It appears as if the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) and its member schools have never heard the phrase ‘sometimes, less is more.’

If they had, then the members wouldn’t have voted 265-115 to approve a competitive balance plan that makes brain surgery appear relatively simple and straightforward by comparison. The convoluted mess approved by WIAA members is slated to be implemented for the 2024-25 school year.

Sometimes, less is more. It’s like that movie that goes on just a bit too long in the theater that leaves people wondering, ‘When are the credits finally going to roll?’ Or like a Reagan Hoverman sports story in the Pierce County Journal. Can someone get that guy a word limit?

The WIAA and its member schools clearly have no conceptual grasp of the ‘less is more’ theory. The competitive balance plan was approved at the WIAA’s 127th Annual Meeting in Stevens Point on Wednesday, April 26.

The plan was marketed as an equitable way to competitively balance a currently lopsided competition gap in lower divisions between public and private schools, particularly in the WIAA’s postseason state tournaments.

I won’t provide a 2,000-word dissertation about the intricacies of the competitive balance plan. Instead, I’ll offer some of the basic elements that outline the crux of my issue with the WIAA’s ‘solution’ to private-school-dominated state tournaments.

The approved plan will use a points-based system that will determine whether a school will be moved up or down a division to more accurately reflect its competitive level in a specific sport. The points system is based solely on postseason tournament performance over a three-year period with scoring criteria as follows.

Four points for winning a state championship, three points for playing in a state title game, two points for making a state semifinal, and one point for competing in either a state quarterfinal or a sectional championship game.

High school sports programs that amass six or more points over the aforementioned three-year period would be moved up one division from where they currently reside. No school can be elevated more than one division in a single year.

Any program that falls short of that crucial six-point mark over a rolling three-year span would be eligible to move down a division, but only if that program had previously been elevated to a division higher than the enrollment would traditionally require.

Those in favor of the now-approved competitive balance plan argue that it will fix the long-standing issue of private schools in divisions three through seven running roughshod over small public schools in every state tournament.

It’s honestly surprising that Menards in Eau Claire still has lumber in stock, as private school powerhouse Eau Claire Regis has to build a new trophy case for its pile of D7 football state championships every couple of years. Speaking of, has anybody called Menards to see if Regis’ shipment of Cedar has arrived yet? They’re starting construction on a new trophy case soon.

While the competitive balance plan would eventually force Regis to move up several divisions for the football playoffs – maybe to the third or fourth bracket – it would also derail public schools that have spent decades cultivating homegrown powerhouse athletic programs.

For every Division 6 or Division 7 playoff bracket that is saved by the departure of a private school beast such as Eau Claire Regis, there is a Division 3 or Division 4 public school catching the shrapnel of the competitive balance plan.

Yes, Spring Valley and Elmwood/Plum City wouldn’t have to be bulldozed by Eau Claire Regis in the playoffs every year anymore. However, public schools like Ellsworth and Prescott, based on their success in various sports, would move up one or more divisions and lose any realistic chance of competing for a state title.

Perhaps no example is better than Prescott girls’ golf, which has organically created a Division 2 public school dynasty. Their success is a representation of hard work and dedication, not private school recruiting to build a super team that would make the 2012 Miami Heat blush.

The Prescott girls’ golf team has won three consecutive Division 2 state championships. If the approved competitive balance plan were in place during that run, Prescott would have been moved to the Division 1 girls’ tournament after its second straight state championship.

That means that the third and most recent state title never would have happened. Prescott won its championship with a two-day team score of 684. Not only would that not have won the Division 1 title, it wouldn’t have finished among the top five teams. The Cardinals would have left University Ridge in Madison in eighth place.

If Prescott would have competed in the Division 1 state tournament each of the three years it won the D2 championship, the Cardinals would have finished seventh in 2020 and 2021 and eighth in 2022.

So for every Waukesha Catholic Memorial or Eau Claire Regis private school powerhouse issue that is solved by this new competitive balance plan, just remember that there is a public school like the Prescott girls’ golf team that is getting completely and unjustifiably blindsided by the WIAA’s ‘solution’ to this issue.

I’d gladly watch Eau Claire Regis win another 100 state titles if it meant saving the public schools that have spent decades building their programs into state powerhouses organically from the  certain disaster of this plan.

The WIAA and its members have branded this competitive balance plan as a solution. In my eyes, all they’ve done is mangle an already-broken system even further. Making no changes would have been better. It seems like they need to learn that sometimes, less is more.