Reporter throws flag at WIAA

MOSES LAKE - As the 2010 state football playoffs loom large on the horizon, the first 15-yard penalty flag has already been thrown.

I penalize the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) offices for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Let's be honest. The Washington state playoff system is a borderline little theater script from the stone age.

Pre-determined state brackets? Those are as cool today as watching the Smurfs would be for current youths.

A high number of state federations determine their playoff structures based on a power-point system. In other words, you earn credit for beating good teams and are called to question for defeating cupcakes.

It basically rewards success and not mediocrity, which the current WIAA system does.

When teams can be in the playoffs with winning less than half their games, one must pause and ask, "how does a below average team earn a spot in the playoffs?"

Either because they come from a bad league that is given credit for spots prior to the kickoff of a season or they come from the Western Washington.

Oops. Did I just say that out loud?

Memo to Renton, home of the WIAA, "Just because you have more schools on the west side of the state, it doesn't mean those schools are automatically better."

Second memo, "Even if you want to allocate more for an area with more schools it doesn't mean you take the two best teams from Eastern Washington and have them knock each other off in the early rounds."

While most states are moving to a power point system and reseeding their final 16 or final eight fields, the WIAA continues to favor the schools located near their offices and create tournaments based on brackets made almost a year earlier.

So why should Royal, Moses Lake, or Warden play tough non-league games? It won't matter if they win or lose. Coaches try to politely say it helps prepare them for the post season, Really?

Royal playing, let's say, Zillah, in week one, is going to prepare them for the playoffs eight weeks later?

Not really.

So why shouldn't Moses Lake play lesser caliber teams and not risk their athletes' health against bigger, stronger competition?

The Chiefs do it because they have honor and the desire to play the best.

The problem is that the schools in the Columbia Basin and around the state are not being represented by the best choices by those entrusted to provide the greatest example of rewarding success.

Why can't the system be:

* Earn a point for every win recorded by the teams your program beat. Your victims' total record is 61-29, you get 61 initial power points

* Then add those teams' initial power points into the mix

* Combine all power points from these two categories

* Divide those points by the number of games played

* Come up with a team's final total.

* Then seed a playoff field from No. 1 to 16

Also, allow only teams with a winning record to be eligible unless they win their league.

It is time to reward greatness regardless of where the team is from.

The WIAA cites travel reasons for seeding their tournaments as they do.

I'm not buying it.

The WIAA shows a penchant for filling its state brackets with teams that - with all due respect - do not belong anywhere near a playoff game unless their players get a ticket bought by their parents.

They reward mediocrity and until they stop doing so, one of the best states in the entire union for high school sports will stay more in touch with Fred Flintstone than Michael Jordan.

In the meantime, the schools in Eastern Washington will continue to yearn to see two of their own play for state titles on a regular basis.