GHSA should create a level playing field — By Tommy Purser

The Georgia High School Association (GHSA), as usual, can get few things right.
Consider that Jeff Davis High’s baseball team has all its players living in Hazlehurst or Lumber City.
By contrast, the Yellow Jackets’ state playoff opponent North Cobb Christian School has two players from Kennesaw, four from Marietta, three from Powder Springs, one from Canton, one from Ball Ground and one from Acworth.
North Cobb has thousands of boys to choose from to make up their baseball team. Georgia’s public schools are restricted to only those players who reside within their service areas.
And the GHSA continues to allow Atlanta area private schools to compete against schools like Jeff Davis which is restricted to 35 or so baseball players to choose from. Just let JDHS coach Paul Glass recruit players from counties other than Jeff Davis and the GHSA will use its full power to penalize Glass and Jeff Davis High School.
The GHSA does a lot of things well but those things are overshadowed by the organization’s inability to create level playing grounds for all students.
That’s my opinion, and that’s the opinion I’ve had for decades.
My solutions? 1. Create a division(s) for private schools and let the public schools compete against one another. Or, perhaps, have a metro-Atlanta division and a division for the remainder of the state. [Illinois has done that for years — a Chicago-area division and the rest of the state]. 2. Enforce the GHSA bylaws for everyone in every sport. Now, there’s a novel idea.