The formats of Louisiana’s high school sports playoffs are in limbo after a court hearing in Baton Rouge on Monday.
A judge granted an injunction sought by nine central and north Louisiana high schools and their principals to prohibit the Louisiana High School Athletic Association from implementing a recent change in how it divides schools into “select” and “non-select” brackets in the playoffs for football, basketball, baseball, and softball. That ruling will remain in effect until the matter is resolved during a later court date. That later court date has not yet been set.
The suit is centered on a change in the definition of “select” and “non-select” in the LHSAA rules. Under the original 2013 definition, all private schools, all lab schools, some magnet schools, and some charter schools fell under the “select” definition. All other schools—specifically, public schools that followed specific attendance zoning requirements—were labeled as “non-select.” In 2022, LHSAA changed the “select” definition to include all magnet schools, all charter schools, and public schools in open-enrollment parishes.
The principals who challenged the rule change claimed that only the LHSAA’s member principals have the authority to approve changes to the select/non-select rules. LHSAA officials argued they have the right to make those revisions because the select/non-select definitions are part of the association’s glossary and not the LHSAA Constitution, which can be updated only by the member schools’ principals.
The LHSAA first implemented a select/non-select split in 2013 after public school principals, many of whom were from north Louisiana, voted to separate themselves from private school during the football playoffs. At the time, the principals who supported the measure claimed it would give public schools that were restricted to enrolling only students who lived in their attendance zones opportunities to compete in the playoffs and for state championships. They argued that private schools, which enroll students regardless of attendance zones, had a competitive advantage in athletics. In 2017, the split was expanded to basketball, baseball, and softball.
However, the split created problems in the playoffs. The select school playoff brackets for some divisions featured as few as eight teams because a relatively low number of schools met the LHSAA’s original definition of “select school.” On the non-select side, some playoff brackets featured teams with as few as zero wins reaching the football playoffs. Other sports’ playoffs also saw teams well below .500 qualify each year the split was in effect.
The 2022 revision resulted in playoff brackets featuring between 24 and 28 teams per division during the 2022-23 academic year and only a few teams qualifying for playoffs with sub-.500 records.
