After private or charter schools won 10 of the 12 state basketball championships this weekend, calls increased for the PIAA to reform the system and separate traditional “boundary” schools from those who can recruit players from anywhere, but PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi was not having it. He insisted that the system does not unfairly penalize public schools and called the complaints “sour grapes.”
Lombardi said the PIAA will not try to separate the championships between public and private schools unless the legislature forces them to, and claimed to have been told that there would be an immediate discrimination lawsuit filed against the PIAA if they tried it.
Philadelphia Catholic League teams won six of the 12 state titles this year. The only public schools to win were the Neshannock girls in 2-A and the Plymouth Whitemarsh girls in 6-A.
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