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In less than 24 hours, we'll know who the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference girls' basketball champions are for the 2007-08 season.
And all of the decisions will be made right where they should be…on the court.
There are no point systems or talk of schedules. It's all about who shows up Saturday at Ohio University Eastern's Health and Physical Education Center to determine who will pocket the hardware and banner as the inaugural winners of the Wheeling Hospital OVAC Basketball Championship.
While it may have taken a while to get to this point where it's decided on the court, one thing's for certain it's definitely the way to do it.
The idea came across OVAC Executive Secretary Tom Rataiczak's desk shortly after the membership of the conference shot down the idea of mandatory scheduling in the sport of football.
Even though it didn't work for one major sport, Rataiczak and company went back to the drawing board and began thinking about a basketball tournament.
"This idea goes clear back to the time when teams were getting beat out for the OVAC Championship by fractions of points," Rataiczak said during a phone conversation. "The frustration level was there because you had teams winning who might not have played other teams and we always had that issue in basketball more than other sports."
So, Rataiczak enlisted the help of area basketball coaches and polled them on their thoughts on whether or not they would be interested in doing this and once it was met with a resounding acceptance, he took the idea and results of what the coaches had to say to the athletic directors.
"We gave (the athletic directors) an idea of what the schedule would look like and told them about it and they approved the idea," Rataiczak said. "We had the basic concept worked out before we went to the athletic directors."
After that the proposal was mailed to every boys and girls coach as well as the athletic director and allowed them to offer up any suggesstions and after a couple rounds of exchanging of ideas an official ballot was mailed to the principals asking for formal approval.
"Every school got to vote," Rataiczak said. "We told the schools ahead of time that a ballot that wasn't returned would be counted as a 'yes' vote."
Well after the ballots were counted, the idea had passed and it was official, the OVAC would crown its champions through a tournament style for hoops much like it does in the sports of baseball and softball.
While the tournament was in place, there was still much to do before getting to the point, the OVAC will be come Saturday morning at 10 a.m. when St. John Central and Beallsville meet for the 1-A title.
"We wanted to make sure we worked all of the bugs out before we started this," Rataiczak confirmed. "We could have probably done it in 2007, but it would have been tough."
Selecting a venue for the games was also a big decision. The main choices in the immediate area are WesBanco Arena in Wheeling, the McDonough Center at Wheeling Jesuit and the Health and Physical Education Center at Ohio University-Eastern.
"We looked at all of the choices," Rataiczak said. "The biggest problem was the fact that the dates for this could change yearly because of when the Ohio sectionals fall. OUE was able to guarantee us the dates we needed each year and were willing to arrange their schedule based on us."
Now that the measure had passed, the venue was set and it was time to get down to the nity-grity of planning out the finer details of the event and all that goes into an undertaking of this size, Rataiczak needed to find a director.
"It hit me right now that Rick DeLuca would be the perfect guy to chair this thing," Rataiczak said. "He does all of the football, volleyball, basketball and baseball standings, so who would know the ratings better than him. He's done a tremendous job of getting things ready for this and taking care of small details that might slip our minds and he works really well with the committee."
Now with a director in place, an event of this magnitude certainly wasn't going to be pulled off by just DeLuca and Rataiczak. So, they sent letters to every boys and girls coach in the conference, inviting them to be on the committee.
The group that's been together for the duration includes: Chris Pack (Barnesville boys), George Vargo (Madonna boys) Fred King (Paden City boys), Donnie Madzia (Harrison Central/OUE men), Mark Masloski (Steubenbille boys), Rick Isaly (River girls), Nikki Cain (former coach of Magnolia girls), Bubba Kapral (St. John girls) and Ron Smyth (Edison girls).
"I can't say enough about the work of this committee," Rataiczak said. "This group is so willing to listen to each other and works so well together. They have exchanged ideas, modified ideas to make this come to frution. Very rarely had someone demanded that their school get this or boys and girls get this."
So this committee -- spearheaded by DeLuca -- went to work for the better part of the past two years making Saturday and next week's boys tournament a reality for hoop junkies in the area.
Everything -- outside of editing the actual rule book -- was determined by the committee. Whether or not it was a matter of how to schedule games for the teams who don't make the tournament or how the advance tickets would be handled to who would work the pass gate and how the money would be divided up amongst the participating schools.
"I am impressed with the integrity of this committee," Rataiczak said. "You have a tough time picking out the girls and boys coaches if you didn't know them. It's been just amazing to watch how well the committee has worked with Rick and Rick with the committee."
The committee has worked diligently for the past two-plus years to make sure that Saturday and next week goes off without a hitch, but they won't be alone Saturday when it comes to running the show at OUE.
The number of volunteers and workers that will arrive to help in anyway possible from taking tickets to monitoring the hospitality room to working the scorer's table are as important to the success of the event as anything.
"We had very little trouble in finding people who wanted to be involved and help out anyway they could," Rataiczak said. "If we were asking them for two Saturdays in the summer or around Christmas it might have been different. We're hoping we can build a loyalty base of workers and have them come back each year like the wrestling tournament does."
Keep in mind when you are in the building whether it be Saturday or next week for the boys' finals, that this is the first tournament. While DeLuca, Rataiczak and the committee are confident knowing they have yet to leave a stone unturned in the planning of this, there could still be bugs in the system.
However, it's safe to say that when the committee reconvenes, everything will be broke down and looked at for 2009 and this product will get only better and better.
"So many good things can come out of this," Rataiczak said. "There are always going to be some inconveniences for the schools, but to paraphrase a local basketball coach, 'it's not I or me, but us and we.' We have to look at what's good for all 46 schools. We also look at what's good for basketball in the valley and this is it."
Here's hoping everyone comes out Saturday and checks out exciting girls' basketball action. It's going to be a great event with some great action. There's been too much time poured into it for to be anything short of a huge success.
OVAC NOTES
• FANS ARE being reminded that tickets at the gate will cost $6 and the gym will be cleared between sessions, meaning it will take four tickets to watch all four games.
• THERE will also be a $2 charge for parking and all fans are being encouraged to take exit 213 off I-70 onto State Rt. 331 to the OUE campus. Parking is somewhat limited, but fans having to park in the Shannon Hall lot are also reminded that a shuttle compliments of Whiteside's will be running continuously throughout the dat.
• THE SCHEDULE for the games is as follows Saturday. 10 a.m. -- 1-A (St. John vs. Beallsville); 1 p.m. -- 2-A (Steubenville Catholic vs. Monroe Central); 4 p.m. -- 3-A (Martins Ferry vs. Barnesville); 7 p.m. -- 4-A (Indian Creek vs. John Marshall).
• THE BOYS finals are slated for Feb. 9 and will use the same time schedule as above. However, before plans can be made for next week, the boys brackets have to be set. Tonight is the cut-off for the OVAC standings for boys to determine the top four in each class. The brackets for the boys' tournament will be set Sunday morning.
• THE TIMES LEADER will obviously be on hand for all eight championship games in the Wheeling Hospital OVAC Basketball Championship. If you can't attend the games live, but would like to follow the action, this writer will be blogging between the games. Complete photography and coverage of both weekends will be included in Sunday's editions. Also, inside of today's edition you'll find a 16-page tab devoted to the girls' finals and a similar version will be printed next week for the boys.
Staskey can be reached at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com