Wisconsin School Uses Loophole, Sues To Make Football Playoffs

We've discussed this before, but high school football is a bit different in Wisconsin than it is in Minnesota. In Minnesota, the high school football playoffs include everybody, with the exception of the bottom teams in sections that have more than eight teams (there aren't many).

In Wisconsin, teams have to finish .500 or better in league play to qualify for the state football playoffs. Upon completion of the season, the WIAA puts together a list of qualifying teams, which totals 224 schools (32 teams in each of seven divisions). Teams are placed in divisions based on their overall enrollment, then grouped in pods of eight teams each. The top four teams in each pod are seeded, with first-round matchups drawn up to minimize travel as much as possible.

This year, the process in Wisconsin was questioned as seriously as it's been in any year since it was implemented.

Messmer/Shorewood is a Milwaukee-area co-operative. Its players and supporters have dubbed it "Messwood." Thanks to the involvement of a lawyer, this whole situation is a mess.

The program left its conference, the Woodland, without approval from the WIAA in 2007. Such a move carries a four-year ban from postseason participation, as noted in WIAA bylaws. As a result, 2011 was to be Messmer/Shorewood's last year of playoff ineligibility.

The team posted a 4-2 record in the Midwest Classic North Conference, the league it left the Woodland to join. Such a record would normally be enough to gain playoff eligibility, but because Messmer/Shorewood was in its last year of the four-year ban, the WIAA chose to exclude the team from the playoffs.

However, Messmer/Shorewood argued that the rule's placement in the bylaws makes it look like it only applies to schools that leave a conference to become an independent, not schools that leave one conference to join another. As a result, Messmer/Shorewood sued the WIAA for playoff inclusion.

And won.

I'm not going to lie. There's a part of me that says "Good ... this will teach the WIAA to have sloppily-written bylaws." There's no excuse for an organization that oversees the number of athletes, coaches, and schools the WIAA does to have a rule that is this badly written.

However, I hate the message this sends. Messmer/Shorewood was fully aware of the punishment they faced for leaving the Woodland Conference. They decided to go anyway, feeling that the move was in the best interests of the program. The fact that they were able to turn things around and put together a competitive program in the new league validates that decision. But they did it knowing full well that they were facing a four-year postseason ban.

When they put together a nice season in the fourth year of that four-year ban, they looked at the rule, saw an opportunity, and sued.

Never mind that they agreed to the ban when they switched leagues. Never mind that they understood the intent of the rule and were just fine living by that rule. Never mind that the WIAA had to take a team out of the playoffs that thought they had made it, in order to include Messmer/Shorewood.

When opportunity knocks, sue. That's what we do in this country, I guess.

Easy to accept, but harder to understand, and even harder to like.

Elk River Pauses Football Due to Hazing

While some high schools in the Northland struggle with low numbers, others are struggling for different reasons.

(If you didn't see the DNT article over the weekend, Wrenshall is going to field only a junior varsity team this season, Mesabi Academy will field no team, and Cotton merged with AlBrook. Also, on the fringe of the area, Laporte merged with Walker-Hackensack-Akeley.)

Elk River has pressed the "pause" button on their football season one week prior to its launch. Instead of preparing to play Becker on Sept. 2, the Elks are waiting for the results of a hazing investigation that has been launched.

(Warning: Some more sensitive readers may find the contents of the article a little disturbing.)

A hazing incident that forced the Elk River High School varsity football program to suspend practice this week involved some players striking other players with broom or mop handles, a source close to the investigation said Thursday.

The hazing apparently occurred Monday and Tuesday between morning and afternoon practices, the source said. Players entering the wrestling room were accosted, forced to the floor and struck or poked on or near the buttocks. Players were dressed in their uniforms, including padding, and no one was forced to disrobe, the source said. It's apparently the second year such hazing has occurred at the school.

Up to 25 players may have been involved as either victims or perpetrators, but the source said the final number will probably drop once the investigation is completed. Elk River officials said they have hired the Minneapolis law firm of Ratwick, Roszak & Maloney to conduct the investigation.

The program was suspended Wednesday after the parent of a player reported that her son was the victim of hazing.

There are more details in story, but I'll leave it up to you to read it at your discretion.

The investigation should conclude by Friday, and the article sites Elk River's athletic director as saying he doesn't expect the team to miss any scheduled games.

My wife noted that hazing happens all over, and she is right. What is debatable is where the line is, and when hazing goes from harmless fun to something that merits a criminal investigation, suspensions, and other sorts of discipline.

If the allegations printed in the Star Trib are true, it's not the end of the world. What Elk River will likely do is pin down the athletes responsible, issue a stern punishment against at least some of them, and move on with the football program.

This doesn't sound like a situation where a high percentage of Elk River's football roster was involved, and therefore a long-term suspension of football won't be needed.

Instead, the school is likely to try to send a strong message to its athletes. "Making the freshmen carry the seniors' pads" is acceptable hazing, but "hitting and poking them with mop handles" is not.

Seems like a pretty simple policy for kids to adhere to.

Local Sports Coverage

As many of you know, I am now working for Red Rock Radio as their Sports Director.

Last year, I tried to keep tabs on local high school football. The spreadsheet I worked on was viewed by an unknown number of you. I'm hopeful it was a good number.

We're going to try that again. I have put together a few Wisconsin schedules so far, but am struggling to get information on Minnesota teams. If you have any schedules, feel free to send them my way.

For now, you'll see links to some area college conferences on the upper left-hand side of the page.

WIAA Passes Bad Idea This Time

A couple weeks ago, we noted that the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association was on the verge of putting a bad idea in as a new statewide rule.

The state's governing body for high school sports tried to push a bad idea on its member schools last year, but they were unsuccessful.

This time, the WIAA got its wish. It's board approved a proposed change to the football calendar, one that will start the regular season one week earlier than usual. Instead of starting the last Friday in August, teams will play Week 1 in the middle of the month.

It means teams in Wisconsin will have three games played before school even starts, and it has a lot of other bad parts to it.

• Coaches who are already not making nearly enough money for the work they put in will have to start their practices five days earlier than usual, meaning that much more work during what should be summer vacation. This is along with recent changes that allowed for organized team workouts for a period during the summer months.
• Teams will have to play in what is typically very warm weather -- at least by Wisconsin standards. Many times, games played early in the season are stopped for mandatory water breaks. Now, this will happen more often, slowing the pace of games and putting more players at risk for heat-related problems, whether it be in practices or games.

The basis for the move is somewhat understandable, as the schedule had teams playing three games in ten days should they advance to the second round of the Wisconsin playoffs. Instead of pushing the season back a week, and sending championship football teams more into an overlap with winter sports practice schedules, the board chose to possibly inconvenience football coaches a bit by having them start their season earlier.

Of course, as we noted when we first brought you this story, the state's coaches seemed split over whether the "three games in ten days" issue was really a problem to begin with.

Now, we'll see how they like starting earlier, and if it's worth a little less strain on the athletes in the late fall to make this switch with the calendar.

The WIAA's Annual Bad Idea

Last summer, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association tried to implement what was obviously not a very good idea.

Their plan to realign the state's high school football universe into districts instead of conferences was voted down, but that didn't stop the association from doing more potential damage to the sport.

This summer's bad idea also involves football. The WIAA wants to find a way to take away the cluster of games that teams are stuck with as the playoffs begin. Currently, the state's teams play their final regular season games on a Thursday night, then open the playoffs on the following Tuesday. Second-round games are scheduled for Saturday of that same week, giving teams who reach the second round three games over a ten-day stretch.

Since they're high school-aged athletes, the WIAA thinks this might be too much. They're looking at a plan that would start the regular season one week earlier. While this might seem reasonable, it shortens the offseason for coaches who are already strained and stretched thin with the implementation of summer workouts for teams.

It also means one-third of the regular season will be played before Labor Day, and therefore before school starts in the state.

The state's coaches association is seeking a better solution.

The WFCA sent a letter to the state's high school sports governing body this week asking it to reopen discussions about how to change the football calendar to eliminate the 10-day stretch in which playoff teams play three games.

The communication comes in the wake of a Board of Control vote last week to move ahead the start of the season five days beginning in 2011, a decision the WFCA fears will cut into the numbers of struggling programs and possibly cause coaches to leave the business. The WFCA also asked for the opportunity to work with the WIAA to find another solution.

"We right now have the expertise of a large number of school administrators and WIAA people and coaches who are pretty darn sharp," WFCA executive director Dick Rundle said. "And to think that we couldn't sit down and come up with a better solution is unbelievable."

Down time for coaches in all sports has shrunk since the WIAA approved limited summer contact in all sports. For football coaches, summer vacation is even shorter because of summer conditioning and the start of practice, which eliminates August vacation time.

When the WIAA put this plan in place, they did it with a half-assed survey of the member schools. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article explains, the survey didn't thoroughly get an analysis of what schools were thinking about this situation.

This spring, schools were sent a survey with four options: start earlier, eliminate Week 9 and play eight regular-season games, move the state championship games back one week or cut the playoff field in half to 112 teams.

Instead of asking if there was a problem with the current schedule, the WIAA decided there was a problem with the schedule, without asking the football people around the state -- the coaches -- what they thought.

Thing is, the WIAA might be right. There might be a problem. In Minnesota, the state championship is one week later -- Thanksgiving weekend -- than it is in Wisconsin. This is due to their regular season being a week shorter, starting a week later, and the fact there is an extra round of playoffs before the title games (this is because all the teams make the playoffs, while half of the teams in Wisconsin do). They still have the issue of games scrunched together, but the last week of their regular season is played on a Wednesday, for the most part. That means there are three games in 11 days, which is a little more acceptable than three in ten days.

Is it so simple to fix this? Should Wisconsin move the last week of their regular season to Wednesday night?

How about cutting the playoff field? Do we really need a glut of 5-4 teams in the postseason because they finished 4-4 in league play and no one else was good enough to qualify? Even if you want to let more than 200 teams in the postseason, is it that bad to hold the state finals one week later? Yes, the games are played at an outdoor facility -- Madison's Camp Randall Stadium -- but does one week make that big a difference in the weather?

Probably not.

The state owes it to its member schools to listen to the concerns of the coaches. These guys are largely volunteers, only receiving a smallish amount of money to put in big-time hours during the season, and this move would increase those hours because it would elongate the season.

It's not necessary, and let's hope the WIAA listens. They did turn down the bad idea last year, and this bad idea needs to go by the wayside as well.

Football!

The first football games that count (in the United States, that is) will be played this weekend.

Not only does UMD open defense of their NCAA Division II title Saturday, but Wisconsin high school football teams open up with a full slate of games Thursday and Friday.

We'll delve into that schedule, as well as UMD's prospects, later this week.

It's not quite as much fun as March Madness, but there is something to be said for the first week of football season.

Hope, of course, springs eternal. Everyone thinks they can be good. Everyone thinks they can do what teams like UMD, Mount Union, Sioux Falls, and the Pittsburgh Steelers did.

Win it all.

That's the goal, but only a select few will reach it.

While everyone thinks Florida is going to win the BCS title, not even that is a certainty. Teams are lined up around the country, hoping for a chance to knock them off their perch.

It's football season. Feel it.

Oh, and hockey preseason magazines should be out in the next ten days. There's that, too.

Superior Football Star Commits to NDSU

For a Superior football program that had fallen on hard times for the better part of a decade (or more, for that matter), this is super news.

Ever since head coach Bob DeMeyer joined the program from his previous perch at Northwestern, things have been looking up. DeMeyer has led the Spartans to back-to-back Wisconsin high school football playoff berths. This came after the disastrous Brett Vesel tenure, in which Superior never really got their footing in a passing attack.

DeMeyer re-introduced the running game, and almost immediately found success with it. As he builds the program around the kind of players he needs to run his systems, things should only improve.

A good example of this was found this week. Running back/defensive back Zach Colvin gave a commitment to Division I-AA (er, FCS) North Dakota State for 2010.

... with his quick feet and a 34-inch vertical leap, the Superior senior didn’t need much time to impress the Bison coaches. By the end of the camp earlier this summer, Colvin had a scholarship offer from the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) college. He called the NDSU coaches Aug. 5 to make an oral commitment to attend the school in 2010. “He wasn’t really on their radar before that,” Superior coach Bob DeMeyer said. “[The coaches] hadn’t seen any film of him or seen him live but once he was there and they saw what an athlete he was, they liked what they saw.”

Colvin is a bit undersized, but has a ton of athletic ability, and will focus on being a defensive player for NDSU.

He was also recruited by UMD, but justifiably took the Division I offer.

The Spartans opened practice this past Monday, and open the season against Stevens Point Aug. 28 at Ole Haugsrud Field in Superior.

WIAA Concocts Bad Idea

Bad ideas happen.

Our lovely world is full of them.

Astro-turf. "The Bachelor". Governor Sarah Palin.

You can now add the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association's new "Football District Proposal" to the list.

You can classify this one as a well-meaning thought, but an attempt to fix something that isn't really broken.

In Wisconsin, high school football playoffs are not automatic for every team. Schools must qualify by having a record of .500 or better in conference play. Instead of going through with the idea of having everyone qualify for the playoffs (any fan of Minnesota high school football that is tired of seeing 58-0 running-time blowouts in the first round of section playoffs would understand why this is being avoided in Wisconsin), a plan to divide the seven-division state further into districts was hatched.

The basics:

* The 64 largest schools would be played in Division 1, then those schools would be divided geographically into eight districts.

* Teams would start the regular season with a non-district game against an opponent of their choosing, followed by seven games against other teams in their district.

* For teams finishing in the top four in their district, Week 9 would become a playoff week (Level 1). Two districts would be paired together, with the first-place team in one district meeting the fourth-place team in the other, and so on.

* For teams finishing in the bottom four in their district, Week 9 would become a final regular-season game, scheduled after Week 8 by the WIAA and pairing each team against a non-qualifier from a neighboring district, based mostly on geography.

* The earlier start of first-round playoff games would change two scheduling quirks: a) Teams would no longer play Week 9 games on Wednesdays and Thursdays; b) The traditional Tuesday round of Level 1 play would be eliminated.

* Each playoff-qualifying team would play one fewer game overall, due to the shift of Level 1 playoff games to Week 9. Non-qualifiers would still play nine games.

The WIAA website outlines the positives of such a plan.

• Schools would be in districts based on enrollment.

• Groupings would be developed using criteria similar to that applied to other sports.

• Week one games can be used to schedule traditional or historical games.

• Schools will only be required to find one non-district game, which is the common week one.

• All games during the season would be played on Friday or Saturday with some exceptions when travel may be a consideration.

• Schools would have nine games with seven district games and a week nine game guaranteed.

• Competition levels in week nine games would be comparable and competitive.

• Coaches would know ahead of time who their playoff opponents might be.

• Travel costs can be reduced by scheduling non-varsity games within a region and having eight district games.

I'm all for finding ways to reduce travel costs. Everyone is facing that reality in today's world, especially school systems.

However, eliminating chances for kids to compete at a high level and test themselves is not the way around this.

Not only does this district proposal do away with the traditional conferences that dot the state, but it also encourages programs to be lazy and not push themselves. I know it's just high school athletics, but Wisconsin football didn't gain national legitimacy by housing a bunch of lazy programs.

Are there teams that "play down" to a league with a ton of lower-division teams? Sure. No denying that. There are also numerous teams (hi, Rice Lake!) that "play up" to a league with higher-division teams. In Rice Lake's case, they're generally competitive in the Big Rivers, which is a great thing for them.

I'm a huge fan of conferences, and I'm a huge fan of mixing things up for section playoffs. One of the rules of WIAA playoff bracketing (as it stands now, that is) prohibits conference foes from meeting in the first round.

If the WIAA wants to help teams fill scheduling holes, they should do a better job of encouraging teams to play a full nine-game schedule, and to work with in-state schools to fill scheduling holes. Kids who sign up to play and put in the time in a football program deserve the most that can be offered. If the best a program can offer is that they'll play the full nine games every season, then so be it. But they should at least do that.

I don't like potentially taking away traditional conference (and non-conference) rivalries. I don't like making teams choose which non-district opponent they're going to keep.

It's simply not a necessary move, and I hope the WIAA votes this down.

High School Football Schedule Search Update

If you click the link on the left side of the page, you can access my spreadsheet of high school football schedules for teams both in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

You'll notice that we're not quite complete. For it being only mid-July, I'm pretty happy with how much information has been found.

I'm reaching out formally, hoping to fill the holes well in advance of season openers August 27-28 (Wisconsin) and September 3-4 (Minnesota).

If you can help with any of the teams listed below, please send me the missing information, and I'll plug it in to the spreadsheet.

MINNESOTA
Aitkin
Braham
Hermantown
Hill City
Hinckley-Finlayson
Kelliher/Northome
Laporte
Moose Lake/Willow River
Nevis
Onamia
Rush City

In addition, Greenway and Nashwauk-Keewatin have merged programs, thus ending Nashwauk-Keewatin's separate program. This has caused some schedule holes in the Great Polar Alliance, so any information on missing games would be much appreciated. I'd also appreciate any information on the name of the combined team, and the schedule they'll play.

WISCONSIN
Chetek
Cumberland
Hurley
Ladysmith
Northwestern
Spooner
Washburn

Send any info you have to bciskie@gmail.com.

High School Football Coverage ... Here

We're about a month away from the start of high school football preseason practice in Wisconsin, and five weeks or so from that in Minnesota.

Even though I'm not on the radio, I still feel like the local kids deserve some coverage, and I'm going to do my (small) part here on this blog.

On the right-hand side of this page, you'll see links pop up throughout the season. These links will take you to spreadsheets I have created to keep up-to-date on the latest scores throughout the area. They will be updated weekly during the season as I have time.

As you can see by clicking the schedules link, I do not have all area team schedules yet. If you're involved with a program on the list, and the schedule is not there or is incorrect, please e-mail me ASAP so I can get the right information posted.