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LHSAA

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The Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA), headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the official authority and lawmaking body on interscholastic sport competition in Louisiana.

History

The LHSAA was begun in October 1920, when a group of high school principals met in Baton Rouge to discuss better ways to regulate and develop high school interscholastic sports. C. A. Ives was asked to appoint a committee to draft a constitution for the association. P. H. Griffith, S. M. Brame, P. C. Rogers, and Grover C. Koffman were named to the committee and, on the conference’s last day, it presented a report to the group who adopted it almost in its entirety, making the LHSAA a reality.

Membership of the association included approved high schools of the state. There was only one classification of schools and annual membership dues were $2.00 per school.

Many of the original constitution’s articles are still found in today’s constitution. The association later voted to have two classifications for schools, Class 1A consisting of schools with an enrollment of 110 boys or more and Class B for schools with less than 110 boys.

About 10 years later, Class 2A was created for schools with 300 or more boys and, in 1949, Class C was added for those with 45 boys or less. In 1954, a 5th classification was formed, with a 6th in 1971. In 1991 Class 5A was created for a total of seven classes – Class 5A, Class 4A, Class 3A, Class 2A, Class 1A, Class B and Class C.

T. H. "Muddy" Waters of Hammond was selected by the executive committee in 1953 to serve as the first full-time commissioner for the LHSAA. Louisiana was the 38th state to employ a full-time executive director to administer its high school athletic program.

In 1966, Frank Spruiell was hired as the association’s first assistant to the commissioner. Spruiell was elected commissioner in July 1971, replacing Waters who retired after serving 18 years as commissioner. James Graves was selected to serve as assistant to the commissioner.

In May 1976, the executive committee created another administrative position and, in July 1976, Tommy Henry was hired as administrative assistant to the commissioner. James Graves was named assistant commissioner at that time.

In January 1983, Henry was elected commissioner, replacing Spruiell who retired after serving the LHSAA for 17 years – 12 years as commissioner and 5 years as assistant to the commissioner. Mac Chauvin joined the association in July 1983 as an assistant commissioner.

After Graves died in September 1986, Donald Dunbar served as an assistant commissioner from July 1987 until his retirement in July 1989.

B. J. Guzzardo, Jr. has served as assistant commissioner since July 1989.

The LHSAA currently administers 23 championship sports programs – 12 for boys and 11 for girls. In 1990, Louisiana became the first state in the nation to include a wheelchair division in its state track and field competition for disabled student athletes.

Member schools now total 410 and the association certifies the eligibility of approximately 70,000 student athletes annually.

In 1992-93, the official handbook was completely revised for the first time in the association’s 72-year history. It represents a more organized and useful publication that will serve the LHSAA for many years.

At its 1996 Annual Convention, the LHSAA celebrated its 75th anniversary and honored the 13 past presidents and three commissioners of the association.

Divisions and Classifications

Class 1A Class 2A Class 3A Class 4A Class 5A Class B

Class C

External Links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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