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Murphy: GHSA still has lots of unfinished business with reclassification
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Today is Labor Day and a day of rest for most, but I'd love to see the Georgia High School Association get back to work and work out this mess for reclassifying the state's 437 member schools sooner than later.

It looks like the GHSA and its executive directors are seeking perfection and make all the high-ranking officials happy, but fans just want an answer as to where their particular school will fall when the new two-year cycle goes into effect in August 2012.

The biggest decision to come out during the Aug. 29 meeting in Macon was to stay with the six-classification plan, up from the current structure with five classes, that was originally approved last May by a narrow 26-24 vote.

Locally, schools will probably make some major jumps with the new system, but nothing is final.

Will Flowery Branch jump up to Class AAAAA? Could Gainesville jump two classifications up to Class AAAAA?

What about Buford? Will the Wolves finally move into a more geographically conducive region with Hall County schools, which they've been in favor of for a long time, instead of playing in a region with schools largely inside the Atlanta perimeter that translates into sluggish gates at games.

Then, once you chop up all the schools by classification, the GHSA has to get down to the real nitty gritty and try to devise the best regions with school size the first parameter, then try to make it as travel-friendly as possible.

These are all issues that could have been resolved by now so schools would know what next season will look like, but the GHSA has dragged it out as long as possible with tedious details that are frankly too boring to re-hash in great detail.

Now, I know that the GHSA is tackling some other major issues that have taken a priority.

The high school governing body is currently trying to come up with a plan to combat heat related issues that tragically led to the death of two high school football players in the state last month.

The GHSA is engaged in a medical study this season to try to come up a plan that will hopefully insure no players ever die again on the practice field.

Every high school fan can support that idea.

Also, the GHSA has another meeting planned for Sept. 13 to discuss dividing Class A between urban and rural schools to make a competitive balance.

The vote on that was tabled last week, so members could learn more about the proposal.

The thinking behind the idea is that a school from rural south Georgia is at a competitive disadvantage playing against a private school from Atlanta that has a much larger to pool to pull student athletes.

It sounds like a proposal with merit, and will probably pass the vote by the GHSA - a group not known for jumping at radical overhaul.

But secondary issues really can't be resolved until the framework for the classification is finalized.

And from the looks of things, the GHSA still has a long way to go.

 

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