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By Jim Caltagirone
For the Mirror
Ah, the annual rites of spring in central Pennsylvania.
Temperatures are rising, flowers are blooming and consternation is peaking over the number of private, charter and parochial schools that won 2024 PIAA boys and girls basketball championships.
A significant difference this year is that State Representative Scott Conklin of Centre County has injected himself into the discussion of the hottest recurring topic in PA scholastic sports.
Conklin is the prime sponsor of a bill which proposes that the PIAA be allowed to establish separate playoff systems and championships for boundary and non-boundary schools.
In explaining why the PIAA needs to act, he invoked athlete safety as a factor five times.
"As humans continue to evolve, our children are getting bigger, stronger and faster," Conklin's proposal states. "While our public high schools, or boundary schools, may have a limited number of athletes with superior size, strength and speed, private, charter and parochial schools, otherwise known as non-boundary schools, are fortunate to have the resources and capabilities to attract these types of athletes."
While a safe competitive environment is used as camouflage, the real problem surfaces in the first sentence of the proposal's third paragraph.
"When it comes to competition in team sports, especially football and basketball, private, charter and parochial schools have been dominant in state playoffs over the past several years."
Finally, there it is, buried beneath all the righteous justification.
While private, charter and parochial schools were winning eight of the 12 PIAA basketball championships this past March, it's difficult to recall any media coverage regarding a disproportionate number of injuries to public school athletes that were suffered in contests against athletes from non-boundary schools.
The proposal to establish separate playoff systems and championships for boundary and non-boundary schools has the uncomfortable feel of "if you can't beat them, then ban them."
Even worse, it has an awful ring of "separate but equal," which refers to an 1896 Supreme Court ruling that entrenched segregation for another six decades.
The irony about Conklin advocating for separate playoff systems and championships is that he represents a legislative district that includes the State College Area School District, which annually enrolls new students whose parents have traveled from around the country and from around the world to work at Penn State's University Park campus.
Technically, those new pupils are boundary students, but they represent a potential influx of vast athletic talent.
That doesn't quite seem like the level playing field mentioned in the proposal.
An assumption has long existed that the athletic programs at private, charter and parochial schools are manipulative recruiters that seek to attract a bevy of exceptional athletes who are only interested in enhancing their athletic development.
It would be naive to think that transfers motivated by athletic interests have not occurred within the state's public school systems over the years.
There's also a misconception about the PIAA.
The PIAA is a non-profit corporation and a voluntary membership organization that does not receive budgeted state funding. The PIAA develops and enforces rules that are authorized and adopted by the member schools, not the state legislature.
If PIAA members wish to revisit the eligibility rules for scholastic athletes or amend postseason formats, appropriate steps for facilitation of those actions surely exist within the PIAA constitution.
Thus, legislators should feel at liberty to concentrate on issues that impact the quality of life for all Pennsylvanians.
Property and school tax reform would be a wonderful start.
Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.