Can someone explain to me the LHSAA split?

Blame Many High

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Public schools complained that private schools had an advantage.

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But why?

Short version - no one wanted to play Evangel or John Curtis.

It’s part of a 20+ year cycle of classifications playing “hot potato” to see who gets assrammed by major powers on an annua basis.

Unlike most states, the private schools are under the same governing body as the public. Hence, chaos.

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Now the "split" is spreading to other sports and I predict there will be a real split as in two totally separate associations in 5-7 years.

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Which will frick the private schools based on their lack of numbers. Hell, Virginia private schools play during the days on Saturdays because most of them can't afford to install lights in their fields. And a lot of these schools are the type of places congressmen send their kids

Publics were recruiting, and publics and privates still do the split did not solve anything from that perspective either.

You pretty much have your answer, but I will chime in and chum/cloudy the waters.

The roots of this split and the public schools' resentment started about 20 years ago. John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge and Evangel Academy in Shreveport are two perennial powerhouse football programs in the state. Curtis has +/- AA enrollment, and Evangel vacillates between AA and A enrollment.

For years, however they played up. The rest of the schools in the state got tired of losing to them, and about 15 years ago forced them to play in-class. Back when I was in high school, our 180 boys-only school was classified AA and Curtis was in our district which was a joke.

But even so, the big schools in 5-A and wherever Evangel played were tired of it, and had the LHSAA force them to play in-class. They steamrolled their lower classification opponents, so they were, again, allowed to play up, however, the public school principals began campaigning and by 2013 proposed a split-playoff system. The principals at Many High School, and Winnfield High School were the two who were the public leaders of the charge.

It passed. A couple years later, after negotiations and attempt after attempt to fix it failed, the majority of the LHSAA, which are the publics, voted to split playoffs for basketball, volleyball, and baseball/softball as well. Again, the principal at Many was one of the public leaders of this effort, as well.

The result? 5 classifications (public) 4 divisions for football, and even more for basketball and baseball as Louisiana has class B and class C for smaller schools that do not play football.

This gives us 9 state champions in football, and 11 state champions in boys basketball and baseball as well as 11 in girls basketball and softball.

Easy to explain..

Exhibit A:

Neville High School

2002-2004 arse whipped by Curtis. Neville has a lot of pull in the public screwing Private entity called the LHSAA. Bye bye Curtis.

Exhibit B:

West Monroe Rebels.

Only reason they didnt stuff their trophy case more was because of Evangel. Evangel was not only better on the field, but also in recruiting and coaching.

Unfair. West Monroe has the $$$$ make them work for you. Neville gas $$$ and alums.

Funny considering that WM 2000 team was stocked FULL of "Transfers". It was the perfect example of pot calling kettle.

What is telling is since this split WM has gotten worse.

Meanwhile Neville benefitted tremendously. Everyone in Monroe/WM knows what caused the split. Your answer lues here in our neck of the woods.

You can get a variety of reasons on this board about why the split happened. You can also get a variety of reasons on why the private schools will not pull out and start their own association. I do not see the big deal with the split. It’s not like the vote did not allow private schools to play or deprive them of a chance to play for a championship. It is kind of like public opinion on Trump, you either love him or hate him. When it comes to the split, you either love it or hate it.