Class Disparity in the WHSAA and what it means for CHS

By Sunday Schuh Assistant Editor

Wyoming is home to some of the best high school athletics programs in the country, with more than 17 sports and 14 activities offered through the Wyoming High School Activities Association (WHSAA). Yet even with all of the opportunities presented to students in our state, the question of fairness is constantly being brought up by competitors, parents, and coaches alike. 

The biggest controversy surrounding high school sports in Wyoming is the dispute over school classifications.  

Currently, Wyoming utilizes a four-class structure that classifies teams based on their school’s overall student population; the biggest division, 4A, is made up of fifteen schools that range from 763 students all the way up to 2,035. 3A has sixteen schools that range from 210-699 students, 2A has fourteen schools that vary from 110-209 students, and the smallest division, 1A, is made up of 22 schools that have less than 100 students each. 

Some argue that these numbers give bigger schools an unfair advantage over their smaller counterparts due to the vast range of school sizes, particularly in 1A and 4A. 

“There’s no question [that some teams have an unfair advantage over others in Wyoming],” said Cody High School’s activities director, Tony Hult. “I see the most disparity in the top and bottom classes because in 4A you have schools with 2,000 [students] and when [Cody] was in it we had 630; that’s over three times bigger than us, and then in 1A you have schools with maybe 80 or 90 [students] down to schools with 30, so they’re also three times bigger,” said Hult. “In most of these middle classes there’s not that big of a disparity but certainly when it’s that wide in a class it’s hard for a school on the bottom end; even though we did exceptionally well when we were a 4A school,” he added.  

These student population cutoffs haven’t always been in place, though; it’s merely the most recent strategy that the WHSAA has implemented in an attempt to create an even playing field. 

The WHSAA is the governing body for all extracurricular activities at the high school level in Wyoming, and according to their website, “the purpose of the WHSAA is to ensure that interscholastic activities in Wyoming are administered in a manner that is safe and fair to all.” 

So how do we ensure fairness for all? Well, it’s complicated, to say the least; “I found directly [while working with the WHSAA] that it was much more complicated than I thought; it’s a real, ongoing struggle and every transitional phase between classes is a challenge,” said former Wyoming Coaches Association President and current CHS alpine ski coach Rick Stonehouse. “We were always working with the WHSAA and trying to figure out classifications, and that’s when I began to understand the whole formula they use and I began to realize how complicated it is,” added Stonehouse. 

“It used to be the top twelve or top sixteen [teams] were in 4A no matter how big your school was,” said Hult, “[this year] they went to 700 and above, and I personally think it should be more like 1000 and above; but what they did this year is the first step towards [more equality],” he included. 

Each season is different, and every sport has separate classifications that make the most sense. Alpine skiing, for example, has only one class across the entire state, while football operates on a five-class system. 

“Of course, we could say that things don’t seem fair when you have Cody as a 4A school; that was difficult,” continued Stonehouse, “but there’s a two-layer answer to that; one, it’s super cool when a small school does really well despite all that, (look at the success of our teams even in 4A), but the second part of that is that it’s so difficult to find what we’re looking for in terms of fairness because somebody’s always going to get screwed.”

The disparity has prompted members of the WHSAA to try and find better ways to break up schools, but finding support for new ideas has proven to be just as much of a challenge over the last decade. “Every two years there’s been [pushes for major change] and I was the leader of that for many of those years, but it’s very hard to change; you have to get more than 50 percent of the votes and it seems like we always got out voted 11-8 and you just couldn’t get it passed, but this last one they did, and it was the first step so hopefully everybody likes it,” said Hult. 

The biggest obstacle when it comes to creating change is getting everyone to agree since not every system will benefit every school. As Hult put it, “Everybody looks to see where they’re at and I guarantee half of those schools will say ‘this helps us’ and half of those will say that it doesn’t, so we go back to the drawing board again but it seems like nothing ever happens.” 

One possible solution that has regularly been brought to the table is moving to a five-class system across all sports, but such a big shift might not be feasible in the short term.

“I’ve been a proponent of what they did, but I don’t think they went far enough; I’ve always felt like we should have five classes similar to football because that’s the fairest way for everybody,” Hult commented. 

“We were kind of gunning for [a 5A system]; we thought that seemed to be the perfect kind of compromise solution,” included Stonehouse, who has also been a major advocate for moving to a five-class structure. 

Adding another division could help balance the scales a bit because it would allow smaller 4A schools with around 800 students to compete against schools with 500-800 students as opposed to schools like Kelly Walsh that have more than 2,000 students enrolled. Under football’s current five-class system, 4A includes the top ten teams, 3A has 12 schools, 2A has 16 teams, and 1A (9-man) and 1A (6-man) have 13 teams each. The number of schools in each division would likely be similar for every sport if the WHSAA were to move to a five-class system.  

Other suggestions, like a revolving system where a school’s athletic performance each season would determine their placement for the next school year, have also been proposed in the last year, but have almost always been met with backlash. 

“For football, what if each year your state champion moves up and the last place team moves down? Eventually, your top class is going to be full of a bunch of pretty good programs,” suggested CHS vice principal and assistant football coach Shawn Trotter, regarding a hypothetical revolving class arrangement. “The school that moves up is at the top of their division for a reason, and they might not win often, or even win at all, but they probably won’t be in last place either, and eventually you would have something a lot more leveled out,” he added. 

Critics of a fluid arrangement like Trotter’s have said that the logistics of state tournaments and travel would be too complicated; “I think [a revolving system] sounds like a mess to me; trying to change it every year,” said Stonehouse. “It’s tough enough now when you’re looking at a projection on a four to five-year cycle, but to switch it every year sounds messy.” Once it was implemented, though, a revolving structure could potentially solve a lot of the problems facing the WHSAA. 

Another one of those problems is the level of competitiveness in each class; if all of Wyoming’s teams were split into five divisions, the level of competition would decrease, and some might not consider that a worthwhile trade-off for leveling things out. “What’s the overall objective? If it was just about the level of competition then maybe you throw the enrollment piece out,” said Trotter. 

There’s no question that state competitions would be less challenging with fewer teams in each class, but it is the WHSAA’s responsibility to provide fair match-ups whenever possible, even if it means watering down the competition to an extent. 

“It’s a good opportunity for our kids to be able to go [to state tournaments in Wyoming], maybe they’re not as difficult or competitive as [other states’ tournaments], but it’s still a good opportunity for our kids,” added Trotter. Compared to neighboring states like South Dakota, Colorado, and Nebraska, Wyoming is already considerably watered down due to our low population, so adding another class wouldn’t necessarily have a drastic effect on the athletics landscape. 

“Considering that there’s 50-something districts in the state, I don’t think that there’s going to be a perfect system however you do it and that level of competition piece is going to be difficult regardless,” he stated. 

Being competitive and holding our own in a bigger class is an experience that Cody players and coaches know all too well; for the last two decades CHS has bounced back and forth between 3A and 4A in select sports, but our performance has never been anything less than excellent even when faced against Wyoming’s top teams. Now that CHS is a 3A school across the board for all sports and activities, “we are the biggest school [in 3A] and that’s an advantage. But since we have that many activities, we divide our kids up more than the other schools do so it takes away some of our advantage; we’re just good,” said Hult. 

Cody is unique in that our school offers every single sport and activity provided through the WHSAA, something that no other 3A school in the state can say. Like Hult said, though, this can be a disadvantage, considering that our athletes are spread a lot thinner than a similar-sized school like Star Valley’s that doesn’t offer nearly as many sports. 

Cody is also not guaranteed to stay in 3A forever; “We can look at what [student population] Cody has right now but that’s not necessarily what Cody will have in four years, so it’s a moving target,” said Stonehouse. “Cody’s right in the middle of that controversy so it’s really been more relevant in the last few years than I’d ever seen before, and I think it will just continue to come up,” he added. 

For now, though, CHS is at the forefront of 3A in almost all sports, and should continue to dominate going into the winter and spring seasons, “A lot of people love the idea that we’re 3A except for the other 3A schools,” said Stonehouse. 

“I think the majority of people don’t understand it and they don’t know how tricky it is to maintain. Everyone wants easy and consistent and something that works for everybody and that’s just hard to find,” Stonehouse stated; and at the end of the day, “it’s not just about what’s best for Cody but what’s best for the state and for the kids of our state,” added Hult.