Bryant Billing
Sports Scene
Athletic directors across the state will have to dust off their cash boxes by October.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year on July 4. Among the (many) provisions in the bill is one requiring cash payments be accepted for admissions and concessions for “school-affiliated events” starting in early October (90 days from the date DeWine signed the bill).
According to WPCO.com, the Ohio High School Athletic Association sent a memo to member schools on July 6 addressing the law and will be sending another memo with suggestions how to comply.
Many schools across the state had went to online-only ticket sales, while others were accepting payment at the gate by credit or debit card only.
Locally, Sidney and Lehman Catholic had begun selling tickets online, along with other members of the Miami Valley League and Three Rivers Conference. Both were still accepting cash payments at the gate, though the plan was to eventually phase that out. (Some MVL and TRC schools had already transitioned to online- or credit card-only payments.)
The changes were done with an eye to the future; less and less people carry or use cash (including me), and credit/debit payment by cell phone or smartwatch is becoming popular. (And believe me, it’s so much more convenient to pay by putting your watch to a terminal, than to have to get out the wallet and deal with either a physical card or cash).
Online-only ticketing or credit/debit-only payments also reduced the workload for school athletic departments; dealing with all the physical cash during busy fall and winter sports seasons is the bane of many an athletic director.
But the Ohio House, which authored the provision, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to force some regulations on schools… in a budget bill.
But they didn’t force the regulation on the OHSAA, apparently.
In recent years, the OHSAA has transitioned to online-only ticket purchasing for postseason tournament games it manages.
The OHSAA won’t have to worry about making any changes… probably. The OHSAA said in the memo it believes the law does not apply to the events it manages. That seems to make sense, if you interpret the law to apply to only events schools themselves run.
Richmond Heights remains Div. IV
Richmond Heights will have a chance at earning a third consecutive Division IV boys basketball state title this year.
Richmond Heights will be in Div. IV again — just barely. The OHSAA announced divisional assignments in late June, and Richmond Heights has an adjusted boys enrollment of 119, two short of Div. III. (Six schools have 120 boys, including Houston; three have 119).
Adjusted enrollment includes competitive balance factors; the OHSAA implemented competitive balance in 2017. Base enrollment from the Ohio Department of Education is combined with the residency of each player on a team for an adjusted enrollment count. Players who live outside the school district they play on increase the adjusted enrollment.
Richmond Heights’ competitive balance number is 21; it likely means three players who were on the team’s roster last season resided outside the school district. The school’s base boys enrollment is 98.
Sidney, Anna have new baseball coaches
Sidney and Anna each have new baseball coaches.
Previous Sidney coach Tom Goffena announced in late May he was stepping down to spend more time with family; he had led the team for nine years.
Ryan Townsend, a Vandalia-Butler graduate, announced in mid-June he had been hired to take over the program. He graduated from Butler in 2017 and played collegiately at Urbana and Wilmington.
Previous Anna coach Kristian Althauser announced earlier this week assistant coach Tony Metzler will take over the program. Althauser announced in late May he was stepping down.
Billing has been the sports editor of the Sidney Daily News since 2017. He can be reached at [email protected].
