PIAA endorses potential changes to competitive-balance rule, could allow appeals on health and safety grounds

STATE COLLEGE — The PIAA board wants to remove some much-maligned words from its competitive-balance rule: those that have prohibited health and safety as grounds for an appeal.

The Competition Formula currently says: “… a change in classification would not be cause for a health and safety concern. A claim of such risk will not be considered.” But the board Wednesday voted to strike that language, which became a focal point of Aliquippa School District’s lawsuit against the PIAA.

Bylaws changes require three votes, so the edit must pass the board twice more.

The PIAA board met for a two-day summer workshop at the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center in State College. The health and safety edit wasn’t on the original agenda, but PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said board members requested it.

“Feedback from around the table,” Lombardi said was the motivation. “They wanted to take it out.”

The move was one of several potential changes to the competitive-balance rule approved Wednesday, all on a first-reading basis.

Among the others:

• The number of success points required to move up would increase from six to seven.

The board tentatively approved a caveat that only teams that win state championships can move up, but that idea will be revisited later.

• The number of transfers needed to trigger a promotion would increase from one to two for basketball and tennis, and from three to four for football.

• Teams that already have moved up and accumulated four, five or six success points in subsequent years would remain in a higher classification. Those teams with one, two or three points could drop back down.