This week on Jan. 25-27, the St. Paul’s LHSAA representative, Principal Trevor Watkins, will travel to Baton Rouge for the annual LHSAA Principal’s Conference for 2017. Contrary to popular thought, the conference does not allow other members of school administration to attend.

“The LHSAA is an organization made up of principals,” Watkins said. “Every principal that has a sports team that competes is a member of the LHSAA. So, by definition, we are the LHSAA.”

The meeting this week will primarily serve as a venue for rule changes to some disputed policies inside the organization’s rulebook that all members adhere to.

“There are procedures for rule changes,” Watkins said, “and one of those is that agenda items be submitted ahead of time to the executive committee.”

Because there is a deadline, the previous report by The Paper Wolf of a potential split between private and public schools was discovered to be based upon rumors around the community that were incorrectly assumed to be fact. Prior to the published report, in fact, many members of the coaching staff, as well as student athletes, believed they would playing in the Catholic League teams next year, and years to come. At this time, however, this so-called “split” will not take place.

“If the split were to take place, it would cause the LHSAA to lose money,” Watkins said. “The ‘split’ is not even on the agenda for this meeting, as the deadline for proposing rule changes has already passed weeks ago.”

According to Watkins, the meetings are not usually pleasant to sit through.

“Unfortunately,” Watkins said, “the principals all come to the meeting assuming everyone’s cheating, and everybody is wanting to cheat, and everyone is there to gain advantage for their school.”

An example of a rule change that will be discussed at this year’s conference is that if a high school athlete turns 19 before Aug. 1, he or she cannot participate in the given sport, contrary to the present rule that pushes the date to Sept. 1.

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Editorial note: This article is a retraction of a previous article posted regarding the possible “split” of select and non-select schools that could force all SPS sports into the New Orleans Catholic League. At the time, The Paper Wolf  was reporting on information provided by a reliable source that was soon to be found inaccurate. Thus, the original story was removed from our site.