{"id":1075,"date":"2024-03-17T00:14:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T00:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.luceosports.com\/oh\/?page_id=1075"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:13:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:13:39","slug":"coaches-association-newsletter-2024-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.luceosports.com\/oh\/blog\/coaches-association-newsletter-2024-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Coaches Association Newsletter February 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Paul Walker Award Goes to Andrew Booth
<\/strong>The Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association is proud to announce that Andrew Booth of Wadsworth High School is the recipient of the 2024 Paul Walker Award. The Paul Walker Award is presented annually by the OHSBCA to an active coaching member of the association who has made significant contributions to high school basketball. The award is named in honor of the late Paul Walker, the longtime coach of Middletown High School. At the time of his retirement, he had the most wins as a boys\u2019 basketball coach in Ohio High School Basketball history.

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Andrew Booth, Wadsworth High School<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Andy<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association would like to congratulate Andrew Booth of Wadsworth High School on receiving the prestigious Paul Walker Award,\u201d stated Joe Balogh, Executive Director of the OHSBCA. \u201cThis award is presented to an active coach who has made significant contributions to Ohio High School Basketball. Coach Booth has won over 450 games in his coaching career and has been actively involved in our association.\u201d

Andrew started his coaching career at Malone College where he served as an assistant coach for 2 years. He also served as the junior varsity boys basketball coach at Mansfield St. Peter\u2019s High School for 2 years and an assistant boys basketball coach at Crestline High School for 3 years. For 7 years, he was the head girls basketball coach at Mansfield Madison High School where he had a record of 98-58.

For the past 18 years, he has led the Wadsworth girls program. In that time, he amassed a record of 356-104. In 25 years as a head coach, Andrew has an overall record of 454-162. His teams have won 15 league titles, 19 sectional championships, 9 district championships, and 3 regional championships. In 2016, his team at Wadsworth won the Division I State Championship.

Coach Booth has won various league and district coaching awards throughout his career. In 2016, he was named OHSBCA Division 1 Coach of the Year. He currently serves as the OHSBCA Girls District 2 & 3 Director and is the Co-Director of Midwest Live. He previously served as the OHSBCA Top-20 Awards Director for 3 years.

Andrew serves as an Intervention Specialist at Wadsworth High School. He and his wife Rachel reside in Wadsworth and have two adult children, Peyton (28) and Alec (25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they are saying about Coach Andrew Booth
\u201cAndy Booth has been a staple of girls basketball in the state of Ohio and District 3 for many years. His teams are always one of the best around. He has done a tremendous job in building his program and keeping it at an elite level. Andy is as first class as they come.\u201d
-Brett Larrick, District 3 Director

\u201cAndy Booth is a true gentleman and has been very kind and respectful to me throughout my career. Despite all his successes, he remains a very humble person. What really catches my eye is his dedication to the coaching profession. His involvement and commitment with the OHSBCA and all related high school girls\u2019 organizations, speaks volumes on his level of professionalism and care for the sport. I appreciate his
dedication and efforts, and I know others do as well. The Wadsworth girls basketball program has been, and still is, the \u201cGOLD STANDARD\u201d for girls\u2019 basketball programs throughout the state.\u201d
-Maggie Ferrando, Head Girls Coach at Avon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OHSAA Board of Directors Approves Expansion Proposal
<\/strong>COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 After months of discussion and meetings around Ohio to gather feedback, the Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors unanimously approved a proposal Thursday morning to utilize a new formula to determine how many divisions will be offered for postseason tournaments. The change affects OHSAA General Sports Regulation 17 and will result in girls and boys soccer now having five divisions, while girls volleyball, girls and boys basketball, softball and baseball will all have seven divisions. In those sports, Division I and Division II will only include 64 schools.

The new divisions will go into effect with the fall of 2024. The board will continue to discuss additional sports, noting several recent meetings regarding track and field. There are no changes to the number of football divisions, which is already at seven. In addition, any changes to the current deployment of the Competitive Balance process would need to be voted upon by OHSAA member schools during the annual referendum voting process.

TDoug Ute, OHSAA Executive Director, praised the board\u2019s decision as a step toward to level the playing field of OHSAA tournaments. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing to do for the student-athletes who have been competing at this disadvantage,\u201d said Ute. \u201cFor too long, the largest schools in our divisions have been so much larger than the smaller schools in the same division, which has resulted in many schools accepting that they realistically have little chance at making a run in the tournament. In some of our sports, there have been more than 200 schools competing for a state title in that division, which is significantly more than what most other states do, and what we do in many of our own sports.

\u201cWe know that there is a lot of work to do in the coming months to prepare for additional divisions this fall,\u201d Ute said. \u201cWe have already started working on the details to accomplish this, but one thing we know for sure is that having two or three more state champions in these sports doesn\u2019t water them down or diminish winning a state title. And we anticipate that this new format will be revenue neutral, since every school makes the tournament already.\u201d

Each year, the Board of Directors would still have final authority in determining how many divisions to be used that school year, but the proposal calls for the following scale to be used to guide the board\u2019s decision on the number of divisions for girls volleyball, football, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, however note that the sports of lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey and boys volleyball would not change from their current division numbers:

199 or fewer teams: 1 Division
200 to 299 teams: 2 Divisions
300 to 399 teams: 3 Divisions
400 to 499 teams: 4 Divisions
500 to 599 teams: 5 Divisions
600 to 699 teams: 6 Divisions
700 and more teams: 7 Divisions

For girls volleyball, soccer, basketball, softball and baseball, the largest 64 schools would be placed into Division I. The next largest 64 schools would be placed into Division II. The remaining schools would be divided as evenly as possible into the remaining divisions. The OHSAA already does something similar to this in football, in which the largest 10 percent of schools are placed into Division I and the remaining schools are divided evenly in Divisions II through VII.

The proposal does not call for a change to the formula that the OHSAA uses for individual sports to determine the number of student-athletes required for team designation, which includes five in bowling, five in cross country (who score for their team at the district tournament), four in golf, three in girls gymnastics, seven in swimming and diving, four in tennis, nine in track and field and seven in wrestling.
The proposal calls for the following number of divisions to be used for individual sports:

200 or fewer teams: 1 Division
201 to 450 teams: 2 Divisions
451 to 700 teams: 3 Divisions
701 and more teams: 4 Divisions

OHSAA member schools vote to determine any changes to the bylaws or constitution via the referendum process each spring. Member schools also vote for representatives for their District Athletic Boards, who are then selected to serve on the State Board of Directors on a three-year term. The Board of Directors are then charged with reviewing and approving the General Sports Regulations on behalf of the OHSAA membership. The OHSAA General Sports Regulations do not go to the member schools for voting and are posted at: https:\/\/ohsaaweb.blob.core.windows.net\/files\/Sports\/GeneralSportsRegulations.pdf<\/a>

The OHSAA will announce structural and dates changes for future state tournaments at a later date.
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Academic All-Ohio
<\/strong>Each year a committee of the OHSBCA selects its \u201cAcademic All Ohio Teams\u201d for the school year. 2023-24 will mark the thirtieth-first year that the association has chosen \u201cAll Ohio Academic Teams.\u201d

The players are selected for this honor based on their academic excellence and their athletic contributions to their basketball teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Arnzen Award Winners
<\/strong>The Bob Arznen Award was named after the legendary boys coach at Delphos St. John\u2019s High School. Coach Arznen spent 43 years as the Head Coach and was the second winningest coach at the time of his retirement and now sixth in the history of Ohio High School Basketball with 676 wins and only 291 losses. Bob was inducted into the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1995.

The Bob Arnzen Award is given to those basketball coaches who have devoted 20 consecutive years or more service to the same school and for their loyalty and commitment to Ohio High School basketball. The honorees will be presented their plaques during the games on Championship Saturday of their respective tournaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024 Bob Arnzen Award Winners
(Receives Bob Arnzen Plaque)
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