Nesbitt Park Course.
In disc golf, players maneuver around a course, seeing who can complete holes by throwing discs (a Frisbee® or similar disc) into a basket on a pole in the least number of shots.
Spitler won the 30-39-year-old male division with the day's two best scores, shooting 45 in the morning and 46 in the afternoon to finish first five shots.
OXON HILL, Md. – Mackenzie Steele, Taylor Huyck and Bethany Maby, the three leaders of Susquehanna's championship girls' basketball team, were all at the Gaylord National Convention Center July 22-25 with JB Hoops teams playing in the USJN 17U Championships.
Steele was part of the JB Hoops Carra team that won its pool by going 4-1, allowing it to advance to the Bronze Championship Division bracket where it lost in the Wednesday quarterfinals.
Huyck and Maby were on the JB Hoops Coleman team that was 2-3 to finish in a three-way tie in its six-team pool.
Steele had eight points and two steals with JB Hoops Carra opened with a 50-39 win over Rise As One from New Jersey. She had six points in a 50-19 rout of Breakers Ebersole from Rhode Island.
Huyck and Maby hit the 3-pointers that gave JB Hoops Coleman its only two leads in an opening, 50-32 lose to Always 100 Wilmont from Indiana, the unbeaten champion of the pool.
JB Hoops Coleman moved into contention in its pool by winning twice July 23.
Huyck hit four free throws to clinch a 40-33 win over the Cincy Swish from Ohio. Maby had seven assists and two steals in that win. Huyck also had two steals, along with two assists.
Maby and Huyck each had three assists in a 57-31 win over New Heights from New York City.
Huyck had 10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists in a 50-38 loss to the Loudoun Flight from Virginia in a game that decided which team would finish second and advance out of pool play with Always 100. Maby also had two steals in the game.
Huyck was the team's third-leading scorer.
TOM ROBINSON writes a weekly local sports column for the Susquehanna County Transcript. He can be reached online at RobbyTR@aol.com or followed on Twitter at @tomjrobinson.
"Rowdy" Kyle Busch Sweeps Pocono (Furnished by NASCAR)
LONG POND, Penn.--Kyle Busch won both NASCAR races this past weekend at Pocono Raceway. On Saturday, he took the 60-lap Truck Series event, and then on Sunday he cruised to his sixth Cup Series victory of the season.
Busch took the lead on a restart with 40 laps remaining in the 160-lap race, and survived three more cautions before pulling ahead on the race's second and last green/white/checkered finish.
"My teammate (Daniel Suarez) really had me worried," said Busch. "He drove a heck of a race, and on one restart, he almost got me. We did not have a winning car when we unloaded, but the guys kept working on it. There at the end it felt good and was fun to drive."
Suarez, who started on the pole was second.
"Well, I think I learned quite a bit today," said Suarez. "I was good on the short runs, but after five or ten laps, he (Busch) was better than me. I had good restarts, but they weren't great. The team gave me a good race car, now I just have to learn how to make it better."
Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 88 Hendrick Chevrolet finished third.
"We had a good car all day," said Bowman. "We tried to keep our position and finish well. Maybe, if we had started working on some of the earlier leaders, we might have done a little better."
Kevin Harvick won Stage Two and led 30 laps came in fourth.
"It was a really fast Ford that we had today," said Harvick. "It's really bad to finish where we did. That's usually what happens when you have a car as fast as we did today."
Erik Jones was fifth and William Byron was sixth.
Seventh-place finisher, Chase Elliott led 14 laps and took Stage One. He was running second close to the end, but got shuffled back on the race's last restart.
Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, and Denny Hamlin rounded out the remaining top-10 finishers.
Bubba Wallace, driver of Richard Petty's No. 43 took a hard hit into the outside wall on lap 153 after the brakes went out on his Ford.
"Boy, that was frightening," he said. "That is the hardest hit I've ever experienced. There's no more helpless feeling than being in a race car and seeing that you're going to wreck."
Wallace finished 33rd.
Top-10 leaders after 21 of 36: 1. Kyle Busch-891, 2. Harvick-843, 3. Truex-762, 4. Logano-690, 5. Bowyer-677, 6. Kurt Busch-677, 7. Keselowski-644, 8. Larson-626, 9. Hamlin-618, 10. Blaney-612.
Joey Logano was involved in a couple minor accidents and finished 26th. His teammate Brad Keselowski was involved in a wreck and and wound up 38th.
Christopher Bell won his fourth Xfinity Series race of the season as he prevailed over Justin Allgaier in the race's second green/white/ checkered overtime finish.
Allgair was second, followed by Kyle Benjamin, Ross Chastain, John Nemechek, Elliott Sadler, Ryan Reed, Ryan Truex, Cole Custer, and Chase Briscoe.
Top-10 leaders after 19 of 33: 1. Bell-702, 2. Sadler-686, 3. Custer-684, 4. Hemric-679, 5. Allgaier-650, 6. B. Jones-579, 7. Reddick-568, 8. R. Truex-532, 9. Tifft-504, 10. Cindric-484.
Kyle Busch won Saturday's Truck series race. It was his 51st series win and tied Ron Hornaday for the most wins. Hornaday needed 296 starts to reach his 51st win; Busch won his race in just his 145th career start.
The remaining top-10 were: Erik Jones, Dalton Sargeant, Stewart Friesen, Justin Haley, Grant Enfinger, Todd Gilliland, Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton, and Joe Nemechek.
Top-10 leaders after 14 of 23: 1. Sauter-587, 2. Gragson-522, 3. Enfinger-504, 4. Friesen-495, 5. Moffitt-485, 6. Crafton-465, 7. Haley-462, 8. Rhodes-456, 9. Snider-371, 10. Coughlin-356.
In a conversation with NBC Sports, David Ragan praised the racing, the safety of the cars and NASCAR's marketing of drivers, but reiterated his concerns about the financial gap between Cup teams.
Ragan drives the No. 38 Front Row Ford in the Cup Series.
"The gap has gotten larger from the haves and have-nots," Ragan said. "A team like Jasper Motorsports in the early 2000s, they could have a good weekend and a good setup and a good pit crew and they could go and run in the top five. Can Front Row Motorsports run in the top five at Kentucky on a normal weekend? No. There's no way.
"A team like Roush Racing, they're off right now, they can't do it. So the distance between the haves and the have-nots are as great as they've ever been."
How to solve the problem, Ragan admits he isn't sure. He says the sport needs to be cheaper so teams don't require as much sponsorship money to be competitive.
"Now a team owner, when they hire a driver, the first question is 'How much money do you have?' or 'Can you sell a sponsor for me?' " Ragan said.
Ragan admits that there are some such cases that have worked out well for team and driver.
"You look at Matt Tifft and Brandon Jones, they bring money to the team and it's a rent-a-ride and those kids are deserving of a ride," Ragan said. "They do a good job, but it's not always like that because you do have some kids – and I don't need to name names – but there are some kids just having a good time spending their daddy's money and that doesn't help our sport."
Ragan says it is important for new people to enter the sport at the Cup level.
"What creates interest in our sport is for someone to come in and pay his dues and be successful in a reasonable amount of time, " Ragan said. "I think that was possible 25 years ago. I think that Bill Davis, or someone like a Robert Yates, who is not a billionaire could come in and be successful. But we've run those teams out because this is a rich man's hobby. If you don't have half a billion net worth or more, you don't have a chance of making it in NASCAR."
There is no visible solution at this time to the team's money problems. Until something dramatic happens, there will always be haves and have-nots in NASCAR.
Racing Joke: Clint's wife was always complaining about him spending all his free time in a bar, so one night he took her along with him.
"What'll you have?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. The same as you I suppose," she replied.
So, Clint ordered a couple of Jack Daniel's and threw his down in one shot. His wife watched him, then took a sip from her glass and immediately spat it out.
"Yuck, that's TERRIBLE!" she spluttered. "I don't know how you can drink this stuff."
"Well, there you go," said Clint. "And you think I'm out enjoying myself every night."Weekend Racing; The Xfinity and Cup teams will be at the 2.45-mile, 11-turn Watkins Glen road course. The Trucks are idle until August 11.
Sat., Aug 4; Xfinity Series race 20 of 33; Starting time: 3:30 pm ET; TV: NBC.
Sun., Aug. 5; Cup Series race 22 of 36; Starting time: 2:30 pm ET; TV: NBC.
Racing Trivia Question: Which track will host the last race of the season?
Last Week's Question. How many races will there be before the 10-race Chase For the Championship begins? This year's Chase begins September 16 at Las Vegas, which means there will be five more regular season races before it begins.
Gerald Hodges is a syndicated NASCAR photojournalist and author. You may contact him by e-mail at: hodges@race500.com.