Wayne Ryan might've felt like he was trapped in the Twilight Zone during the tumultuous 2024 West Virginia high school football season.
There may not have seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel as court injunctions and confusion reigned, beginning just days before the season's kickoff and lasting into the playoffs.
Many traced the beginning of legal action that delayed the start of the postseason to Dec. 20, 2023, when the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission approved a four-class system for five sports, including football.
Preseason practice for last season started for teams across West Virginia on Aug. 5, 2024. Eight days later, an SSAC Board of Review ruling bumped 11 football teams down a classification, including four from the Tri-State and Kanawha Valley.
Three days later, 11 more programs moved, three of which were from Kanawha County.
That left many upset throughout the season, while some were still confused as to how to calculate playoff points from regular-season games involving the 22 teams that moved down.
Frustration with how that shook out led to a series of injunctions, starting on Nov. 8, when education officials in Cabell and Wood counties filed injunctions against the SSAC seeking a change to the formula for playoff rating points.
The SSAC then postponed the playoffs indefinitely on Nov. 12 due to the ongoing legal cases. A week later, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals vacated the injunctions filed against the SSAC in Wood and Mason counties, paving the path for the playoffs to finally get going on Nov. 22.
Ryan, who last fall was an SSAC assistant executive director and is now entering his first school year as the commission's executive director, did plenty of learning from the experiences of last season, he said.
"One thing the entire body learned is that there has to be unity," Ryan said. "The governing body realized we're literally in the process of shutting down our own organization from being able to function appropriately for our student-athletes. They, at the Board of Control, actually voted out their rule to be able to appeal classifications. They approved the new classification system. That put everybody at ease that things will go smoother.
"I look forward to that, and I think all the member schools look forward to that because, ultimately, when a student-athlete is preparing to play in a state football playoff, state volleyball playoff, and the court system is determining when and where we can play, it's not good."
Ryan is not alone in anxiously waiting to see if this season will go more smoothly.
Herbert Hoover coach Joey Fields hopes the turmoil that transpired last season is behind everyone.
"This has been the calmest offseason in a lot of years," Field said. "I got here and it was [the] COVID-19 [pandemic]. It was classification changes and it's changed twice, then injunctions with the playoffs, then the transfer rule. It's been a wild five years. I think things have calmed down, which is good, not only for the student-athletes, but for people watching in the stands and people covering it.
"We're excited with where West Virginia high school football is at. There are a lot of guys getting opportunities. There's a lot of good football played on Friday nights in our state."
Ryan has worked for the SSAC since 2016. Before that, he was a state champion girls basketball coach at Summers County High School. He also served as a school administrator for a number of years before joining the SSAC.
The first-year executive director hopes to not stop with bridging that gap and unite everyone that makes up the SSAC.
"It's not easy, because what's misunderstood is that everybody, even every school, is different," Ryan said. "It's different in population. It's different in location [and] availability of resources. Do you have a full-time athletic director, or do you have somebody that does it on the side totally part-time? What is the role of your principal and how involved can they be? They have a lot of responsibility in today's education world.
"Our job is to understand that and come up with a plan that best meets the needs of all, not just of one. That's the problem with our rules. Our rules are really good. They're vetted by the entire body.
"Yet, we have individual parents, family members [and] maybe individuals outside of that in other organizations that feel if one rules impacts them negatively, something needs done about it."
Fields is optimistic about the leadership changes within the SSAC, especially with Ryan at the helm as executive director. Fields called his trust level with the organization "high."
"A lot of their issues they have are out of their hands," Fields said. "They do a great job of putting on the tournaments. They think about our student-athletes first. I've enjoyed it. If I didn't, then I wouldn't be in this state.
"I love West Virginia high school sports. I think it's great for our kids."
In April, the SSAC's member schools voted unanimously to return to strictly enrollment-based classification, moving away from a formula that included geographical and socioeconomic factors. The state board of education approved the move in May.
Schools of 1,050 students or more will go to Class AAAA. Members with an enrollment of 625-1,049 will be classified as AAA. Schools with 351-624 students will fall in Class AA. Class A will be comprised of school with an enrollment of 350 or fewer.
Here’s how teams under the HD Media umbrella are classified:
- Class AAAA: Cabell Midland, George Washington, Huntington, Hurricane, Riverside
- Class AAA: Capital, Chapmanville, Herbert Hoover, Nitro, St. Albans, South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, Spring Valley, Winfield
- Class AA: Buffalo, Logan, Mingo Central, Poca, Scott, Sissonville, Wayne
- Class A: ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä Catholic, Huntington St. Joe, Man, Sherman, Tolsia, Tug Valley, Webster County
Ryan sees some challenges on the horizon, but he remains open-minded.
"Our classification process is now only good for two years," Ryan said. "So, we're gonna be constantly evaluating hard over the next two years to see if we've got it right. We're confident in the Board of Control, which is our [member] principals and our governing body, that makes the rules that we enforce as an office.
"We've listened to a lot of input from our coaches committee, various people and principals around the state, and we're excited about these changes. We're excited to spend the next two years evaluating those changes as some sports have added classes."
South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä coach Donnie Mays sees both sides of the aisle with four classes in West Virginia. The Black Eagles are in Class AAA, but to take the helm in South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, he left Hurricane, which is in Class AAAA.
One longtime point of contention for him with the four-class system was not having enough schools in the largest class.
"It’s not easy being a 4A football team and having only 20 teams [in your class]," Mays said. "You need at least 22 [to] 24 teams. We were fighting that the whole time [at Hurricane]; 24 is a better step.
"I’m in favor of four classes – it makes sense in our state. I think that the four-class system is good, but we can always do something to make things better. There needs to be a couple more teams – two or four – to make quad-A much more realistic for scheduling purposes."
Discussions have occurred under the golden dome in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä regarding the future of the WVSSAC.
Many state legislators, after seeing what occurred during the football season, wanted to remove the private title from the SSAC and make it a government entity.
State Sen. Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, led the push for Senate Bill 804. The goal was to make the SSAC public, allow transparency in funding and give the governor the power to appoint an executive director.
Ryan said the SSAC doesn't receive tax dollars, but instead is funded through revenue from postseason events and corporate sponsors. He noted concern remains for what may happen to the SSAC in the future.
"I worry about people not understanding that, if you're a state entity, you can't operate under that same format," Ryan said. "You'd be playing state tournaments in local schools. You would not be able to provide the experience the same way we do for our student-athletes right now."
