Wellington hoisted the trophy after sub-state after completing a 21-1 season… Then came Miege.

Commentary by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Writing another “private vs. public school” missive regarding athletics seems like regurgitated outrage. It’s been a source of debate since I moved here in 1992. Exactly, what else is there left to say?

We all know the drill. The private schools have inherited advantages over the public schools bounded by boundaries when it comes to getting athletic specimens, brainy academic types, and big-spending donors.

And on Thursday afternoon, the point was reemphasized when Bishop Miege knocked out our nifty Wellington girls’ basketball team in the Class 4A State Tournament first round at Salina. The Lady Dukes lost just one game this year, had a 43-game regular season winning streak at one point, and destroyed opponents an average of 26.7 points per game.

You would think Wellington could have been rewarded with the full tournament experience by playing a lesser opponent in the first round. Instead, they got a school that can recruit across Chiefs Kingdom.

The thing is, Wellington’s plight isn’t as bad as Wamego, a public school about 20 miles east of Manhattan, who didn’t even get to the big show.  Wamego was the No. 1 ranked team in the state for most of the season and was eliminated by Miege in the sub-state championship.

To be fair, Wellington probably would not have won the 2023 state championship in a Miege-less tournament anyway. With its senior crop of shooters and ball movers, McPherson would have been a problem for the Crusaders. Wamego, a team Wellington lost to in 2022 for third place, would have given the Crusaders fits as well.

A Miege-less tournament would have maybe featured Wellington vs. Hugoton for third place.

Still, seeing if Wellington could pull it off would have been fun. Had we lost to McPherson, we could all go home complaining about the refs instead of being outraged over the systematic failure of the Kansas high school classifications.

I can’t imagine the KSHSAA officials are overly thrilled with Miege’s presence, either. The Stag Nation at the state tournament consisted of each other’s basketball teams and maybe 10 to 12 parents. There was no Miege band, cheerleaders, rowdy student section, media, photographers, alumni, relatives or town fans who could empty a community for a day.

20 minutes before tipoff to compare the crowd size. Couldn’t Miege even bring the cheerleaders? pic.twitter.com/Oy4qR9ewxL

— Tracy McCue (@Cueballnewscow) March 9, 2023

The KSHSAA lost a lot of money in Salina when Wellington fans went home after Day 1 for the boys and Day 2 for the girls. Had either team made it to the finals, the Tony Pizza Center would have been packed with Crusaders fans. Miege may have brought some people on Saturday to the state finals, but I doubt it equaled a regular-season game between Wellington and Augusta.

A Wellington vs. Wamego state tournament final – holy cow, that would have been epic.

Here’s the kicker. The NFHS Network sportscasters were interviewing Miege athletic director Joe Schramp during halftime of the 4A girls’ state championship broadcast, and he said the school is trying to figure out how to get back to Class 5A. Not only does the rest of the state want the Stags bumped up, but so does Miege!

So surely, if everyone in the whole world wants Miege out of 4A, we can get the job done. Right?

Well, no. There’s this thing called politics.

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This year, a bill introduced in the Kansas Legislature addressed a classification modifier system. In a nutshell, when a school’s student count is taken to divide up the classifications, the proposal would multiply the private school student count by .3 or .15, depending on other factors like school size and past success. For example, let’s say a private school has 100 high school students. By multiplying the student count by .3, that private school would have an official count of 133 students.

Schools such as Miege and Kansas City Aquinas would be jumped up to Class 5A — where they should be playing.

This sounds like a great solution and has passed through all the KSHSAA committees and with the Department of Education. The problem is a classification modifier bill was introduced in the Kansas State Legislature and then died in the House Education Committee (see story here).

So we are back to square one.

My thoughts are…

1) Why does the Kansas State Legislature need to decide this issue? Don’t they have bigger fish to fry like just trying to keep public schools open?

2) The Legislature has no horse in the classification modification race – so the issue isn’t that important to the legislative body.

One thing I’ve learned about Kansas legislators – they are like trying to get your grandma to hook up to a TV streaming service. You have to revisit the issue a few times before they get it.

Collegiate would always be Class 4A with a modifier.

Nevertheless, Wellington won’t be in the clear even if the modifier rule is passed. A modifier will only guarantee schools like Wichita Collegiate and Wichita Trinity will be Class 4A. They are a recruiting year away from being a Miege in any sport.

So really, the public vs. private fight will never go away – unless you kick out the private schools entirely. And that won’t happen because Kansas does not have the number of private schools to form its own classification. My wife grew up in Michigan, and there were enough private schools you could do that. Everyone was happy if you could get by the fact you had to live in Michigan (just kidding, Earls).

In the meantime, we live in a state where private schools, which comprise less than 8 percent of KSHSAA membership, have won nearly 24 percent of possible team state championships in the past five years. On Saturday in basketball, it was a good day for public schools. Private schools took home three state championship trophies out of 14. That was due to boys’ teams at 4A Hugoton and 5A Andover.

So let’s enjoy this ride with the Lady Duke basketball team – because they will be dang good for quite a while. And come 2024, Wellington will probably see the same Miege team in Salina sometime during the tournament.

So while we wait for a solution, maybe the KSHSAA should address how the teams are seeded in the postseason. But that is a whole new column in itself.

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