NorWOSSA looking to reduce athletes’ time away from class

Due to the vast distance teams in NorWOSSA must travel for their games, students on the various Muskie squads miss a significant amount of class time during the year.
Reducing the time high school athletes spend out of the classroom was one of the main topics up for discussion at last Friday’s league meeting in Dryden.
Fort High principal Terry Ellwood said those on hand were concerned about the amount of lost classroom, particularly among those students who play multiple sports (as many as three).
Ellwood said students could miss as many as 20 afternoon classes in two different subjects during the course of the school year.
Still, while he stressed that students missing school and getting “floundering” marks is a problem that must be addressed, he also noted athletes generally earn higher marks than other students.
That’s because Fort High has a stringent check in place to ensure student-athletes receive passing marks while on a school team. And Ellwood said that helps motivates kids to get passing grades.
“We keep a very close check on our athletes, and our athletes, in general, are more successful,” he said. “They tend to do better in school than [students] not in sports.”
Still, Ellwood said last week’s meeting tried to find some answers in reducing lost time in school. One idea was to move games to Saturdays although he noted the league does not want to put added stress on teachers’ personal time.
NorWOSSA president Diane Chappell agreed switching to Saturday games may not be approved by those teachers who put in additional time as coaches.
“Like a lot of things in education, it may be very hard to get teachers committed to coach [Saturdays],” she admitted.
Another option would be to have two visiting court teams travel to one home team’s site on the same day. Having one team play two games in one day would reduce travel and time spent out of the classroom, Ellwood said.
But he admitted that would force schools to find additional venues to play the added games.
Another contentious issue at the NorWOSSA meeting was over trying to cut costs for high school athletics. Chappell said a few ideas were discussed, including reducing the number of school reps attending NorWOSSA meetings.
She added these ideas would be considered more seriously at the NWOSSAA meeting tomorrow in Thunder Bay.
Meanwhile, Chappell said the notion of NorWOSSA joining the Manitoba high school league to alleviate the substantial costs incurred while travelling to southern Ontario for all-Ontario championships–a hot topic at last year’s meeting–has been dismissed for several reasons.
The main one is that NorWOSSA teams often play during different times of the school year compared to those in Manitoba. For example, many soccer teams in Manitoba play during the fall while the NorWOSSA soccer season is in the spring.
But NorWOSSA could not make the switch due to the football season which runs through to November. Chappell said schools here simply do not have the players nor the fields to have football and soccer running at the same time.
As well, NorWOSSA teams will continue to receive the most funding for travel to all-Ontario championships.
“Those [leagues] travelling the farthest distances will receive the most money,” said OFSAA executive director Colin Hood. “But for the people travelling the smallest distance, they will be hurt the most.”
In past years, the funding distribution for travel was split into three groups based on the cost to travel to the all-Ontario championships.
Teams forced to spend $500-$1,000 received 20 percent of that cost back from their expenses. Those that spent $1,000-$2,000 got 30 percent back while those spending more than $2,000 were refunded 40 percent.
But under the new alignment, which went into effect this year, schools that spend less than $1,000 now do not receive any financial support from OFSAA.
In the past three years, teams from NorWOSSA have received $96,000 in all-Ontario funding compared to just $30,000 for the next closest recipient.
In fact, Hood noted some schools in the Metro Toronto area have received no funding at all, choosing to raise their money strictly through fundraising.
But while eliminating the lower bracket travel teams helps NorWOSSA, Fort High athletic director Bob Grynol said the money received by schools here was much higher three years ago.
In fact, schools used to receive 50 percent back to cover expenses. But the $150,000 that was designated for all-Ontario expenses has been sliced to about $84,000-$86,000–almost a 50 percent reduction.
And Grynol said that has hurt Fort High, which has made several trips to OFSAA championships in recent years, the most recent being the boys’ curling team that earned a silver medal in Midland.
“We used to get a lot more money,” noted Grynol. “[But] we’re happy to get funding from OFSAA and we hope we can continue to get more help.”
Hood said he doesn’t know how much money is available for next year yet but expected it to be the same amount.