September 23, 2010

OCHS principal becomes NJSIAA vice president

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


A lot of principals and athletics directors in New Jersey are paying extra attention to the news these days. The governor is taking away money they were expecting to receive and making their jobs more challenging. And an attack on the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association by a Gloucester County politician has made high school sports more complicated.

But Dr. Matt Jamison, the principal at Ocean City High School, is more interested than most in the latest developments. Jamison has become one of two vice presidents of the NJSIAA and is likely to become president of the group within the next few years.

Jamison was a successful athlete at OCHS. He went on to be a teacher, coach and administrator at Mainland Regional; assistant principal at Atlantic City High School; and principal and interim superintendent at Arthur Schalick High School before returning to his alma mater. His guidance has helped Ocean City High School become the only Cape-Atlantic League school listed among the Top 100 public schools in the state for 2010 by New Jersey Monthly.

“When I first went to an NJSIAA executive committee meeting” Jamison recalls, “all I really knew about the organization was what I’d heard as an athlete, coach and administrator. I was really impressed with the totality of what they do. The organization is constructed around a framework of fairness. The NJSIAA constitution, by-laws and rules are constructed in a way to be as equal as possible to all athletes and teams. The amount of effort they put into making everything fair is mind-boggling.”

But there were some things that the association could do in these times of economic struggle.

“The NJSIAA has made and continues to make changes,” Jamison said. “One of our key directors has retired and we hired a replacement at a savings. Another employee, who retires at the end of the year, will not be replaced. We continue to cut back on some expenses, hold a few less meetings and make better use of technology to reduce the office supplies we need.”

The NJSIAA is a voluntary organization. It is not a state organization, though the Department of Education has some control over it. The association gets only $50,000 from the state each year and that is just to cover the costs of steroid testing. All other monies needed to run the impressive sports programs are raised through membership dues, ticket sales at events and one other source. New Jersey has more state sports championships than any other state in the USA.

“In recent years there has been a great effort to get more corporate sponsorship,” said Jamison. “It has been pretty successful and we are anticipating more success in the future. The dues went up a few years ago but had remained the same for 10 years before that. The NJSIAA budget is completely transparent. A copy is sent to every member school every year.

“We conduct championships in 30-some sports but we only charge admission to a half-dozen or so. The money we raise in those events not only has to help cover the costs of that sport but of all the other sports where no admission is charged.”

Ticket prices are the biggest controversy created by the Gloucester County politician.

A law enacted by the state basically forbids any school that receives money from the State of New Jersey to belong to an organization that charges an admission to post-season games at high school facilities that is higher than what is charged during the regular season. It is OK to charge more at venues like Giants Stadium or The Izod Center, though those prices must be approved by the Department of Education.

There was no doubt that the NJSIAA could reduce its overhead a bit, much like most organizations and businesses have done. But the ticket situation doesn’t hold water. There had been no significant complaints about the ticket prices (except, possibly, in Gloucester County) but it has become the centerpiece of the controversy.

Where in sports can you pay the same for a ticket in the postseason that you paid during the regular season? Not in the NFL. Not in the NBA. Not in the NCAA. Nowhere.

“The NJSIAA might have a bit of a public relations problem,” said Jamison. “The only time you consistently read about the association is when a punitive action is taken.”

You’ve read those stories. A kid transfers and has to sit out 30 days. An athlete doesn’t take enough credits during a semester to maintain eligibility. An athlete is ejected from a game and has to sit out the next two. A team is disqualified from the state tournament because it played too many regular season games or didn’t play a high enough percentage of New Jersey teams. Or how about the innocent kid who transfers from a non-public school to a public school but can’t play because his family owes tuition to the non-public school which refuses to send his transcripts until it is paid.

You feel for the athletes in many of these situations. But the rules are clear and all member schools are made aware of them. As Jamison said, the NJSIAA is constructed to be fair and to treat each situation equally. Obviously, the kid with the transcript problem doesn’t feel he’s getting treated fairly. And, in a way, he is an innocent victim. But the rules are clear and are enforced equally.

Those rules, by the way, are not created by the staff in the NJSIAA headquarters in Robbinsville. Most of them are created by the member schools, who submit them to sports committees and the general membership for consideration.

“I’ve enjoyed my association with the NJSIAA,” said Jamison. “The work they do is detailed and very precise. Like all organizations, its main resources are human resources. There are qualified, dedicated people at the NJSIAA and I am looking forward to continuing to do whatever I can to assist in their work.”


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