There were two noteworthy resolutions passed at the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association (OSSAA) Board of Directors meeting last week that will impact local high school athletic programs.
The first and most directly impactful was the pledge by the OSSAA to raise fees for officials in the state playoffs in all sports. According to many people involved, this was absolutely necessary, as payment for regular season games, which are disbursed by the individual schools, actually exceeded the playoff pay received by officials from the OSSAA.
“There is a shortage of officials as it is, so hopefully this will help keep the good ones around and encourage others to jump in,” said Sapulpa athletic director Mike Rose. “Officials were being paid more for regular season games than playoff games. So the OSSAA raise for officials in playoffs was definitely needed.”
One important point noted by local official Johnny Johnson, who was the official coordinator for the area (the person who assigns officials to each specific game) until about a year ago, is that the exact amount of the pay raise wasn’t actually specified at the board meeting.
“It’ll be good. I haven’t seen any numbers on it, though,” said Johnson, who often referees basketball, baseball and softball games in Kiefer and Bixby because he lives nearby. “For a long time, they were paying us less for the playoffs than we got for the regular season. Most of us wouldn’t even go work the playoffs anymore. That doesn’t even make sense, does it? I haven’t worked the playoffs in a few years, I just quit working them. I don’t referee just for money, but there’s also a principle to this thing, too.”
The board also agreed to boost the mileage pay they give officials to be in line with what the standard IRS rate is, 65.5 cents per mile.
Bobby Kelley, the President of the Oklahoma Association of Sports Officials (OASO) for the past eight years, believes the changes will definitely help.
“We have not seen the actual numbers on the pay raise from the OSSAA Board for basketball playoff officials quite yet, but we know the increase was based on the average regular season pay for each sport, and the OSSAA was able to bring up the playoff game fee to that or more, particularly with the mileage increase,” Kelley acknowledged. “Previously, they were paying 35 cents a mile round trip, so almost doubling the mileage rate was another huge step in raising the playoff pay for all sports.”
Longtime basketball and football official Rick Smith, who lives in Broken Arrow, is also glad to see the raise but is most excited about the mileage increase.
“It will help, you would take a pay cut to do playoff games,” said Smith earlier in the week in between refereeing games in the Bishop Kelley Summer Basketball League. “I haven’t heard exactly what it is yet. I know the mile increase will be helpful. Sometimes when they bring west side teams over here and send our teams over there, I’ve had to go to Del City before and Midwest City and Edmond Santa Fe in the playoffs and it adds up. The gas is actually more than the game fee, so that will be big.”
And because there has been a shortage of officials for a while, the hope is that a pay increase can help keep current officials and even attract more.
“Both the schools and the OSSAA have really stepped up and helped our effort to recruit new officials and retain veteran officials with the increases in pay the past two years and it is very much appreciated,” said Kelley, who noted that the OASO has approximately 150 basketball officials, and they assign officials for 50-plus schools in the Green Country area. “Our association saw a significant jump in membership last year after the regular season pay increase and I am sure the bump in pay for the playoffs by the OSSAA will increase the number of officials that put in for the playoffs starting this year.”
The second issue that the Board of Directors addressed was the ongoing debate about how to address private school success in certain sports. Back in January, the Board made headlines by suggesting that it might completely separate public and private schools in the playoffs for all sports and there was a bit of a public debate about that for a while.
While the Board continued to deliberate on the topic, even Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond got involved, threatening the OSSAA with legal action if it separated public and private schools. After that, the board started to consider other, less extreme possibilities, including the recommendations of the Rule 14 committee it set up last fall. The main feature of the guidelines the committee suggested was that “successful” private schools (defined as a team finishing top four in the state in its class two out of three years) would bump up a classification – and keep doing so as long as it enjoyed success.
At last week’s meeting, the board passed a motion by a narrow 6-5 margin to let the member schools vote on those recommendations.
One example of Rule 14 being implemented was Holland Hall’s girls’ basketball team, which had bumped up from Class 4A to 5A and faced Sapulpa in the 5A state final this past season (with the Chieftains barely prevailing 75-74). Under the current rules, Holland Hall would stay in 5A, no matter how well they did. If these new guidelines pass and Holland Hall advances to at least the 5A state semifinals again next season or the year after, they would get bumped up again to 6A.
