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WIAA's Colbrese public face at B's on reclassification 
WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese, right, chats with legendary coach Bill Hays Thursday.
(Christopher Anderson The Spokesman-Review ) |
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Vince Grippi
The Spokesman-Review
March 3, 2006 Most people don't understand how the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association really works. In a lot of ways, it is democracy in action. The WIAA is an association of member schools. Those schools create and modify rules through a Representative Assembly each spring. They choose an Executive Board that oversees and interprets the rules, and they pay a staff to implement those rules. At the top of the staff pyramid is Mike Colbrese, whose title does sound impressive: WIAA Executive Director. Right now, many B fans interpret Executive Director to mean Dictator. Colbrese is the face of the WIAA and, to many B supporters, the guy responsible for the sea of change the small schools are facing. That perception isn't true. Sure, Colbrese – like any organization's director – can exert influence. And, along with his staff in Renton, he can influence events through the implementation process of the members' decisions. But, in reality, the direction the organization takes is decided by the principal at your local school, working with the athletic director in the next town, who has talked with the superintendent in the district across the road. In other words, the WIAA is administrated by administrators. This is something Colbrese wanted to emphasize when we spoke at the B Tournament. The conversation revolved around the decision to split the B classification in two and move the smallest schools' basketball tournament to Yakima next year. (A transcript of the interview can be found at http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/prepreport/)It is obvious Colbrese understands the importance the B Tournament holds to our small towns. "Basketball is a pretty sacred event to them," Colbrese said, when asked how the decision evolved. "I think people have to understand, too, it came about really as an initial discussion to equalize the number of schools in each classification. And how do you do that? And the B's saying, 'You know what, when we went to the current classification system, the B's didn't get any help. They kept us at 150, and we kept ourselves at 150. Now that we've got a chance, we'd like to make some changes.' " They got them. And Colbrese and his staff are the ones who have to try to make the changes occur as seamlessly as possible. Of course, with a decision that's invoked as much passion as this one, seamless isn't easy. That may make Colbrese the most disliked guy in Spokane this week. "That's what I hear, I haven't seen it," he said. "I would certainly encourage anybody who wants to talk to just stop and talk to me. I don't make these decisions. My responsibility is to advise the membership of consequences, those that we anticipate, and those that we might not have anticipated, to try and do a good job by it." As Colbrese points out, the vote at the Rep Assembly was overwhelming to add a sixth classification. At the time everyone knew the B's would have to be split, but the biggest concern was what the name should be. The traditions that would be lost? It would be easy to say they were overlooked – a decision has yet to be made on which tournament will have possession of the B Tournament records – but if you listen to Colbrese talk about the future, you know they weren't. "If you look at all the decisions that the board has made on sites to date, that's one of the few decisions where it's only been a two-year plan," Colbrese said. "The 1B will be in Yakima for two years, the 2B will be here. And during that time we'll be visiting with our schools to see what they're thoughts are." After praising Yakima, Colbrese added one thing. "It was a decision made and it's a decision made for two years and then we'll see what happens." But any change would have to be because something isn't working, and Colbrese doesn't think that will be the case. "I think it's going to work," he said. "There were doubts about the fifth classification and it worked. Is it a perfect plan? No, but there's no such thing as a perfect plan." In our recent B Tournament preview section, former St. George's basketball coach Ross Thomas, now a high school principal in Oregon, pointed out what he saw as a flaw in the system. "Administrators see small inconveniences," Thomas wrote, "and miss invaluable virtues." When the Rep Assembly voted to add a sixth classification they devalued the B Tournament's virtues. And that's the saddest part.
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