‘It’s just not fair’: Kansas high school coaches upset by state tournament changes
Kansas high school coaches from all different sports are feeling less than satisfied with how the Kansas State High School Activities Association decided to conduct its postseason play this fall.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the KSHSAA downsized the number of participants in its state tournaments, most notably in volleyball, girls tennis and girls golf, and changed to strict, geography-based pods for state qualifying in volleyball and boys soccer.
These changes have been unpopular with coaches, who argue athletes and teams worthy of playing at the state level are having their seasons ended — sometimes much earlier. They were also perturbed that these changes were made without asking for feedback from the coaches.
“A lot of coaches feel like it’s just not fair,” said Maize boys soccer coach Mike Pfeifer. “We understand there had to be considerations made for the situation we’re in with COVID, but we felt like it wasn’t done fairly to represent the teams that worked hard in the regular season to have a great record. Some of the best teams in the state are going home after one game and that’s kind of a shame.”
KSHSAA president Bill Faflick says he can sympathize with the upset coaches, but that he cannot view sports only through the lens of winning championships as an administrator.
“Is it perfect? No. Do we like it? No. But it is necessary because it’s the responsible thing to do,” Faflick said of the changes.
“As a former coach and a parent of an athlete, I totally get it from that perspective. But I also have to realize there is a bigger picture here and it’s about community health, student health and Kansas health. We can’t define the success of our programs based on whether you’re a state champion or a state qualifier. Success is students participating in a sport all season long and connecting with their peers, their coaches and their school community.”
‘They minimized girls athletics’
Perhaps the sharpest criticism to KSHSAA’s changes came from St. James volleyball coach Nancy Dorsey, who penned a lengthy blog post that recently became a popular share on social media.
In the post, Dorsey points the three sports impacted the most by changes to their state tournament — volleyball, tennis and golf — were all girls sports. She acknowledges that there was no ill intent by the KSHSAA when they decided on their changes, but Dorsey said the consequence, intended or not, was the same: “They minimized girls athletics.”
In volleyball, the state tournament fields were slashed in half — from eight to four teams. After six state tournaments hosted roughly 576 girls last season, this weekend’s seven state tournaments will only feature 336 — nearly half as many.
In girls golf, one fewer team qualified from regionals and teams could bring one fewer golfer (five total) to the state tournament. In total, participants from the four state tournaments shrunk from 384 girls to 276 girls — a 28% decrease — this season.
In girls tennis, state qualifiers were trimmed from six to four entries in singles and doubles this season. In total, state participants shrunk from 288 girls to 192 girls — a 33% decrease — this fall.
“Please,” Dorsey wrote to the KSHSAA, “do not make a decision that impacts so many girls without asking the necessary questions to the people who are actually in the trenches coaching these sports. To do otherwise is negligent at best.”
The KSHSAA strongly pushed back on that narrative, claiming they made the necessary changes they had to for fall sports following the recommendations made to them by the KSHSAA executive board. The same adjustments will be made, if needed, in the spring for boys golf and boys tennis.
“We’ve had to develop some tough skin,” said Cheryl Gleason, KSHSAA assistant executive director in charge of overseeing volleyball and girls tennis. “We don’t take this lightly and we want nothing but the best for our kids. We’re not doing this to be mean. We’re doing this because we feel very responsible for the kids’ safety and their well-being and their families’ safety and well-being. But we know no matter what we do, we’re going to receive criticism.”
‘It’s honestly insane’
The format of the state volleyball tournament has received the most criticism.
Even more than how the teams had to qualify, volleyball coaches are upset by what awaits the final four teams at state this week: a five-matches-in-six-hours gauntlet to crown a champion in a single day.
This challenge issued in a season where no team has played that many matches in a day, based on the recommendation by the KSHSAA.
“My team hasn’t played in more than two matches in a day all season,” St. Thomas Aquinas coach Sarah Ikenberry said. “My players are in great shape, so I think we’ll be fine. But still, you’re playing the most important matches of the season in conditions that we haven’t been able to see or train for.”
In a normal season, teams play three pool-play matches on Friday followed by two bracket-play matches on Saturday. But this season, teams will play three pool-play matches, followed by roughly an hour break, then play two bracket-play matches.
“It’s honestly insane,” said McPherson coach Christy Doile after her team qualified this week. “We’re going to have to figure out how to watch film and try to make adjustments in one hour. I guess KSHSAA doesn’t think volleyball coaches watch film like football and basketball coaches. We try to help our kids. There’s actual strategy behind what we do.”
According to Faflick, the change to the one-day format and tight schedule is all due to mitigating the risk of hosting an indoor tournament with multiple teams during the coronavirus pandemic.
While it may be far from ideal, Faflick said the format was the only one that satisfied the concerns of host sites in Salina, Hutchinson, Dodge City and Emporia who didn’t want 16 different fan bases in their building. It was also a priority to eliminate as many overnight stays as possible.
“We have to remember why these changes were made in the first place,” Faflick said. “Right now we’re in the middle of a health crisis that is impacting every community in Kansas and every school in Kansas. We take no pleasure in making these changes, but it’s our expectation and responsibility to follow the risk mitigation protocols.”
While that answer makes sense on its own, some coaches are asking why volleyball is being treated differently than football.
“I am not going to pretend that I understand why we needed to cut the field of participants to the (volleyball) state tournament in half when I see football games being played where the stands are packed and my high school-aged nephews play in basketball tournaments with no limit on capacity,” Dorsey wrote in her blog post.
As for playing five matches in one day, Gleason believes teams will be able to rise to the challenge.
“During a normal season, which this isn’t, they do that every weekend in a tournament,” Gleason said. “I understand their concerns, but I would tell you that volleyball players are some of the most fit and athletically inclined young ladies we’ve ever seen.”
A unanimous gripe from volleyball coaches is that they were not consulted by the KSHSAA before the changes were made. In her blog post, Dorsey called for changes to be made on the KSHSAA executive board, where only one of the nine members is a woman, and also for the executive board to create an advisory committee of coaches for each sport.
“Our girls are not being represented in a way that I feel is acceptable,” Dorsey wrote.
“If COVID has taught us one thing, it’s that it is easy to get a group of people together via Zoom. We don’t have to have a formal meeting or be in the same place to have a productive or meaningful conversation.”
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‘I just don’t see the logic’
There will never be a state-qualifying method to ensure all of the best teams and athletes in each class reach the state tournament.
But coaches in volleyball, boys soccer and girls tennis say the changes made by the KSHSAA in their sport’s state qualifying will or either already have significantly impacted the quality of the event.
In volleyball and boys soccer, reverting back to geography-bound pods to advance teams was considered a huge step back from the previous format, which split each class in two and seeded teams in bigger brackets.
The downside is represented in the Class 5A boys soccer regions. Four of the five best teams in Class 5A West — Maize South (15-1), Maize (13-2-1), Eisenhower (12-3) and Goddard (9-7) are all in the same pod with only one team advancing to the quarterfinals. Maize and Eisenhower played Thursday, meaning a state title contender will have its season ended in the first round of the playoffs.
In last season’s format, Maize South, Maize and Eisenhower would have been the favorites to secure the two spots from the West region in the Class 5A semifinals. Instead, only one will advance to the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, there are two local regions guaranteed to produce quarterfinalists despite no team in the four-team pod entering with a winning record.
“You look at our region and then you look at other brackets that don’t even have one team above .500 and you start to wonder what the decision-making criteria was like,” Maize coach Mike Pfeifer. “It’s not fair for any of the four teams that are in our regional.”
In volleyball, the two best teams in the state — St. Thomas Aquinas and St. James — played the de facto Class 5A championship game in Tuesday’s quarterfinals. In a normal season, the two teams, both nationally ranked, would be heavy favorites to meet in the championship. Instead, due to their location, they had to play in the quarterfinals with only Aquinas advancing to Saturday’s state tournament in Salina.
“It was an unfortunate situation going into that game knowing that only one of us would have the opportunity to make it to state,” Ikenberry said. “But we just focused on what we could control. We knew we would have to beat everybody anyway to win a championship. The order might be a little different this year, but you still have to win them all to be a state champion.”
A team state championship might have been altered due to the changes made in girls tennis, which cut its state qualifiers from six to four.
Andover was pegged by many as the Class 5A favorite during the season. But after the qualifying was altered, the Trojans settled for a third-place team finish at state. Why the change? Because Andover couldn’t qualify either of its singles players, who were likely to score points at the state tournament, due to the top four singles players in 5A, who finished first, second, third and fourth at the state tournament, being in the same regional.
According to the KSHSAA, grouping teams locally was to limit as much travel as it could. That response has frustrated coaches.
“We couldn’t schedule a game against Northwest during the regular season, but if they were in our region this week then we would play them,” Bishop Carroll soccer coach Mike Skaggs said. “Last week we couldn’t play them, but now we could. What’s different now? It doesn’t make any sense. I get what they were trying to do, but I don’t see the logic.”
In some regards, Faflick and Gleason seemed resigned that coaches and parents will never see things through the scope that the KSHSAA has to look through.
“The No. 1 objective all along was to do everything that we could to make sure we would have a regular season,” Faflick said. “I think most of the coaches across Kansas recognize how fortunate they’ve been to have a season. Any postseason opportunities are a bonus because there are Midwestern states that haven’t done fall activities at all and some who didn’t get to go into the postseason.”
“I would like to remind people that this summer numerous parents were calling us and telling us, ‘Do whatever, but let the kids play,’” Gleason said. “Let them play was always our goal and I’m not saying we’re celebrating the situation we’re in, but we are celebrating that we were able to play and give these kids a postseason tournament.
“But sometimes people complain so much that I think, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have done anything at all.’”
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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