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By five seconds and one point, Salida missed a state championship in boys' basketball Saturday. When I checked the sports pages Sunday for the outcome, I discovered that somebody's typewriter got stuck.
During my jejune days, schools were ranked by enrollment from class C -- tiny places like Peetz and Nunn that played eight-man football if they played football at all -- on up through B, A, AA, and AAA.
Now I see that Colorado has been upgraded. There are no class C or B schools. The rankings are A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA and AAAAAA. See what I mean about stuck typewriters?
Sports writers and high-school coaches obviously have
trouble counting that high. They refer to the 5A
and
6A
divisions rather than the proper names, AAAAA and
AAAAAA.
So why can't they just go back to single letters? If
there are six divisions, then use A through F, or U through
Z. Or if they're going to use numbers anyway, as in
Class 4A,
then why not just drop the A
and
have Class 4
? Like the NFL at Superbowl time, they
could even indulge in pretension, and have Class IV.
I inquired of someone who should know. Understand
that school administrators and coaches are very
image-conscious. Wouldn't you rather be known as '3A'
rather than 'third-rate'? No school wants to be called 'a
Class-C outfit,' even if the C refers only to enrollment,
not to the school's quality.
They talk about grade inflation in the classroom --
this is really the same thing. Everybody gets at least an
A, so they can all feel good about themselves. It's like
olives, where the smallest size is something like 'jumbo'
and they work up to 'awesome humongous.'
Since every school wants to be at least Grade A,
we should channel this desire in a useful direction. As it
is, they're sorted by enrollment. A big school, no matter
how bad, is known state-wide as an AAAAAA organization, as
if it were gilt-edged bond, and a small school, no matter
how good, will never get past a mere A.
Forget enrollment. Get the Colorado High School Activities Association to devise a new rating system. Base it on low drop-out rates, high percentage of graduates admitted to good colleges, low pregnancies and gang membership, and the number of faculty members who have degrees in real subjects, rather than education.
Then, if a school wants to devote its energies to athletics (i.e., when there's a vacancy for a math teacher, they hire someone with a degree in driver's education who happens to be a winning coach), then that school can take many a state athletic championship. The honors will be in Class F, though, so that we'll all know what kind of organization it really is.
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