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Rules to Open Up Competition in High School Athletics Rejected

Even though just 18 percent of all Ohio high schools are private, they dominate sports like football, where they won five of six state championships last year.

The so-called Competitive Balance measure would have included several factors to help nudge small, over-performing schools out of lower divisions to make them play bigger schools. The most controversial part would have inflated the enrollments of schools that make the playoffs and win titles…that was a problem for Dan Gerrick, principal at athletic powerhouse St. Francis DeSales High School.

Dan Gerrick: “The schools that have had success, I think that immediately turned them off to the proposal.”

Garrick was one of more than 600 high principals to cast a vote on the proposal…it failed by just 29 votes.