Louisiana High School Athletic Association
Encyclopedia
The Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) is the agency which regulates and promotes the interscholastic athletic competitions of all high schools in the state of Louisiana
.
, Louisiana
on October 1920. It is governed by an Executive Director and an executive committee, with representatives from each of the association's class divisions. LHSAA member schools include public, private, and parochial schools throughout the state. LHSAA is affiliated with the National Federation of State High School Associations
.
As of 1996, LHSAA included 410 member schools and an annual certification of approximately 70,000 student athletes each year.
LHSAA is divided into seven state-wide classes, also known as divisions, based on each school's student enrollment for grades nine through twelve: 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, B, and C. Classes B and C are made up of schools with smaller enrollments that do not play football
; the smallest football playing schools are all members of Class 1A. Classes 2A through 5A may include some schools that do not play football, including schools that have all-girl enrollments. Schools with single-gender enrollments have their enrollment numbers doubled for classification purposes.
LHSAA has twenty-three competitive sports programs, twelve for boys and eleven for girls. The LHSAA sports programs are Baseball
, Softball
, Basketball
, Swimming
, Bowling
, Tennis
, Cross Country
, Indoor Track and Field, Outdoor Track and Field, Football
, Golf
, Volleyball
, Gymnastics
, Wrestling
, and Soccer.
Hurricane Katrina
and Hurricane Rita
hit Southern Louisiana at the beginning of the 2005 high school football season. The evacuation of New Orleans
and other communities forced dozens of high schools to close for months, and several campuses were damaged or destroyed by flooding and wind damage. The football season was not canceled, but several games were postponed or canceled. Some schools in the disaster area were forced to withdraw from competition. Most public schools in Orleans Parish, St. Bernard Parish
, and Plaquemines Parish
were so badly damaged that they were forced to cancel their entire school year.
Other disaster-area schools combined to form joint teams in fall of 2005 and spring of 2006. One the more noteworthy joint teams came from the Archbishop Rummel Transitional School
. Rummel is a traditionally all-boys Catholic school in Metairie, Louisiana
. But, in October, the campus welcomed transfer students from other disaster area schools, including girls. As such, Rummel became a co-educational school for the remainder of the school year, and the previously all-boys school fielded a girls athletics program known as the "Lady Raiders". Public schools around the state accused the Archdiocese of New Orleans
of assembling the Lady Raiders as an elite girls team, drafting top athletes from storm-damaged girls schools around the Greater New Orleans area.
By the 2006 school year, most of the affected LHSAA schools were able to compete under their own school teams.
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
.
Organization
LHSAA was founded in Baton RougeBaton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
on October 1920. It is governed by an Executive Director and an executive committee, with representatives from each of the association's class divisions. LHSAA member schools include public, private, and parochial schools throughout the state. LHSAA is affiliated with the National Federation of State High School Associations
National Federation of State High School Associations
The National Federation of State High School Associations is the body that writes the rules of competition for most high school sports and activities in the United States. Most high schools, whether public or private, belong to their state's high school association; in turn, each state association...
.
As of 1996, LHSAA included 410 member schools and an annual certification of approximately 70,000 student athletes each year.
LHSAA is divided into seven state-wide classes, also known as divisions, based on each school's student enrollment for grades nine through twelve: 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, B, and C. Classes B and C are made up of schools with smaller enrollments that do not play football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
; the smallest football playing schools are all members of Class 1A. Classes 2A through 5A may include some schools that do not play football, including schools that have all-girl enrollments. Schools with single-gender enrollments have their enrollment numbers doubled for classification purposes.
LHSAA has twenty-three competitive sports programs, twelve for boys and eleven for girls. The LHSAA sports programs are Baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, Softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, Basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, Swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, Bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, Tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, Cross Country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
, Indoor Track and Field, Outdoor Track and Field, Football
High school football
High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....
, Golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, Volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, Gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, Wrestling
Scholastic wrestling
Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...
, and Soccer.
History
Louisiana became the first state in the nation to include a wheelchair division in its state track and field competition for disabled student athletes in 1990.Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
and Hurricane Rita
Hurricane Rita
Hurricane Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $11.3 billion in damage on the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005...
hit Southern Louisiana at the beginning of the 2005 high school football season. The evacuation of New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
and other communities forced dozens of high schools to close for months, and several campuses were damaged or destroyed by flooding and wind damage. The football season was not canceled, but several games were postponed or canceled. Some schools in the disaster area were forced to withdraw from competition. Most public schools in Orleans Parish, St. Bernard Parish
St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
St. Bernard Parish is a parish located southeast of New Orleans in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Chalmette, the largest city in the parish. As of 2000, its population was 67,229. It has been ranked the fastest-growing county in the United States from 2007 to 2008 by the U.S....
, and Plaquemines Parish
Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana
Plaquemines Parish is the parish with the most combined land and water area in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Pointe à la Hache...
were so badly damaged that they were forced to cancel their entire school year.
Other disaster-area schools combined to form joint teams in fall of 2005 and spring of 2006. One the more noteworthy joint teams came from the Archbishop Rummel Transitional School
Archbishop Rummel High School
Archbishop Rummel High School is a Catholic secondary school located in Metairie, a community in unincorporated Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The school is named after Archbishop Joseph Rummel, a former Archbishop in the Archdiocese of New Orleans....
. Rummel is a traditionally all-boys Catholic school in Metairie, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. But, in October, the campus welcomed transfer students from other disaster area schools, including girls. As such, Rummel became a co-educational school for the remainder of the school year, and the previously all-boys school fielded a girls athletics program known as the "Lady Raiders". Public schools around the state accused the Archdiocese of New Orleans
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, officially in Latin Archidioecesis Novae Aureliae, is an ecclesiastical division of the Roman Catholic Church administered from New Orleans, Louisiana...
of assembling the Lady Raiders as an elite girls team, drafting top athletes from storm-damaged girls schools around the Greater New Orleans area.
By the 2006 school year, most of the affected LHSAA schools were able to compete under their own school teams.