It’s easy to forget that Iowa is the only state that has separate governing bodies for boys’ and girls’ high school sports — until they diverge on a matter. Occasionally it’s just enough to cause confusion. For example, girls’ basketball has regions, while boys’ basketball has districts and a substate round.
The impending division into five classes instead of four for major girls’ sports is the latest such case. When the Iowa High School Athletic Association, the boys’ group, created a five-class football setup, the smallest schools were placed in Class A when 1A had been the smallest. The Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union, on the other hand, is going the opposite direction. Instead of bumping down to A, it’s setting up 5A as the largest.
The letter after the number is a remnant of long ago, when Iowa had Class A and Class B team divisions. Perhaps we’ll have to bring “Class B” back if and when 8-man football becomes too large to be contained in a single class.
I think using the precedent of “A” (0A?) would have made for more uniformity and clarity, but that’s what can happen when the groups are independent. Besides, 5-4-3-2-1 makes more sense than 4-3-2-1-no prefix.
In part, it is a fairness issue. The smallest 4A schools routinely have difficulty winning because the disparity in enrollment at the top is so large. Two factors figure into that: Iowa’s population keeps flowing into the urban centers, and some districts refuse to go to a two-high-school system. (By “some,” I mean “Valley.” The state’s largest single-high-school district considered it a decade ago, but decided against it. Why? One word: Dowling.)
Des Moines is not blameless in that either. The Sioux City Journal points out that while Lincoln and East are the state’s second- and third-largest districts, North and Hoover are right at the new 5A/4A cusp. Further proving the point above, those two combined for a 2-16 record in football last year, and one of those wins was because they played each other. Unfortunately, rebalancing Des Moines would require redrawing of borders, something that is as much a potential minefield there as consolidation is in rural areas.
The old number of schools per division: 48, 64, 128, 130. The new numbers: 40, 48, 64, 96, and “the rest,” as the Register put it. The 113th-largest school was the largest 2A, but now will be the 41st-largest school in 3A, right about the middle. If the total number of schools remained steady, there would be 122 left in 1A, which isn’t much of a change.
Here are what 40-team, 48-team, and 96-team brackets look like. As non-powers-of-2, they aren’t exactly elegant, but neither is the 68-team bracket the NCAA has forced upon us. (I’m not alone in insisting the 64-team set is the FIRST ROUND. I will not conform to the ridiculous “second round” wording that implies 60 teams got byes. Admit that the first four games are play-ins.)