[charlie22]

I was on the Board of Control when we adopted 6 classes. It was not an emotional decision for me. If I had allowed my emotions to base my decision, I would have voted against going to 6 classes as I felt 6 classes would do more harm than good for Highlands football. I played at Highlands, both of my sons played for Highlands and I am still involved as a supporter of Highlands football. Heck, the head coach at Highlands told me in very certain terms that he was opposed to 6 classes. So if I was going to allow emotions to make my decision, I would have voted against 6 classes. But I didn't.

Why did I vote for 6 classes then, you wonder.

There is little argument against the proposition that going to 6 classes would result in districts being spread out and travel distances and costs for district games increased.This issue was carefully considered and discussed with Superintendents, Principals, ADs and coaches.

With 20 of the 6 Class districts having 5 teams, and with a team playing 2 of its opponents home each year and 2 of them away each year, a school would only have at worst two long district games each year. The rest of the schedule could be filled with closer, out of district opponents. 22 of the districts only have 4 teams, which meant that in one year a team would only have at worst 1 long district game, with the following year having 2 long district games. Only 6 districts have 6 teams, with the possibility of 3 long district games every other year. So the thinking was that the district play would not create a huge increase in any one's travel budget in any one year.

I believed and still believe that allowing more schools to advance further in the playoffs would/will help build excitement in the community for the game of football. That wasn't an issue at Highlands, but there were plenty of schools that could use some success to help build success. Has that happened? You'd have to ask those folks in the communities where their teams would not have made it to the quarter finals, the semi finals or the state game if we had stayed with 4 classes if that has happened. I was in attendance for the state game that Allen County Scottville played in. Don't know what has happened in that community since that game, but the enthusiasm and support of the community for that game was off the charts. I'd hope there has been some carry over effect.

Those of us that are old timers know that in 1975, after we went from 3 classes to 4 classes, the enthusiasm for football in Ky picked up. We felt more teams making it deep into the playoffs played a huge role in that happening. Could we be certain? No. But we were pretty confident it did. We felt by going with 6 classes, we'd have more than just the typical 8 teams being in the finals. Has that happened? Yes it somewhat has. When was the last time Allen County Scottville went to the finals? Glascow? Scott County? If we have 4 classes, I doubt that any of those teams (and some others) make it to state. Sure it has watered down the competition and allowed some teams to make it further than they otherwise would have, but if by doing so we can increase the enthusiasm for the game and build on its popularity, we felt the positives outweighed the negatives? Were we wrong? I don't know if anyone can at this point fairly answer that question.

Finally, we did want to decrease the size disparities in as many classes as possible. I favored a different method, but that would have created differing numbers of teams in more than just 1A and 6A. The smallest school in one class would have the same size disparity vs the largest school in that class for every class. Admittedly, it would have resulted in other problems come playoff time.

But we did what we did not based on emotions. We really did talk this thing through quite seriously and thought about it a lot. Did we make the right decision? I think so but I honestly don't know that for certain yet.