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March 18, 2010

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Gary Musselman’s message to Emporia was well-crafted and — in Tuesday’s meeting of Emporia Sports Promotions, at least — well-received.

“I don’t want to give anybody the impression that you’re losing something, because I know you’ve been through that,” the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s executive director told ESPI. “You’re just switching gears. And I think it’s a win-win, to be honest with you.”

After this basketball season, Emporia’s run of hosting the Class 6A State tournaments will end at 16 consecutive years. Beginning in 2011, White Auditorium will be the site of something entirely new: the State tournaments for the just-created Class 1A Division II.

The state’s Class 1A schools voted in June to split into two divisions for basketball, volleyball and scholars’ bowl beginning in 2010-11. So starting that year, KSHSAA announced Tuesday, White Auditorium will play host to the basketball tournaments for Division II, the lower-enrollment half of 1A. Gross Memorial Coliseum in Hays will host the Class 1A Division I tournaments for the higher-enrollment schools. The Class 6A championships will move to a remodeled Koch Arena in Wichita.

Musselman and Fran Martin, KSHSAA’s basketball administrator, visited Tuesday’s ESPI meeting at the Trusler Business Center because, Musselman said, they wanted to show ESPI respect and make sure its members were the first to know about the site changes.

Musselman told them that he believes White Auditorium is a good fit for the 1A Division II tournaments in terms of size and capacity. Although he said he didn’t want to speculate on what kind of attendance figures might result, he said that the 1A tournament turnout is always larger than 6A “without fail, and many times it is virtually the largest — probably double the 6A attendance in most normal years.”

“I’ve told you what my experience has been with small communities, high school sports,” he said. “The only people who won’t be here will probably be Grandmother if she’s bedfast, but don’t bet on it.”

He added that White Auditorium — “and we love it — has some seating limitations that cause us to have to be exceedingly careful about what classes can we bring in. And you’ve known that and we’ve dealt with that for 20 years.” Musselman also said he believed that the “hometown potential” of having the 6A tournament at White had fallen off since Emporia High moved to Class 5A.

“I don’t want be in any way disrespectful or in any way misunderstood,” Musselman said. “We are here because we chose you, literally. We chose you guys as the ones who probably have the facility that lends itself to be a right fit, capacity- and size-wise. Because we know the job you do, and we know your history of having done this before, and currently.”

Reaction to the KSHSAA news at the ESPI meeting was positive, with no ESPI member asking a confrontational question or lodging a complaint about losing the 6A tournaments. Emporia Recreation Commission director Tom McEvoy predicted a “direct economic impact” resulting from the new tournaments, something that ESPI member Harold Hosey alluded to. Hosey recalled that back when Emporia hosted the 2A tournaments, White Auditorium had large crowds.

“And the merchants just loved it, because they were coming from places like Lebo... or someplace,” Hosey said. “And when they came to Emporia, Emporia was big, and that led ’em to shop here.

“But now Wichita comes in here or Kansas City or Topeka — hell, they don’t stop on Commercial. They got better stores than we have.”

Emporia’s current run of hosting 6A began in 1995, following a three-year span in which White Auditorium didn’t host a State tourney. Before that, White played host to 6A from 1988 to 1991. White Auditorium facilities manager Ed Rathke thanked KSHSAA for bringing the 6A tourneys back to White in ’95 and for the opportunity to host the new tournaments.

Musselman said he was “prepared to hunker down and take guff” about why the 6A tourneys would be moved — something that McEvoy is also mindful of even as he supports the change.

“Our people that follow 6A, they’re here every year, they come in,” McEvoy said. “We’ve made friends with those people over the years, and we hate to lose ’em. But I understand the situation that the High School Activities Association was in, and I was glad that they chose Emporia as the site for the (Division II tourneys). So it’s gonna be tough to lose ’em, but change happens.”

Class 1A currently has 105 schools, so splitting it will put 50-some-odd schools in each division. For basketball, schools are being classified every year in September for the upcoming season, so it won’t be known until September 2010 which 1A schools will be in Division I and which will be in Division II.

The 1A split will also mean the end of the Regional tournaments that have preceded Substate in that classification. No sites have been determined for Substates yet.

“Right now for our Substates, everything’s on the table,” Martin said. “I can’t tell you anything, because I have no idea what schools will be in Division I, Division II.”

For this season, the State tournament sites will remain the same: Emporia will host 6A, and Hays will host the final undivided 1A championships. The other State sites — Manhattan for 2A, Hutchinson for 3A, Salina for 4A and Topeka for 5A — will all stay the same beyond this season.

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