On January 28, the Legislative Council will meet in Aurora. Below is information about the meeting, including links to the agenda and proposals that will be considered.

Where: Radisson Denver Southeast (3155 S. Vaughn Way, Aurora)

Files

• Agenda (.pdf)
• Full packet (.pdf)
• All proposals (.pdf)
• April 2015 minutes (.pdf)

Meeting info

• Schedule
• Proposals
• Committee reports

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Schedule

Thursday, January 28, 2016

• 7:45-8:30 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
• 8:30 a.m. – Meeting Convenes (Arapahoe/Douglas)
• 10 a.m. – Coffee/Tea/Soft Drink Break
• 11:45 a.m. – Lunch
• 1 p.m. – Meeting Reconvenes

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Action Items

Note: Constitutional Proposals require 2/3 vote for approval; Administrative and Sport Proposals requires majority vote for approval, unless otherwise noted.

[divider]

Action items — Committee reports

Note: Require majority vote for approval, unless
otherwise noted. Some committee will report at the April meeting. Those are noted.

The Legislative Council meets in January. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — A proposal headed to the January 2016 Legislative Council would completely change the way transfers are handled in Colorado.

In short, if passed by the body, the proposal would treat every single transfer the same — family moves, athletic motivation, hardships, and so on. The lone exception proposed would be giving full eligibility to a student who “moves as the result of a documented military move.”

The Legislative Council meets on Jan. 28. Find a complete agenda, and list of proposals, on this page.

It is pretty clear that the most public interest leading up to that meeting will focus on the transfer rule proposal, ADM 2.

This new transfer rule would make all summer transfers across the board eligible for the final 50 percent of the regular season, as well as the entire postseason. Mid-year transfers would be restricted to sub-varsity play from the time they transferred to the end of the school year.

Again, students who transfer because of a military move would be excepted, and be given full eligibility.

The proposal, which would change the existing CHSAA bylaws, was put forth by the Denver Prep League. According to the rationale submitted along with the proposal, “This creates a clear, understandable, and enforceable transfer rule. All transfers play subvarsity for the first 50 percent of a season, with the exception of mid-year transfers who are subvarsity for the remainder of that school year.”

As part of the proposal, sections 1800.3 through 1800.7 of the CHSAA bylaws would be deleted. Those sections: Bona Fide Move, Summer Transfer, Mid Year Transfer & Athletic Transfer, and Hardship.

It is unclear as to the level of support the proposal has around the state. However, in the past, the Legislative Council has resisted most changes to the transfer rule.

Elsewhere, another proposal that should garner state-wide interest is one that would change the way the Class 2A state cross country meets are scored. Currently, a team can run six runners in the race, with three scoring. The proposal would change that to six running, four scoring.

Among the other proposals:

• An amendment to bylaws that would only allow changes to Rule 1500 (dealing with the Classification of Schools) no later than six months prior “to the classification going into effect.”
• One deals with membership to the Association. This proposal would stiffen the requirements of application, and lengthen it to a 24-month process, unless otherwise recommended by CLOC. According to the rationale for the proposal, “Many schools are seeking membership simply to populate their schools and hold students, but the commitment to education-based athletics in some cases is suspect. This creates more rigorous standards for membership.”
• Find the full list of proposals, and an agenda, here.

On April 16, the Legislative Council will meet in Aurora. Below is information about the meeting, including links to the agenda and proposals that will be considered.

Where: Radisson Denver Southeast (3155 S. Vaughn Way, Aurora)

Files

• Agenda (.pdf)
• Full packet (.pdf)
• All proposals (.pdf)
• January 2015 minutes (.pdf)

Meeting info

• Schedule
• Proposals
• Committee reports

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Schedule

Thursday, April 16, 2015

• 7:45-8:30 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
• 8:30 a.m. – Meeting Convenes (Arapahoe/Douglas)
• 10 a.m. – Coffee/Tea/Soft Drink Break
• 11:45 a.m. – Lunch
• 1 p.m. – Meeting Reconvenes

[divider]

Action Items

Note: Constitutional Proposals require 2/3 vote for approval; Administrative and Sport Proposals requires majority vote for approval, unless otherwise noted.

[divider]

Action items — Committee reports

Note: Require majority vote for approval, unless
otherwise noted. Some committee will report at the April meeting. Those are noted.

On Jan. 29, the Legislative Council will meet in Aurora. Below is information about the meeting, including links to the agenda and proposals that will be considered.

Where: Radisson Denver Southeast (3155 S. Vaughn Way, Aurora)

Files

• Agenda (.pdf)
• Full packet (.pdf)
• All proposals (.pdf)
• April 2014 minutes (.pdf)

Meeting info

• Schedule
• Proposals
• Committee reports

[divider]

Schedule

Thursday, January 29, 2015

• 7:45-8:30 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
• 8:30 a.m. – Meeting Convenes (Arapahoe/Douglas)
• 10 a.m. – Coffee/Tea/Soft Drink Break
• 11:45 a.m. – Lunch
• 1 p.m. – Meeting Reconvenes

[divider]

Action Items

Note: Constitutional Proposals require 2/3 vote for approval; Administrative and Sport Proposals requires majority vote for approval, unless otherwise noted.

[divider]

Action items — Committee reports

Note: Require majority vote for approval, unless
otherwise noted. Some committee will report at the April meeting. Those are noted.

The CHSAA All-School Summit will be held Thursday, July 31 and Friday, August 1 at the Denver Marriott South.

The hotel is located at 10345 Park Meadows Dr., Littleton, CO 80124.

The new Athletic Director meeting will start at 8 a.m. Thursday, and the All-School Summit (all athletic directors) will begin at 1:00 p.m. Thursday. The Summit will conclude around noon on Friday.

More information is below.

• RSVP for the Summit
• Hotel reservations can be made now by clicking here. (Reservation deadline is July 7th!)

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Agenda

Download: All-School Summit agenda (2014)

https://old.chsaanow.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014-All-School-Summit-Agenda.pdf

Download here: 2015-2016 calendar (.pdf)

https://old.chsaanow.com/wp-content/uploads/calendars/2015_2016-CHSAA-Sport-Calendar.pdf

CHSAA’s Legislative Council met on Thursday at the Red Lion Hotel Southeast in Aurora. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)

AURORA — The fields for the Class 4A boys and girls basketball tournaments have been reduced from 48 to 32 teams.

The change, first proposed by the basketball committee in February, was approved by CHSAA’s Legislative Council on Thursday morning. An amendment put forth by the Jeffco League specifically sought to keep the fields at 48 teams, but it was defeated 38-32.

The change was made in hopes of making the tournaments more competitive, as well as reducing travel across the state.

“They knew that wasn’t going to be popular in some areas, but 4A is not unlike 1A, 2A or 3A in terms of the amount of travel,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann, who oversees basketball. “So there were a lot of travel issues in the tournament, particularly in the first round.

(Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)

“Additionally, the committee did some hard work in looking at previous first-round games, and looking at the margin of victory in those games. They found they were quite a few blowouts in those games, and wanted to eliminate that and get a more competitive bracket in going to 32.

“That being said, who knows how long the 32-team bracket will be. 4A has gone back and forth with that concept a couple of times.”

The basketball committee sent out a survey to administrators in the winter, and results showed people favored cutting the field.

“It was overwhelming from the 4A administrators,” Borgmann said. “They felt like 48 was too large a field for the state basketball tournament, so they dropped that number down to 32.”

Jeffco’s amendment argued that since the 4A classification was actually adding teams in the 2014-16 cycle, playoff spots shouldn’t be reduced. 

“The basketball committee looked at all of that, and it still seemed to be an overwhelming number that wanted it at 32,” Borgmann said. “Jeffco’s amendment certainly had some logic to it. Again, we’ll see where it goes with this.”

Additionally, the 4A boys and girls Great 8s have been moved to home sites.

An amendment changed 5A basketball’s seeding from a two-day process to a one-day event, as well.

5A football seeding committee set

(Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)

In December, the football committee generated a lot of buzz when it announced its desire to use a seeding committee in determining the 5A playoff field.

A proposal was brought forward at January’s Legislative Council meeting, but ultimately struck because it wasn’t yet polished. Well, a more refined proposal was back at this Legislative Council meeting — and passed by a wide (66-6) margin.

It means 5A football’s field of 32 will still be set by the Wild Card points, but their placement on the bracket will be determined by a seeding committee. Those teams will be seeded Nos. 1-8 into four quadrants, something similar to what basketball does for its larger-classification tournaments.

The seeding committee will be made up of administrators, one from each conference. No coaches will be allowed. In addition to seeding teams Nos. 1-32, they’ll also seed Nos. 33-5o to determine Week 10 matchups.

Among the criteria that the seeding committee will use:

• Wild Card points
• Head-to-head competition
• Common opponents
• Overall record
• League standing
• Strength of schedule
• An RPI ranking system developed by RockyPrep.com

Conference champions will be guaranteed a top-16 seed, and thus a first-round home game. The committee “will attempt to place the top two seeds from each conference in separate quadrants.” Conference opponents will not face one another in the first round.

Short stuff

• Wrestling’s enrollment number cutoffs have changed. Here’s a separate story on that development.
• Hockey’s attempt to split into two classifications was shot down. The proposal needed 60 percent of the votes to pass, but only got 46. So the sport will remain unclassified, as it has been since it started in 1976.
• A proposal to move the boys tennis state championships back one week overwhelmingly failed, 62-7. It sought to avoid a schedule conflict with two national tournaments.
• Wheat Ridge boys lacrosse will move up to 5A starting next season.
• An increase in the number of halves or quarters players are allowed to play was approved for field hockey (30 to 36), lacrosse (girls: 34 to 36 halves; boys: 68 to 72 quarters), and soccer (30 to 36 halves). The rationale was that the change will help smaller schools to build their programs by allowing so-called “swing” players to go back and fourth between the JV and varsity programs more often.
• Swimming’s state meets next season were originally going to be spread out over three days. However, an amendment kept the meets at two days.
• CHSAA board president Curt Wilson cited Akron guard Brady Baer as an example of great sportsmanship, specifically his actions during the state tournament.

(Tim Visser/TimVisserPhotography.com)

AURORA — In an effort to even out the number of teams in each classification, wrestling will use its own enrollment number cutoffs to determine classes.

The change was made Thursday at CHSAA’s Legislative Council meeting after a proposal suggesting the move passed. It means wrestling joins football as the only sports to have separate enrollment cutoffs. Every other sport uses figures primarily determined by the number of basketball schools in each classification.

Affected are classes 4A, 3A and 2A. The cutoff was not changed in 5A.

Had a change not been made, wrestling looking at a glaring disparity of teams in each classification. Specifically, Class 4A was set to have 71 teams while 3A would’ve had 38. With the change, 4A and 3A will each have 53 teams.

“It really helps 3A and 4A the most, because that’s where the gross inequity is in terms of numbers,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Harry Waterman, who oversees wrestling. “When we follow a model based on basketball numbers, that where that falls, because there are 229 wrestling schools and seemingly everybody has a basketball program.

“This is really about making an individual sport more balanced. It does go against the philosophy of having every sport (use the same cutoff), but this is going to really help a lot.”

Wednesday’s proposal was a joint effort of the Intermountain, Northern and Colorado Springs Metro (4A and 5A) leagues, but much of the groundwork was laid by the wrestling committee in its meeting.

“We had a lot of input from a lot of different coaches, with Harry’s guidance and his recommendations,” said committee chair Ernie Dererra, the athletic director at Thompson Valley. “We thought it was a good idea to move forward with it, because we felt it was what’s best for the sport.

“Most of the schools in the state have basketball, and that’s where most of our classification numbers come from,” Dererra continued. “Not all of the schools in the state have wrestling, and that’s where that disparity in classification, particularly for 3A and 4A, came from. … It just didn’t seem fair to the 4A kid that they’re facing twice the competition for the same number of opportunities to quality for the state tournament.”

The change will also help solve issues like one that popped up in 2A this year, where one regional only had two wrestlers show up at a specific weight class. That caused CHSAA to pull fifth-place finishers from other regionals to fill a state bracket.

The proposal needed two-thirds of the vote to pass. It got 82 percent. So wrestling will now use the following numbers for cutoffs during the 2014-16 cycle:

On April 17, the Legislative Council will meet in Aurora. Below is information about the meeting, including links to the agenda and proposals that will be considered.

Where: Red Lion Denver Southeast (I-225 & Parker Road, Aurora)

Files

• Agenda (.pdf) Updated April 3
• Full packet: (.pdf)
• All proposals (.pdf) Updated April 11
• January 2014 minutes (.pdf)

Meeting info

• Schedule
• Proposals Updated April 11
• Committee reports Updated April 10

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Schedule

Thursday, April 17

• 7:45-8:30 a.m. – Continental Breakfast
• 8:30 a.m. – Meeting Convenes (Douglas/Jefferson)
• 10 a.m. – Coffee/Tea/Soft Drink Break
• 11:45 a.m. – Lunch (Colorado Room)
• 1 p.m. – Meeting Reconvenes

[divider]

Action Items

Note: Constitutional Proposals require 2/3 vote for approval; Administrative and Sport Proposals requires majority vote for approval, unless otherwise noted.

[divider]

Action items — Committee reports

Note: Require majority vote for approval, unless
otherwise noted. Some committee will report at the April meeting. Those are noted.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — Ultimately, it never even went to a vote.

A proposal which sought to reduce the maximum number of allowed games in Class 4A basketball from 23 to 19 was withdrawn before any action even took place during Tuesday’s Legislative Council meeting. The Northern League, which originally submitted the proposal, moved to withdraw the proposal during the meeting and there were no objections.

“The basketball committee continues to look at maximum number of games, and sent out a survey to member schools,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgman, who oversees basketball. “By a 60-40 margin, the 4A schools indicated that 23 games is their preferred choice. But more than that, the current bylaw allows for the basketball committee to develop a format that would limit 4A schools to 19 games, if that is the will of the membership.”

Similarly, the Northern League’s proposal which would have reduced volleyball to 19 matches was withdrawn. The sport, too, will stay at a maximum of 23 contests.

“The volleyball committee has worked really hard and is very proud of the current format, including the length of the regular season,” said Bethany Brookens, a CHSAA assistant commissioner who oversees volleyball.

Additionally, the slight alteration to the match order at volleyball’s state championships was approved.

5A football seeding committee removed; 8-man gets rid of cross-divisionals

At December’s football committee meeting, Class 5A programs went away from using Wild Card points to determine playoff qualifiers. Instead, they installed a seeding  committee made up seven administrators, one from each league.

However, that seeding committee was removed at the Legislative Council meeting Tuesday. A replacement solution to determine postseason qualification in 5A football could come at the next Legislative Council meeting in April. If it doesn’t, that would mean returning to Wild Card points and the process used in past years.

The 5A schools will meet prior to the April meeting to determine if another qualification format is better. That could be another seeding committee, or another format altogether.

While discussing the football committee Tuesday, 8-man football changed the way its playoff qualifiers are determined. Instead of using cross-over games, which matched the top four teams from each division against one another, qualifiers will be determined by a new criteria.

Included is automatic qualification for league champions, as well as a complex set of ways to fill out the rest of the 16-team field. For a full breakdown, see this amendment (.pdf), which was passed.

Elsewhere:

• The format for girls soccer’s Class 2A was approved. It will have a 12-team postseason, moving 3A from a 32-team bracket to 24 teams. 2A will begin play in the spring of 2015, meaning girls soccer will have classes 2A, 3A, 4A and 5A. This change does not affect boys soccer, which has 3A, 4A and 5A.
• File this away for later: A proposal passed which gives CHSAA discretion to add a classification “based on the growth of the CHSAA membership.” This paves the way for an additional class, such as 6A, to be added down the road. We wrote about the details of adding a sixth classification over the summer.
• There were two changes to the Classification and League Organizing Committee report: Alameda moved from the 4A Jeffco League to the Colorado 7 League and Valor Christian from the 5A Jeffco to the 4A Jeffco. Both of those moves pertain to non-football sports. In Valor’s case, the move was made because the Eagles are competing in the 4A postseason.
• An amendment to the constitution passed which will not allow schools that offer specialized sport training to become CHSAA member schools. However, students at those schools will be allowed to participate in athletics at other schools.
• Teams that play down a classification based upon a lack of success will still be allowed to compete for a state championship. A proposal sought to not allow that, but was shot down. This issue was originally raised in part because Coronado won the 3A football title while playing down last fall.