When the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission’s Board of Directors gave final approval in December of 2023 to add four classifications to several sports outside of boys and girls basketball, it was widely known sweeping changes were coming to the landscape of high school sports statewide.
Using a Competitive Balance Formula that determines classification based 80 percent off enrollment, 10 percent off location to a city of 10,000-plus people and 10 percent off a county’s socioeconomic status, football, cheerleading, volleyball, baseball and softball were to move to a four-classification system similar to what’s been in place for boys and girls hoops since the 2020-21 season.
Less than two weeks before the calendar flipped to 2024, schools learned of their classification under the new model and were given the opportunity to review the matter and appeal if they opted to do so.
Last week, 22 schools were reclassified within a 72-hour stretch for football only in 2024, creating significant change among all four classes for the upcoming season.
“Our first appeal was in February and for these appeals to be granted right before the season is not our fault,” said Tim George, Athletic Director at Spring Valley, one of nine schools to move from Class AAAA to Class AAA in football. “They could’ve been granted back then and it would’ve been a lot more smooth.”
George, who has studied the Competitive Balance Formula at length, discovered what he thought to be several flaws in the system that negatively impacted SVHS and several other schools statewide.
“The mileage [to a city with a population of 10,000-plus] is so important and really hurt Spring Valley and a lot of other schools,” George said. “That diminishes the value of enrollment. We have less enrollment than a lot of schools we’re compared to. We are close to Huntington, but we are a rural school.”
Tygarts Valley High School is considered the furthest high school from a city of 10,000-plus people at 77 miles, though in 2020, when the formula was introduced, it was Pendleton County High School at 144 miles.
“Bad mileages were used for everybody,” George said. “Back in 2020, one mile was equivalent to 13.5 kids. Now, one mile is equivalent to 23.5 kids or 10 miles is equivalent to 235 kids. Ten miles is nothing when talking about competitive balance and 235 kids is everything. Frankfort is a great example of that.”
A Mineral County school with an enrollment just south of 500, Frankfort is one of eight schools to be reclassified from Class AAA to Class AA for the upcoming football season. It, too, was originally heavily impacted by its location.
“Cumberland, Maryland was used as our city, and we showed that Cumberland does not offer our students any advantages,” said FHS Athletic Director Jay Hesse. “There are no camps, gyms or training facilities to regularly use. There’s a YMCA there, but you have to be a member to use it. The idea is that city offers athletic advantages. Cumberland is a dying city as far as these things go and has a very high poverty rate.
“We tried to explain if we were eight miles from Winchester, Virginia, Morgantown or Hagerstown, Maryland, we probably wouldn’t be appealing. Cumberland is not one of those cities and does not help us athletically. In fact, we lose more kids to Cumberland schools than we gain.”
Reclassification was a drawn out process for Spring Valley, Frankfort and the other 20 schools, but the appeals were ultimately granted by the Review Board, a group composed of seven members appointed by the West Virginia Superintendents of Schools, which reversed the decision of the Board of Directors.
“Our process started basically right after we got the classifications on December 20,” Hesse said. “We started planning for how our appeal was going to go and our first hearing before Board of Directors was February 22. Appeals were not granted at that point. Then we had the opportunity to go to the Board of Review. We did that as well. They were more in-tune with what we were trying to say and recognized issues within the classification formula and some schools being put where they were. They remanded all nine cases at that point to the Board of Directors. We went back to the Board of Directors in Parkersburg June 11 and presented there again. There were no appeals granted, so we went back to the Board of Review in Charleston on July 24.”
Frankfort, and a number of other schools, were heavily impacted by the median household income within its county.
The 2023 median household income for Mineral County was $57,345 — the fifth highest statewide behind Putnam, Berkeley, Doddridge and Pleasants.
In 2020, Mineral County’s median household income had been $36,153.
“Our second biggest employer is NewPage, a paper mill. It’s gone out of business and many of those people that had decent paying jobs now have other jobs probably not paying as well,” Hesse said. “We really can’t explain how our median household income went up 21 thousand dollars.“
George also questioned the median household income data, which shows Wayne County (where SVHS is located) at $45,591. Neighboring Cabell County was a tad lower at $43,779.
“On the surface, if you tell me Cabell Midland is more poor than Spring Valley or Wayne, that’s not legitimate,” George said. “I’ve lived in Wayne County my whole life and that’s not accurate.”
Median Income Comparison By County
Last Tuesday, it was revealed 11 schools would be reclassified for the 2024 football season. Moving from Class AAAA to Class AAA were Spring Valley, John Marshall, Oak Hill, Preston and St. Albans. Frankfort, Sissonville and Wayne went from Class AAA to Class AA, while Petersburg, St. Marys and Tyler Consolidated moved from Class AA to Class A.
Three days later, an additional 11 schools were reclassified. Buckhannon-Upshur, Capital, Riverside and South Charleston moved from Class AAAA to Class AAA. Chapmanville, Independence, Lincoln, Nicholas County and PikeView went from Class AAA to Class AA, while Ritchie County and Summers County changed from Class AA to Class A.
“We definitely respect the process and we’ll work through it,” WVSSAC Executive Director David Price said. “That’s the reason we have the appeal process.”
George and Hesse, who developed a friendship throughout the appeal process despite working at schools nearly 300 miles apart, expressed they have no hard feelings toward the WVSSAC.
“I’m not angry. I’m passionate. It would be easy to misinterpret my passion as anger,” George said. “The people at the SSAC office are good people and my friends. I want to be in fix mode. We have some obvious problems.”
“They’re great individuals,” Hesse said. “However, when you’re looking out for your kids, you’re going to come in conflict and won’t always agree. It’s just like within a family when you have issues and not everybody agrees. I do not want the SSAC to be slandered. They’re sort of seen as a scapegoat for everything and a lot of things fall on the shoulders of four people. It’s not really them. They’re just carrying out policies of what’s been thrown to them.“
George is hopeful the recent upholding of the appeals for football carries over to other sports with four classifications.
“This is not personal or time to pile on the SSAC,” George said. “Everyone wants to say they’re inept and they’re not. There’s been some mistakes and some big ones, and things could’ve been handled better, but let cooler heads prevail and work together to come up with a solution. I’m not hesitant to talk about it, because this is the truth.
“This isn’t just about Spring Valley. This is about what’s doing right for our state as a whole.”