LHSAA reclassification: The winners and losers

    When one considers the task at hand to classify nearly 400 schools in seven near-equal groups, I believe the Louisiana High School Athletic Association got it right last week.
    Of course, there are a few Catholic school principals and coaches who will disagree with me, and understandably so.
    The LHSAA gave me a peek at Executive Director Kenny Henderson’s preliminary districts for 2013-14 and 2014-15 before releasing it.
    As I scanned through four of the seven classes to which local Catholic schools have been placed, my thoughts were: “good, good, oops, uh-oh.” The last two apply to classes 4A and 3A.
    Of the 290 schools which plan to field football teams, just 16 chose to play up one class. To the surprise of a rare few, John Curtis and Evangel were among them.
    The success of the two private schools’ football teams caused the majority of principals to evoke a play-in-your-class rule six years ago to confine them to Class 2A.
    It took three reclass periods for Jesuit principal Mike Giambelluca to convince enough of his cohorts to allow schools to play up one class. Now things are closer to normal.
The winners
    ➤ The Catholic League has been reunited (minus De La Salle, which remains in Class 3A). Holy Cross, Archbishop Shaw and St. Augustine will re-join Brother Martin, Archbishop Rummel and Jesuit in a six-team district.
    ➤ Henderson granted Chalmette its wish to compete against Jefferson Parish and not in the Catholic League. The Owls traded revenue for potential wins to join Bonnabel, Grace King, Helen Cox, Higgins, John Ehret and West Jefferson in a public school district.
    ➤ Archbishop Hannan’s projected Class 4A enrollment enabled the relocated school to  enter a common district with  schools against whom it can compete. The new district will include Catholic schools Pope John Paul II and St. Thomas Aquinas, faith-based Northlake Christian and rural public schools St. Helena Central, Springfield, Pine and Mount Hermon. Doyle and French Settlement will join them in sports other than football.
The losers
    ➤ By not playing up to join Mount Carmel, Archbishop Chapelle and Dominican in the girls’ Catholic League,  the Academy of Our Lady landed  in a district that will take its teams to distant places like New Iberia (Westgate), Terrebonne Parish (Vandebilt Catholic, Ellender and South Terrebonne), St. Mary Parish (Morgan City) and Napoleonville (Assumption). That amounts to many hours on the road.
    Theoretically, a district that includes Cabrini, Ursuline, Riverdale, East Jefferson, McDonogh 35, O. Perry Walker, Karr and Warren Easton would have been a more feasible move for AOL. But, because six of those teams are in Orleans Parish and the other two are on the East Bank of Jefferson Parish, AOL was the odd-school-out.
    ➤ St. Charles Catholic lost St. James from its Class 3A district and picked up an uninvited guest in John Curtis. St. Charles could have opted to play up to 4A but, like AOL, would have no schools in close  proximity to its campus.
    Henderson had no other option. Five Orleans Parish schools – Clark, McMain, Miller-McCoy, Sarah Reed and John McDonogh – joined Thomas Jefferson, De La Salle and Lusher to subsequently lock John Curtis out of that nearby district.
    Ron Brocato can be reached at [email protected].