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Input Needed On High School Class Basketball

Last updated on Friday, March 30, 2012

(Indianapolis, IN) - Indiana High School Athletic Association Commissioner Bobby Cox and State Senator Mike Delph will hold a series of eleven town meetings across the state to gather input on the IHSAA’s current four-class basketball tournaments.

Individuals will be given two minutes each to voice their opinions at the meetings, which begin April 10th at Fort Wayne Northrop High School.

Other meetings will be held at Vincennes Lincoln, Plainfield, Seymour, Pendleton Heights, Merrillville, Milan, Plymouth, Marion, Connorsville and Gary Roosevelt High Schools. A straw poll will be taken at each meeting. Member school principals, athletic directors and basketball coaches are also invited to share their views with the IHSAA.

The change from a single-class tournament to the current tournament took place in the 1997-98 school year and has been controversial since its inception, particularly on the boys side. The IHSAA's Board of Directors approved the move to four classes in April of 1996 and a referendum of school principals that fall also showed strong support for class basketball.

A motion to return to a single-class tournament was rejected by the Board of Directors in 1999 and in a survey of the IHSAA membership in 2005 the schools overwhelmingly rejected the addition of a single-class basketball tournament.

Delph became involved in the discussion when he included a provision in a bill to bring back the one-class tournament last January. Delph agreed to seek public opinion on the subject of class basketball in return for dropping the provision from the bill.

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