Chuck Durante is a former State News sportswriter who has watched or chronicled all 59 boys’ basketball state tournaments.
A poorly conceived proposal to eviscerate the highlight of the Delaware high school athletic year awaits consideration by the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association board Nov. 13. The board should avoid hasty action and halt the idea.
The idea to divide the state basketball tournament into two has advanced from the fringes to a passage buried in a report issued by the DIAA Competition Committee last March, with no explanation or discussion. The proposal has advanced to the Nov. 13 DIAA agenda — still without a written report or justification.
Severing the basketball tournament would mutilate Delaware’s premier high school sporting event, the centerpiece of the last 59 years, a carnival in which nearly half of the state’s schools participate, with a chance to play the best.
In an era when other local sporting events have withered, the Delaware high school basketball tournament has enjoyed continuing success.
The two-tier scheme would deprive the tournament of many of the sport’s best teams, resulting in two devalued tournaments, one of them a mere consolation round.
Above all, as experience shows, there is no sensible way to split the small state into two sections.
The proposal is favored by almost no one in the basketball community.
Coaches use the tournament as a motivational and educational tool.
Players cherish the chance to face the best in the state, to play future Division I players and seek statewide recognition.
Fans appreciate an environment where Cinderella still lives. Schools seeded 15th, 17th, 18th and 19th have played in the din of 5,000 voices at the University of Delaware’s Bob Carpenter Center in recent years.
The two-tournament idea is fancied principally by parents, including stray elected officials.
Severing the event into a real tournament and a kids’ table, though, would cripple a carnival where players from every school can strive for challenge and a chance at the pinnacle of the sport. It would relegate good teams to a junior event.
The tournament has recurring headliners. Yes, Dover is on a run of success, and Sanford’s success mirrors Wilmington city schools’ from a generation ago — but victory in the tournament is diffuse. Since 2015, 18 schools have reached the Final Four, the same as occurred in 1971-81.
Creating a proper two-tier event would be functionally impossible. No committee can foretell who will be good in the next year or two. Adolescents mature, students transfer, coaches change. For example:
The tournament was founded in an era with 51 high schools, by a committee drawn mostly from small schools, which realized that a single champion was most meaningful in a small state. Things are no different now that there are 57 schools with full-schedule varsities. The thrill and reward of postseason play is unchanged. Players relish the showdown.
As the longtime chair of the state Boys’ Basketball Committee, Brian Fahey, has said, “It’s a point of pride. It’s accomplishment, playing against the big boys. It’s not ‘everyone gets a trophy.’”
In high school, a talented 6-foot-2 player can dominate. With a crafty point guard and three athletic classmates, that team can defy the predictions and shine statewide.
The DIAA board should take stock, pause the proposal and study the situation more carefully than a Competition Committee that has tossed a proposal without details or justification.
Competitive young athletes are less fragile than the grown-ups who want to cushion them against new experiences and daunting challenges.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
