With the District 4-AAA track and field championships history and the AA championships set for today at Shikellamy, it's a good time for what looks like is going to become an annual rant about the need for a third class in PIAA track.
This is prompted mostly by some of Shamokin Area's performances at Wednesday's AAA meet. Because of the scarcity of AAA schools in District 4, only the meet champion in each event automatically qualifies for the state championships. The only other way to qualify is by matching state qualifying standards. No problem there.
So, Shamokin's boys 1600-meter relay, with not even its regular lineup, led defending champion Williamsport for 90 percent of that race until district 400-meter champion Bryant McCorey finally ran down freshman Shane Williams for the win. Shamokin's second-place time was 3 minutes, 27.21 seconds, which is just 1.21 seconds off a 35-year-old school record. Yet these guys aren't good enough for the state meet, since the AAA state qualifying standard is 3:24.03, which for a school the size of Shamokin (or Shikellamy, or Danville, or any of the other AAA schools around here) is ridiculous. Remember, that school record of 3:26.0 has stood for 35 years.
Likewise, one of the members of that relay team, sophomore Matt Gass, almost ran down McCorey in the 400 final, losing by .15 of a second. Gass' time was 51.08 and the AAA qualifying standard is 50.09.
There's no problem with difficult qualifying standards, but for a school like Shamokin, which has 329 boys enrolled in grades 9-11, with the AAA cutoff 306, to compete with schools such as Reading, North Penn (District 1), Harrisburg, Central Bucks West and Hazleton, etc., etc.,, which have far more students to choose from, to be expected to compete effectively is a dream.
For example, of Shamokin's 18 school records, only nine of the boys marks match the AAA state qualifying standard. It's even worse on the girls side. Only five of Shamokin's 18 school records match the PIAA standards, and two of them are held by a former state champion, Mary Jo Faust.
This issue has been simmering in the track community for some time. The Pennsylvania Track and Field Coaches Association has lobbied the PIAA for two more classes for some years, and the PIAA has given the standard answer - they'll look into it.
I'm not sure two more classes are needed, but another one would help greatly. At the very least, if the PIAA doesn't want to add another class, the organization should at least look into changing the enrollment figures for track and field to give athletes from the smaller AAA schools a fighting chance.
Mount Carmel head coach Mike Farronato has been part of the add-a-class movement. He e-mailed The News-Item shortly after Wednesday's meet after talking with Shamokin coach Mike Rogers, attaching a state-by-state list of how many classes each state has for its championships. Without listing all the states, we'll give a sampling of states that are similar in size to Pennsylvania, which has a population of 12,448,279 (2008 estimate) and two classes: New York, 19,490,297, three classes; Florida, 18,328,340, four classes; Illinois, 12,901, 563, four classes; Ohio, 11,485,910, three classes; Michigan, 10,003,422, four classes.
Farronato added that if you check those states' championship meet results and plug Shamokin's 1600 and 3200-meter relay times in to the proper class, the Indians would not only qualify, but medal, in most of those states.
When you throw in the continuing controversy about private (or non-boundary) schools having an advantage over public schools, and the continuing rise of charter schools in the Philadelphia area, the bar is set even higher for small AAA public school kids.