Ohio High School Athletic Association executive director Doug Ute said informal discussion about the potential for tournament expansion started "as far back as 18 years" ago.
The disparity in enrollment between the top and bottom of Division I drove chatter even then. On Thursday, the organization's board of directors unanimously voted to follow through and expand the number of divisions in seven sports .
Baseball, boys and girls basketball, softball and girls volleyball will grow from four to seven postseason divisions and boys and girls soccer will go from three to five.
Changes will take effect for the 2024-25 school year.
"It's a big day," Ute said. "We need to put our student-athletes in a tournament where they have a chance to succeed.
"It's not about winning a state championship. That was never brought up. It's about winning a couple tournament games and making sure they have a chance to compete at that level."
OHSAA tournament expansion: Central Ohio athletic directors, coaches, athletes react
In the affected sports, the disparity in enrollment between the top and bottom of Division I is an average of 939 students.
Ute said the changes were driven by member schools, even though the expansion had to be approved by a majority vote of the 11-member board of directors because it is part of the organization's General Sports Regulations.
"We are a reflection of our membership," Ute said.
The OHSAA announced in December that it would be gathering feedback on postseason expansion . It held six meetings with athletic directors across the state, with the first Jan. 29 in Columbus.
Molly Feesler, Thomas Worthington athletic director and OHSAA board of directors member, said this would bring Ohio "more in line with what other states do as far as state championship ratio to the number of teams participating" and give more student-athletes the chance to compete for titles.
"This was a long and tedious process," Feesler said. "There has been talk for years about the disparity in numbers at the Division I level. We now have something in place that helps to address that."
Divisions I and II will be evenly divided between the top 128 schools, with the remaining divisions split as evenly as possible.
Football has had seven divisions since 2013.
The current four-division setup has been in effect for boys basketball since 1987, girls basketball since 1988 and only slightly more recent for softball (1990), girls volleyball (1990) and baseball (1991).
Boys and girls soccer went to three in divisions in 2000 and 2011, respectively.
Watterson athletic director Doug Etgen voiced concerns about the decision and what comes next. He said he "would have felt more comfortable" if member schools had been allowed to vote.
"This is a drastic change," Etgen said. "There's a lot that goes along with this as far as logistics of travel, site management and finding enough sites to host these (extra) regionals with the dramatic increase in teams.
"We may have voted yes, but there's a lot to this other than just awarding more district championships, regional championships (and) state championships."
Like Watterson, longtime rival and CCL foe DeSales straddles the line between divisions I and II in many sports. DeSales athletic director and baseball coach Tom Neubert pointed out that some of the school's most successful teams, including the defending state champion boys volleyball team and powerhouse wrestling and lacrosse teams, are in Division II.
DeSales won the Division I girls volleyball state title in 2019.
"They had to do something," Neubert said, projecting many of the school's teams could be Division III. "It's nice that they finally admitted that this disparity is doing a disservice to the kids."
The board of directors still will have final authority in determining the number of divisions in each school year, but it plans to use a sliding scale dependent on the number of teams per sport.
Sports with 700 or more teams will have seven divisions, those with 600-699 will have six, and so on down to sports with 199 or fewer teams being grouped in a single division.
The state basketball tournament likely will look more like soccer, where semifinals are played at mid-week, then the seven finals would span two days at University of Dayton Arena.
Ute said he has been in touch with the six district athletic boards to begin planning.
No timeline was provided for addressing individual sports, such as cross country, golf and track and field.
Northridge athletic director Kevin Jarrett, whose district should be one of several in western Licking County to experience growth related to Intel Corp.'s incoming complex, said enrollment adjustments could be easier to take with expanded divisions.
"If we grow, then things will take care of themselves," Jarrett said. "We'll stay in those like-sized divisions, whether we grow or decline."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OHSAA to add tournament divisions in 7 sports, starting in 2024-25
