COLUMBUS — The Ohio High School Athletic Association’s membership has officially spoken.

The transfer bylaw is changing once again.

The results of referendum voting, which went on during the first two weeks of this month, were announced Wednesday, and if you’re considering transferring schools, you may want to re-think it.

Effective Wednesday, anyone who transfers schools — without one of the 11 OHSAA exceptions — becomes ineligible for the second half of the season and postseason. Prior to the vote, the student-athlete who transferrered sat the first half of the season, including scrimmages.

Dr. Daniel Ross, who completes his tenure as OHSAA executive director in Septemeber, addressed the OHSAA Media Advisory Committee shortly after the results were counted.

“Our coaches’ associations have been adament that they don’t think this (bylaw change) will stop recruiting, but it will help to deter it,” Ross said.

In every OHSAA sponsored sport — except football — every team or individual qualifies for the postseason. So, sitting out the first half of the season came without much punishment other than games missed. For instance, a team could have three all-state players transfer in, sit out and then become eligible. It really doesn’t matter what happened in the first half of the season.

The referendum item, which was initiated by the membership, passed by a 450-244 vote. There are 809 OHSAA members, which received a ballot.

This measure continues to level the playing field, which is a positive. The number of transfer students is simply ridiculous. This may keep kids in the school in which they grew up in. It’s been too easy for students to become disenchanted with someone or something and just pack their stuff and find a place where they believe the grass is greener.

Quite simply, this was a good move by the OHSAA and kudos to the member schools for agreeing

In other matters, Dr. Ross also said that the membership has done an exceptional job of getting its rosters submitted for competitive balance purposes.

The spring sports rosters were due earlier this month and the 2019 divisions should be finalized in the August Board of Directors meeting.

While competitive balance has been a hot-button issue for many years, the size of the gap in Division I continues to be something that baffles the OHSAA. The problem was addressed in football with the addition of the seventh division, but in the four-division sports, the difference is massive.

“We are looking at options,” Ross said. “The schools admit that it needs fixed, but when you start talking about how to fix it, they don’t really care about the gap in Division I because it doesn’t affect them since they don’t play there. If you’re going to change the disparity in Division I, the other divisions are going to get bigger.”

For instance, the gap in boys’ basketball was more than 1,000. The smallest Division I boys’ basketball school had 362, while the largest checked in with 1,367.

Could the state basketball, volleyball, baseball and softball tournaments expand to Wednesday? Maybe finish on Sunday? Or could a different system be used to break the teams down into more of a regional setting? All are things that are being discussed.

Though Ohio permits Sunday play, Ross isn’t a huge fan. And he knows school administrators are not huge fans of the idea of taking students out of school an additional day.

Another hot-button issue that the OHSAA continues to examine and try to figure out is the increased number of ejections across the entire sporting landscape.

“We had our highest number of football, girls’ basketball, boys’ basketball coach, ice hockey ejections from numbers that go back until 1994 other than ice hockey, which is since 2012,” Ross said. “We’re better than this and we need to continue to work with our schools, coaches and coaches associations. These numbers need to come down.”

OHSAA TIDBITS

∫ THE DECISION whether or not to continue all football tournament games on Friday is still up in the air. Since that falls under a sporting rules matter, it will be finalized at the June Board of Directors Meeting. According to Ross, the change to Friday was met with mostly positive reaction, but there was a faction of the state upset. Overall attendance for the football tournaments were down in 2017, too.

∫ THE 2018 state football championship games will be played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton and are expected to move back to Columbus for 2019 and 2020. However, no formal contract with Ohio State University has been signed at this time.

∫ THE SITE of the 2019 state baseball tournament remains up in the air. Since the baseball calendar is changing and a week is being added to the back end of the season, meaning the state tournament will run from June 6-8. Huntington Park isn’t promised because the International League, which the Columbus Clippers are members of, won’t promise the club is out of town during that weekend. Ohio State’s Bill Davis Stadium would make a lot of sense, but the NCAA Super Regionals are that weekend, so OSU is often times reluctant to enter into a long-term contract because it may be chosen as a host.

∫ ROSS INDICATED a push to add sports to the competitive balance umbrella is starting. Currently, it’s only utilized in fully established ‘team sports.’ However, wrestling and lacrosse could soon be added the sport listing.

∫ THE NEWLY instituted basketball mercy rule will return in 2019. It will be used only in the tournament.

BRUNEY AND CIRCOSTA

May 11, 2018 will go down in Ohio Valley sports history as the day when two legends called it a career.

Dave Bruney and Jay Circosta entered into retirement after two of the most successful football coaching careers ever scripted in both the Ohio Valley and state of Ohio.

Both are on a one-way ticket to the OVAC Hall of Fame as coaches. Both are already members of the great guys’ hall of fame.

The thing that sticks out to me about both guys isn’t the number of wins, playoff appearances or OVAC titles. But speaking those, when you combine the two, those numbers are staggering at 611, 28 and 20, respectively.

The number of lives touched by these two is incredible. Not only were they coaches, but they were like father figures or mentors to so many.

Over the course of 20 years, covering their respective teams was a pleasure, but getting to know each on a more personal level was most exciting to me. From listening to Bruney tell a myriad of stories about things like coaching Tim Spencer in the OVAC All-Star Game to spending several hours with Circosta inside his team’s fieldhouse with him pointing out plaques and different pieces of memorabilia.

There will be football seasons at Martins Ferry and Monroe Central in August. No disrespect to either coach’s replacement or the returning players, but football at these two schools will never be the same.

Staskey can be reached via email at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com or at twitter.com/TLSportsSeth