GLASGOW — Warning: This column is about sports.



Why does the Kentucky High School Athletics Association have transfer rules in place? So that schools with the desire to recruit students for the sole purpose of gaining athletic advantages cannot do so without repercussions.

Why does the KHSAA have rules about age limitations for student-athletes? So that 20-year-olds are not competing against 15-year-olds. There is a physical difference of maturity in five years.

That leads me to this: Why does the KHSAA not classify all sports? They have rules in place that are meant to ensure all members of the organization who compete for state titles do so on an equal footing. But there isn’t a universal classification system and that sets up a situation where not all schools are competing on equal footing for the same prize.

For the sake of this column, I am going to talk about baseball specifically, but will also point out some other items.

When the 2010-11 school year starts, barring some unexpected school closures, there will be 264 baseball-playing high schools in Kentucky. This includes the opening in the fall of South Warren in Bowling Green and Collins High School in Shelby County. Those schools, when opened, will either be Class 4A or Class 5A schools, based on the enrollment figures used to classify football-playing schools. (See, there is a classification system for high school sports, but it isn’t universal, which means not all sports are classified. There will be only 222 football schools in 2010-11. I’ll come back to that in a bit.)

One of the smallest public schools that offers baseball is Augusta with 103 total students. The largest baseball school is Scott County with 2,235 students. Think of it this way, there are freshmen classes at Scott County with more students than there are freshmen (25) at Augusta.

Since Scott County and Augusta are not in the same region, maybe that comparison should not be used instead. Maybe the comparison of Augusta and Mason County should be used. Those schools are in the same district. Mason County has 776 students. That’s seven times the number of students of Augusta. Over the past five seasons, Mason has beaten Augusta by a total of 137 runs to 14. Admittedly, it doesn’t appear that Augusta puts much emphasis on baseball because it plays an average of about 12 games a season. But, also, Mason County is not that great of a baseball program for a school its size.

One thing a school Mason’s size does have going for it is the ability to have students who specialize in a sport or two. Any school with more than 700 students should have a few kids in each sport who only play that sport, or that sport and one other complementary sport.

In the old days, there were situations where the football coach would also serve as the track coach. Or a football assistant would also coach basketball, and so on and so forth.

The benefit of that situation was twofold: The school district was able to hire fewer people into coaching positions because each would perform multiple duties; and there was more consistent coaching from sport to sport.

Now, the coaches are more specialized and they demand for their athletes to be more specialized. (When I write demand, I don’t think many football coaches or basketball coaches, for example, tell players they must make a choice, I just think the practicing and conditioning regiments often force the athletes to make a choice. The choices are actually between the sports, their education and free time.)

For those paying attention, they have probably deduced that a larger school has more kids waiting to fill a hole left in a high school team if another kid decides they only want to play one sport. That should be the benefit of going to a larger school. It should offer more kids an opportunity to participate in extra-curricular activities. And if there are more kids focusing on doing one or two things really well and they spend the time working to perfect that one skill, they should be better at it than a kid who is working on multiple skills in multiple areas.

This is otherwise known as the practice principle. Or, to use the cliche, practice makes perfect.

It’s the move toward specialization for student-athletes that makes the biggest difference between larger schools and smaller schools. Athletes at smaller schools are often encouraged to play as many sports as possible because each coach in each sport needs that athlete. That kid may be really good at each sport, but it is unlikely they will be great at any of them while in high school.

Baseball is a sport that requires hours of practice on particular skills, such as hitting the inside pitch, hitting the outside pitch, reading balls and strikes, fielding fly balls, fielding grounders, fielding line drives, doing all of these things with runners on base and a multitude of other things.

It is said in high school baseball, one or two dominant pitchers can carry a team to the state tournament. That may be true, but when that small-school team gets there and has a hole in the bottom of the batting order, then what?

There will be 264 baseball playing schools next year, but reason and statistics indicate only about 20 have a real shot at winning the state title. Is that really fair?

Isn’t it time that they each have a chance by facing a team in the other dugout that comes from a school similar to their own? It’s time to recognize that times have changed.

James Brown is editor of the Daily Times. He can be reached by e-mail at jbrown(at)glasgowdailytimes.com