OHSAA probation earlier this year for Collinwood and MLK has put postseason hopes for those schools on hold in the 2018-19 school year. (File image)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — High schools throughout the state have begun fall sports practices. Most have aspirations that include deep postseason runs and, perhaps, state championships.
Two schools in Cleveland's Senate League, Collinwood and Martin Luther King Jr., have no chance at those dreams this school year. That is because the Ohio High School Athletic Association placed Collinwood and MLK on probation early this year. A third Cleveland city school, Whitney Young, was hit with the same penalty in early June.
The sanctions came because those schools failed to field the required two teams per sports season and compete in state tournaments. The probation will stretch through at least the 2018-19 school year.
Desiree Powell, the athletic director for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, told cleveland.com that Collinwood’s penalty came after it did not field volleyball or soccer teams for the postseason last fall. Additionally, neither Collinwood nor MLK had girls basketball teams play in the postseason since 2016.
Powell just completed her first year leading the city’s high school athletic program. She said communication breakdowns between the school administrators and the CMSD athletic office were partly to blame.
“It can’t happen again,” she said in an interview with cleveland.com.
Enrollments, athletic participation, turnover in coaches and administrators have been challenges for several schools in the Senate, which consists of 13 high schools.
The ups and downs in enrollment forced Whitney Young, which began playing varsity football in 2013, to cancel that sport for this fall. MLK already did not have a football team. Ten Senate schools fielded football teams last year. That shrinks to nine without Whitney Young, which reported a male enrollment of 86 boys in 2017 to the OHSAA. By comparison, Collinwood reported 300.
Numbers aside, Powell said she is taking steps to improve communication between the district and its schools. She has implemented an email system in which the Senate sends notifications and reminders to its principals, athletic directors and coaches about deadlines and mandatory OHSAA meetings. The goal is to prevent a repeat of what happened at Collinwood, which has gone through three athletic directors and three head principals in the last six years.
“We looked at the protocols and we saw there were gaps in communication,” Powell said. “When we saw that, it was a wakeup call for everything.”
Collinwood athletic director Shemal Richmond declined to be interviewed through a Cleveland schools spokesperson. MLK athletic director Deidra Davis declined comment and deferred all questions to Powell.
While on OHSAA probation, Collinwood and MLK can remain active during the regular season for any sport. They just cannot compete in the postseason.
That is a blow to the Senate League, where one of its most traditionally successful programs is in girls track and field at Collinwood. The Railroaders could only compete as an “open team” this past spring, classifying all performances by their athletes as exhibitions.
Collinwood has nine girls state track and field championships, including a run of five straight from 1997-2001 and its latest in 2010 under legendary coach Lou Slapnik. Collinwood's nine track and field championships rank third in OHSAA history behind Beaumont and Minster.
To this day, Collinwood still owns a girls state long jump record set in 2010 by Erin Busbee. She went on to become an All-American at Michigan.
Powell said part of her focus will be to make sure district athletes have the opportunity to achieve what Busbee once accomplished.
Contact sports reporter Matt Goul on Twitter (@mgoul) or email ([email protected]). Or log in and leave a message below in the comments section.
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