By Dana Hess
For the S.D. NewsMedia Association
PIERRE—A rule change that was seen as a way to help struggling high school football teams died for a lack of a motion Wednesday at the meeting of the South Dakota High School Activities Association board of directors.
The change, offered to the board by its classification subcommittee, would have allowed any school to drop down to the next lower classification. Classifications are determined by a school’s average daily membership. An ADM is used in each sport and activity to determine a school’s level of competition. Football is the only sport that determines its classifications by using an ADM of male students. Classifications are set for two-year intervals.
The rule offered by the subcommittee said that once a school goes down a classification in a sport, it won’t be eligible for post-season competition in that sport.
While the rule change would have affected all high school sports, SDHSAA Executive Director Dan Swartos said it was aimed at school districts with struggling football teams that may want to go down a classification to work on their program.
According to Swartos, there are teams that have difficulty throughout all seven football classifications used by the SDHSAA. “There are schools that struggle,” Swartos said, noting that some nine-man football teams often see their games finish after the first half because they are so far behind that a mercy rule is enforced. “How do we throw them a lifejacket?” Swartos asked.
It’s difficult for schools to recruit players, Swartos said, if they lose consistently or get beaten badly every year in the playoffs. “It’s more about participation numbers,” Swartos said.
Board members struggled to understand why a community would allow its team to go down a classification and forfeit the right to be in post-season play.
Board chairman Kelly Messmer of Harding County said the two-year classification cycle means telling juniors “you’ll never participate in the playoffs.”
Board member Randy Hartmann of Pierre questioned the wisdom of allowing a bigger school to go down a classification. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” Hartmann said, “that we would penalize the schools in the lower classification.”
The classification system was set up for the safety of players, Swartos noted. “This kind of throws that away,” he said, referring to the proposed rule change.
No matter how much they need to rebuild their program, Messmer said, it would be a tough sell for a school district to convince its patrons that missing the playoffs for two years is a good idea.
“I don’t think you can sell that to parents,” Messmer said. “I don’t think you can sell that to kids.”
Messmer said he would like to see a system where a team that moves down in classification be allowed to play in the playoffs. Winning a game there, however, would send them back to their original classification when the two-year cycle is over.
“I don’t believe they should be able to stay there (in the lower classification) forever,” Messmer said.
That rule change died for a lack of a motion. Swartos was directed to take the rule to the next meeting of athletic directors to see what they thought of it.
Another rule change was approved by the board. That one allows a team to move up a classification in just one sport. Currently, a team that moves up in one sport must move up in similarly classified sports and fine arts activities. As an example, Swartos said that currently a team that petitions to move up a classification in cross country must also move up in basketball, track and volleyball.
Swartos said the thinking of the subcommittee was “If a school wants to play up in competition, we ought to let them.”
A variety of schools routinely petition to move up a classification in some sports and activities. Earlier in the meeting, the board approved those requests for the 2024-2025 school year. They include:
Debate: O’Gorman, Pierre, Huron, Mitchell, to Class AA.
Basketball/volleyball/track/cross country: Crow Creek to Class A.
Football: O’Gorman to Class 11AAA, Wagner to Class 11B.
Golf: Aberdeen Roncalli (boys), Groton Area, Parkston, St. Thomas More, Wagner, and Redfield to Class A.
Oral Interp/one act play/visual arts: Crow Creek to Class A.
Wrestling: Chamberlain to Class A.
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