By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

BATON ROUGE — There will be no split between public and private schools in sports outside of football, but that status quo remains on the gridiron.

At Friday’s annual LHSAA Convention in Baton Rouge, principals voted down an item that would have split the baseball postseason between “select” and “non-select” schools, just as the football postseason has been split into eight divisions. With that item voted down, movements to split other sports —  girls and boys basketball, and softball  —  were withdrawn.

Football, meanwhile, will maintain the same system in 2015: the postseason will again be split into three select divisions and five non-select divisions, and a total of eight state champions will be crowned.

A handful of proposals to alter the system –including one featuring the creation of a Class 6A were essentially tabled after newly appointed LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine requested more time to address the growing disagreement between schools within the LHSAA ranks.

Bonine wishes to form a committee following the Top 28 state basketball tournament to explore what’s in the organization’s best interest.

St. Charles Catholic football coach and athletic director Frank Monica said he wasn’t in favor of expanding the split to other sports and was glad that possibility was shot down.

But he also voiced displeasure that proposals to alter and potentially improve the current system were all but put off until next time.

“I know the plan is to give the new (director) time, and I can live with that,” Monica said. “But at the same time, I felt there was a fair proposal and I’m not sure everyone understood what was being voted on. There were things out of order on the agenda … there was a lot of confusion. A lot of people worked diligently on (the 6A) proposal, and I felt it should have been voted on.”

West St. John coach Robert Valdez also noted some aspects of the vote were confusing. But Valdez was on board with Bonine’s request.

“You don’t want to force something on him as he first takes over, and then just have to revise it later,” Valdez said. “I think there was a lot of confusion dealing with so many different proposals, and when it came time to vote, people saw all that and decided we were better off taking a breath and keeping things as is for now.”

Monica said he didn’t believe enough new ground could be covered between now and next year’s vote to justify holding off.

“It doesn’t make sense to me, especially with reclassification coming up this year,” Monica said. “That’s for two years. We’ll have to reclassify two years in a row. I understand and see the sentiment of giving (Bonine) more time, but I don’t think they’re going to uncover anything that hasn’t already been considered.”

St. Charles Catholic is one River Region school that will be impacted much by reclassification, one way or the other. Monica said that currently, by numbers, SCC would likely be classified as a 2A school.

However, schools can elect to play up, and Monica said that would be a possibility for St. Charles.

“We still have to sit down and discuss where we’d want to be,” he said. “A lot comes down to the district you’re in. You want a high level of competition, but you also want one that allows you to make money, and one big enough to not have to go and schedule a major number of outside games.

“And the biggest issue is your other sports. You want to be where your athletic program is healthiest across the board.”

Valdez admitted that “at the end of the day, it’s impossible to make everyone happy,” but that he’d ultimately like to see the public and private schools come together again.

“I don’t think you’ll ever get all the toothpaste back in the tube,” he said.

“A lot of schools have benefitted from the split system. At the same time, I think it’s hurt some things. You don’t have the same rite of passage in the regular season. Teams that haven’t won a game are reaching the playoffs. We have to find the best way to put the best interests of the kids first.”