Has Wyomissing mistakenly been caught up in PIAA enforcement net?
Commercial fisherman know when they cast their large nets for tuna they’re bound to pull up a few dolphins in the process.
It’s unavoidable.
The same goes for the PIAA’s Competition Formula, which bumps a school’s football team up one classification if it is successful in the playoffs and has three or more transfers.
The rule was put into place in 2018 as part of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s effort to level the playing field. Public schools across the state were screaming about the “recruiting” advantages of parochial, private and charter schools. The PIAA acted.
The wide-ranging rules enacted were well-intentioned and much-needed: Too many students were hopping from school to school with obvious athletic intent. Something had to be done. A civil war, of sorts, between boundary and non-boundary schools was erupting.
Frank Ferrandino, the athletic director at Wyomissing and an assistant coach on the Spartans’ highly successful football team, believes in what the PIAA has done to tighten things up. He’s 100 percent on board with the new rules.
He just doesn’t believe moving Wyomissing up one classification because of its back-to-back state final appearances is what the PIAA had in mind when it developed these new parameters.
“I just don’t think we fit into that mold,” Ferrandino said.
| School | Proposed classification |
| Bishop Guilfoyle | 2A |
| Redbank Valley | 2A |
| Southern Columbia | 3A |
| Central Valley | 4A |
| Wyomissing | 4A |
| Aliquippa | 5A |
| Jersey Shore | 5A |
| Cathedral Prep | 6A |
The mold was designed for schools such as St. Joseph’s Prep, Trinity, Archbishop Wood and Imhotep Charter, schools which collect promising athletes from far and wide — even across state borders.
As a way to bring programs such as these in line the “success formula,” as it initially was called, was born. If a football or basketball program earns six success points during a two-year PIAA enrollment cycle and does so with a stated number of transfers — three in football, one in basketball — it is moved up one classification.
That happened to Southern Columbia, Aliquippa, Imhotep Charter and Archbishop Wood in 2020. It could happen to Wyomissing for the 2022 season; it is on a list with seven other schools which could move to a higher classification.
A team is awarded one point for reaching the PIAA round of 16, a second point for reaching the state quarterfinals, a third point for reaching the semifinals and a fourth for reaching the championship game.
The Spartans have gone all the way in back-to-back years. That’s eight points. Plus, the PIAA says they did it this season with three transfers. That meets the PIAA threshold. Wyomissing will appeal the decision; it must submit paperwork by Friday.
The PIAA will review the appeal; don’t bet on the Spartans winning this one.
The school believes there are extenuating circumstances: One of the transfers barely got on the field; another initially attended Wyomissing, transferred out, then returned; another was granted a transfer waiver making him eligible to play in the postseason.
It doesn’t appear as if Wyomissing was attempting to improve its team by adding these players. You would be hard-pressed to call this “recruiting” by even the broadest definition of the word.
That likely won’t matter. To the PIAA a transfer is a transfer is a transfer. How much someone played, how good they are, their impact on the team — doesn’t matter. If the player wasn’t in your school system last year and is on your roster this year he or she is a transfer. Period.
That stance is incongruous with the PIAA’s other transfer rules, which allow for a waiver if a player transfers because of a financial situation or if the move is necessitated by a parent’s job or military status.
Many players are granted such waivers. One of the Wyomissing players in question was; he moved from another state because of a parent’s job situation. He was cleared to participate in the postseason. His transfer was not considered athletically motivated. Yet the same governing body that checked off on that considers him a transfer in regard to a different rule.
The Competition Formula is part of much-needed PIAA reforms, but there are obvious problems with it.
It doesn’t affect the largest schools. St. Joseph’s Prep, already in the highest classification, can’t be bumped any higher; it’s not affected by this rule no matter how many state titles it wins or how many players it brings in from New Jersey.
The rule, as written, could lead to — and probably already has led to — kids being cut from the team if they are marginally talented and could threaten to push the program over the transfer threshold.
And then there’s the dolphin problem. They end up in the net with the rest of the catch and there’s no way around that.
