How Kansas’ high school sports czar is managing through these most turbulent times
When Bill Faflick accepted his new job, he said Kansas high school sports wasn’t a finished product.
The executive director of the Kansas State High School Activities Association has been in charge since summer 2018. And since then, he and his staff have introduced preseason jamborees for football, a 36-hole state golf tournament and an entirely new sport: girls wrestling.
“The activities association is not broken,” he told The Eagle in 2018. “But it’s also not perfect. I think we always have to be responsive to the needs of the member schools. We want to lead as we serve. I think it’s critical that we listen to our schools and have a pulse on what they’re saying.
“The association works, but does it work at the highest level possible? I think that’s what we have to continue to look at.”
Two years later, Faflick’s organization has faced perhaps more adversity than at any other time in its recent history. Last year alone, KSHSAA juggled intermittent rain and lightning delays at state competitions for baseball, softball, girls soccer, boys tennis, boys golf, girls swimming and track and field. The state track meet, for instance, extended into Sunday for the first time.
The state’s guiding body for high school sports has also received ongoing backlash for its public-private school construct, wherein private schools St. Thomas Aquinas and Bishop Miege have won 51 and 33 state championships, respectively, in the past decade.
This year, KSHSAA’s budget has encountered a 10-sport revenue shortfall because of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. In March, state officials were forced to make the swift, unprecedented decision of calling off the remainder of Kansas’ basketball tournaments after their quarterfinal rounds, costing half a tourney’s worth of gate receipts at assorted venues.
At last week’s board of directors meeting, KSHSAA voted to allow high school sports practices to begin June 1, meshing with Gov. Laura Kelly’s third phase of plans to reopen the state. The measure passed 48-22, but some school leaders were uncomfortable with the proposal, saying their schools’ administrative bodies would not allow sports to resume that soon.
“This was not a ‘one size fits all’ type of solution,” Faflick said. “I think it’s the right decision because it is the best for the majority of Kansas kids.”
KSHSAA and Faflick have also dealt with some statewide transfer issues and a state baseball venue that was still under construction at Wichita State during the most recent championship tournament.
“We’ll try to make sure that those state events are still first-class, that they are championship events worthy of our kids competing not just for the title but for the experience,” he said. “At this point, we’ll still have good venues, good officials and everything we can provide.”
The revenue shortfall was to be expected, given the crisis of the pandemic. But there’s no getting around the fact that championship-tournament entry fees and ticket costs evaporated for nearly half of the sports that KSHSAA sanctions. Faflick said the association will adjust its expenditures accordingly as best it can through reductions in printing, mailing and travel costs. So far, no salary reductions or furloughs have been instituted, he said.
“We don’t have rentals or officials and some of those expenses, but some of those expenses you can’t recoup because you’ve already committed or purchased, like state medals,” Faflick said.
Addressing the ongoing public-private school debate, Faflick said KSHSAA has paired with the University of Kansas to send a third-party survey to all member schools asking what course of action they’d like to see taken on the matter.
KSHSAA still receives its share of negative feedback, but even now, during some of the most adverse circumstances imaginable, Faflick does his best to keep the association running smoothly.
Another thing Faflick said shortly after taking the job might help explain his philosophy of governing now:
“I like the idea of, ‘Ready, aim, fire.’ I don’t want to be, ‘Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim,’ and never get to the point where you get to begin and implement. You can hold a kid in the blocks too long. If you hold a track kid at the start for too long, they could cramp up, and they’ll be in trouble.
“At some point you’ve got to start the race, but first, you’ve got to get in the blocks. You’ve got to plan, and then you’ve got to implement that plan.”