They've taken the fun out of it.
Enjoy the current basketball season because it will never be the same again.
Certain champions of the underdog have pulled it off, and no longer will there be big or must-win games to make the playoffs during the high school sports regular season.
The regular season doesn't count starting next year except for football. The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association Board of Control approved the open-tournament format for all sports, excluding football, beginning in the fall of 1995.
Wonderful. Equality is one thing, but this is ridiculous.
That sense of pride that goes with running a quality program and being able to say "we've made the playoffs five of the last six years" has gone out the window.
Now everybody makes the playoffs, whether a team is 0-20 or 20-0.
In essence, the regular season has been reduced to a litany of scrimmages, with the most knowledgeable and hard-working coaches no different than the unknowledgeable clock-punching coaches.
Maybe the county's most vocal proponents of the new deal, Bernie Walter of Arundel and North County's Steve Malone, next will propose not keeping score or records during the regular season so as to have a pure intramural athletic program.
A lot of intramural programs end their seasons with a tournament, which is just like the new MPSSAA.
With regular-season games being put in the experimental mode with it more important to show up than to win, coaches could conduct preseason tryouts as usual and then halfway through the season, determine where their needs are and conduct another tryout.
There are no rules to prevent that.
Academic eligibility has been somewhat de-emphasized because the athlete who possibly doesn't do what he is supposed to do in the classroom no longer has to worry about hurting his team at the start of a season.
The motivation to qualify academically at the start has been diminished.
If an athlete happens to be an impact player vital to his team's success, its losing while he plods through academic probation no longer matters in terms of making the playoffs.
The pressure of working hard to qualify from the start so as not to hurt a team is healthy but no longer important. Under the new system, coaches won't miss an athlete right away, and a valuable priority has been lost.
Coaches like Walter, who is on record as being opposed to academic eligibility, have to be relieved. Walter was one of Paul Rusko's biggest supporters during Rusko's 20-year term as county coordinator of physical education.
Under Rusko's watch, an 0.67 GPA was enough to participate in athletics until the public outcry for academic accountability right after the Len Bias death. The Bias death opened a can of worms with Anne Arundel's low standards an embarrassment.
Most people couldn't believe the county had such low standards, but Rusko, with Walter as his biggest booster, was elected to the Anne Arundel County Sports Hall of Fame this year.
I'm sure Walter and Rusko, and some others, may think I'm over-reacting with the academic/open tournament parallel, but it does relate in a negative manner.
Under the new format, if a team needs a pitcher or center for the playoffs, and a certain athlete turns 18 in March or late May, there you go. He can move in with the coach or, being emancipated, find a place to live in the school district of his choice.
With the open tournament, the controversial transfer doesn't have to be made until the stretch run -- the playoffs.
Some coaches out there are masters at circumventing the rules and taking advantage of the system's loopholes. Watch them go to work now.
I think it's great that the open tournament was such a priority while Maryland remains just one of nine states without a transfer rule.
The number of quality players moving freely all over Maryland in all sports continues to escalate and MPSSAA Executive Secretary Ned Sparks sits back and often verbally denounces obvious athletic transfers.
The lip service is great, but action does speak louder than words.
Ellis, Watkins honored
Congratulations to North County's ace back Topper Ellis and two-way lineman Beau Watkins of Annapolis.
Ellis and Watkins were voted Annapolis Touchdown Club awards this week by the county's football coaches.
Ellis, who led the Knights to the 4A state football championship, the county's first since 1978, was the winner of the Rhodes Trophy as the county's top football player.
Watkins, a center and defensive end, will receive the Al Laramore Award as the county's top lineman.
Watkins, a four-year varsity player and Baltimore Sun All-County three of those years and first-team All-Metro this season, is the second Panther to win the award in honor of the late Annapolis coach.
Nat Cook was the first in 1989, the inaugural year of the honor.
Ellis, Watkins, the Navy football team and other football luminaries will be honored at the annual Annapolis Touchdown Club banquet on Feb. 16 at St. Mary's School.
Baltimore CFLs owner Jim Speros is tentatively set as the speaker.
For ticket information, call Ray Crosby at (410) 266-1474 or Dave Wright at (410) 280-0600.