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ROBBINSVILLE – There is no C in NJSIAA, but there are big changes in the works for classifications and co-ops.

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association is considering major changes to the general classification for schools in big sports, including possibly going up to five groups in some, creating parameters for new co-op programs to be approved and adding committees to oversee it all.

“It’s going to be busy,” NJSIAA Assistant Director Colleen Maguire said.

Maguire detailed some of the options after the NJSIAA’s Executive Committee meeting Wednesday. In December, the general membership approved a proposal that allows schools to co-op with any other school of its choosing for various sports programs.

This is a change to previous rules that allowed only small schools to share resources and create teams. Now it can happen regardless of a school’s size, and schools are now free to co-op with different schools. The old rules said if you were partners with a school in one sport, you had to stay partners with them for all sports (think Leonia/Palisades Park, which co-op in multiple sports).

Maguire is putting together a Co-op Sports Committee that will oversee the application process for schools that wish to create new co-op sports programs (existing co-ops will be grandfathered in for another school year). She promises it will be a detailed application, with schools having to prove their need for sharing teams. If schools are denied, there will be an appeals process to another committee, the Co-Op Sports Appeals Committee.

Most often, schools have combined in response to declining participation. But critics have said co-ops have remained together because they have experienced success. The issue has been especially prevalent in ice hockey, where there are multiple co-ops and even tri-ops (three schools together).

Maguire said there have been multiple inquiries about new co-op programs for the fall (she declined to say what schools), and the NJSIAA wants to accommodate them.

The CSC will be tasked with setting parameters, and will also be given the latitude of placing teams in the general classification it sees fit. In other words, if two Group 3 football teams decide to merge, the NJSIAA can then tell them it has to be classified as a Group 5 team with an appropriate schedule.

This also underscores the fact that the NJSIAA and Maguire are working to transform the entire classification process into more of a sports-specific model. It’s particularly interesting when it comes to non-public schools, which could see a reduction in number of group titles.

Maguire said that a survey of the non-public schools showed that geography and enrollment did not matter to those schools as much as competitive balance, and that is what should be used as a driving factor for their classifications.

“They’d rather travel and play like competition in the first rounds,” Maguire said.

Instead of Non-Public A and Non-Public B referring to size, it could refer to strength of programs. The better teams would go in Non-Public A and compete against one another for a group title. Or there could just be one overall Non-Public classification.

This past fall, according to the NJSIAA web site, there were 24 soccer teams in Non-Public A, but 78 teams in Group 4, yet there is a group title for each. The disparity in numbers has caught the NJSIAA’s attention.

Maguire stressed that this type of change could only be for large sports, like soccer or basketball. There is also the chance that the NJSIAA will seek to go from four groups for public schools to five, similar to the football model. It is felt that this better cuts the group of schools and helps eliminate some of the disparity within a group.

We already know that the NJSIAA is studying major revisions to its structure for the football playoffs, and expect them to consider shifting from three groups for non-public football to two. Right now, the NJSIAA has championships for Non-Public 4, Non-Public 3 and Non-Public 2, but the organization is worried about the number of schools that opt out of participating in the football playoffs each year. And it’s pretty obvious which non-public football schools are aiming big, and which ones aren’t.

Unfortunately, with any changes means an added layer of committee bureaucracy. But the NJSIAA feels like there is an imbalance across the spectrum where some teams have to fight through 70 teams to win a group title and some non-public teams only have to get through 20.

In the long run, the number of championships might end up being the same, but think of a Tournament of Champions for basketball with five public school teams and one non-public. It would be a change, and the NJSIAA is open to seeing multiple options.

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