Guido: Class AAAA football had dramatic impact
This year represents the 30th anniversary of the start of Class AAAA football -- one of the more dramatic changes in Pennsylvania scholastic football over the past three decades.
Between 1933-79, the WPIAL had three classifications, Classes AAA, AA and A. Before 1973, the classes were known as AA, A and B.
To determine the classifications in those days, it was pretty simple: Schools with combined male and female enrollments of 1,000 or more played in Class AA; 500-999 competed in Class A; and 499 and smaller toiled in Class B.
What resulted was a huge disparity in school enrollments for competitors in Class AA. In 1975, for instance, Valley had an enrollment of 1,142 in the top three grades. Its Foothills Conference opponent, Penn Hills, had 3,998.
That made the establishment of Class AAAA a necessity. Still, some of the smaller schools in Class AAAA objected to playing in the largest class. For the 1980 and '81 seasons, Franklin Regional, Seneca Valley and Moon bolted from the WPIAL and played an independent schedule -- mostly versus WPIAL schools that had an open date.
Locally, Fox Chapel, Kiski Area, Plum and Highlands played in Class AAAA.
For the 1982 and '83 seasons, the WPIAL had two different tiers of Class AAAA schools, and the three recalcitrant schools came back into the fold.
Something else prevalent in 1980 when enrollments are compared to now was that schools were still feeling the effect of baby boomers in the classrooms. Those born between 1946 and 1964 are considered to fall in the baby boom era, and the 1980 season was the tail-end of that social phenomenon.
One other change since the start of the Class AAAA era was how the four classes were determined. Now, the total football-playing high schools in the state are divided by four, with the highest 25 percent enrollment playing in Class AAAA, the next 25 percent in Class AAA, and so on.
Besides opting for four classes, another major change in the past 30 years is determining classes by gender. Boys sports, such as football, use strictly the male enrollment of schools. Girls sports use solely female totals.
That makes the old way of determining football classifications by using male and female enrollments combined seem archaic.
Chichester recovers
The start of high school football practice last week at Chichester High School in suburban Philadelphia was also the start of an emotional recovery period.
The new coach appointed in the offseason, Bobby Shull, died suddenly and unexpectedly on June 4 of leukemia at age 37.
Ryan Smith, 31, was tabbed to take over as Chichester's coach on June 18 to not only help the players and the community overcome the loss, but to try and turn around a football program that was 0-12 last season and 2-33 the three previous seasons under coach Dan Singley.
The tragic circumstances bring to mind what happened locally 70 years ago.
Tarentum High School won the 1940 WPIAL Class A football title, 14-12, over Mt. Pleasant Ramsay at RiverView Park. After the season, Redcats coach John Dreshar was appointed coach at Beaver Falls High School.
But Dreshar never got to coach a game for Beaver Falls; he died of a brain tumor before the 1941 season got under way.
Tarentum officials renamed RiverView Park Dreshar Stadium after the late coach.
Additional Information:
Enrollments declining
Here is a comparison of combined male and female enrollments among Alle-Kiski Valley football schools from 1980 and 2010. These are enrollments in the top three grades:
School -- 1980 -- 2010
Apollo-Ridge -- 590 -- 385
Burrell -- 941 -- 464
Deer Lakes -- 708 -- 510
Ford City -- 720 -- 474
Fox Chapel -- 1305 -- 1137
Freeport -- 570 -- 491
Highlands -- 1290 -- 668
Kiski Area -- 1520 -- 1067
Kittanning -- 818 -- 603
Knoch -- 850 -- 730
Leechburg -- 306 -- 217
Plum -- 1460 -- 1100
Riverviewv420 -- 296
Springdale -- 612 -- 291
Valley -- 1020 -- 634
