Sorry to take the counterpoint here, but I think all of the OHSAA bashing is misplaced.
First your proposed rule change #3
I am probably a minority in my opinion, but that has never bothered me before. I think that the current limits on players and coaching contact times are very good rules in the best interest of the student-athletes. Notice it is student-athletes and not athlete-students. I know other states have different rules, but here is my problem...... Assume for a second that there was no limit to the number of girls from any one school on a team outside of summer and then assume that the coach was allowed contact all year long. Now you have a situation where the girls would be strongly enouraged (also mandated) to fully commit to ONLY softball. The HS coach would have complete control of the girls all year 'round and the days of multi sport athletes would be going by the wayside quicker than it is right now. The travel ball community likes to trash HS coaches (mostly unwarranted), but if the rules were lifted they (HS coaches) would most certainly have influence over which travel program the girls played for. I believe that the travel ball organizations would lose their current independence.
I would not like to see the day of multi-sport athletes go away. The only reason most think it is a good idea is because of college scholarships. While there is some money out there, the odds are highly stacked against you (about 1%-2% of HS students receive athletic scholarships) and most aren't full rides in softball. You've heard it before, but the money is in academics and NOT athletics; drive your kids an hour to the best library around and higher the best tutor around for an hour long session. At this point many of you are laughing, but that's what some do for hitting/pitching lessons!!!!! To have the best chance at these opportunities you have to play for the best teams and those teams most likely are never concerned about the 4 girl limit as they are drawing the best from a much broader area. The 4 girl rule really only affects those teams at the lower local level trying to help out their HS programs.
The State championships were scheduled for June 7th last year. How is that "FAR INTO JUNE"? The hard cutoff is June 13th, which by my best estimation is mid-June and I don't think you will see many teams playing games past the 1st week.
Now for rule #2
Moving to the fall creates many problems from the standpoint of juggling/coordinating the move with all of the other sports affected, who each probably have their own reason for not wanting to change times. Just changing the season may work well for softball, but you are not looking at the whole picture of the other sports and how they are affected. Right now many sports have their club/traveling season at a time opposite of when the colleges play, which works out well so that they can see the girls play outside of the college season during their club season. This is why Michigan switched their volleyball season around. If fall is so great, then why wouldn't colleges switch?
This would place the place the most important games and the championships into November and possibly inclimate weather. I would rather see the championship games played in the best weather possible in late-May/early-June.
In general I believe the OHSAA has the best interest of the girls at heart and I support most if not all of their rules. Additionally the rules are not really ambiguous, except when we try and take them out of context. Quit guessing at the rules or believing the ramblimgs of Joe Coach who thinks he knows the rules. Anyone can just go to
www.ohsaa.org and read the rules for themselves........so easy even a caveman (softball coach) can do it!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !!!!
