‘Huge disadvantage.’ Bald Eagle Area athletic director joins Conklin’s push for PIAA playoff reform

Doug Dyke, Bald Eagle Area’s athletic director, has teamed up with state Rep. Scott Conklin to push for change to Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s playoff format.

Currently, both private and public school districts compete in the same district, regional and state tournaments that are run through PIAA.

Conklin’s House Bill 1983 would allow PIAA to establish alternative playoffs and championships for boundary and non-boundary schools. It would prevent public school teams from competing against private, charter and parochial school teams that Conklin, D-Rush Township, said are often larger and better equipped.

Dyke joined Conklin Tuesday at a press conference in Harrisburg and urged reform of the PIAA playoff system.

“I think we’re possibly killing interscholastic athletics from the inside by not looking at ways to engage more students,” Dyke said. “We’ll be giving boundary schools more opportunities to participate in more state finals.”

Conklin said the current system puts athletes at public schools “at a huge disadvantage before they even set foot on the field.”

“It’s a system that sets kids up for failure, sends the wrong message and — worst of all — exposes them to the risk of serious injury,” Conklin said.

According to Dyke and Conklin, having two separate playoffs for each sport would not damage the competition — it would give more opportunities to smaller schools that may not get to participate in these events regularly and would ensure that these competitions were waged on a level playing field.

Carson Nagle, a student-athlete at Bald Eagle Area, also spoke at the press conference and expressed his frustration with the current playoff format.

“These kids get recruited from how many different states and bring in how many different students — these private schools can pay their student athletes to play there and that’s something that we public schools just can’t do,” Nagle said.

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