Somewhere in Columnist School comes the lesson about making points, not belaboring them. If we’re not careful, the columnist-who-cried-wolf thing happens and they either stop paying attention or think “rinse, repeat.”

Some issues, though, merit frequent and deeper consideration, which is why the concept of equity in state high school sports often pings the radar.

First, a primer to explain the difference between “equity” and “equality.” Equity is a fair baseline. Equality is where everybody is the same and has an equal amount of achievement. Equity — the same opportunity to achieve — is the ultimate objective. Equality — everybody achieves the same — is impossible.

In recent years, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the state’s governing body of high school athletics, merits gold stars in making state tournament divisions in many sports more equitable. CIAC officials have listened to the feedback of administrators, coaches and even some whiny media types, such as your humble narrator.

In no particular order, the CIAC has done better to protect small public schools from Catholic schools of similar enrollment, whose advantage in attracting students from multiple towns cultivates competitive advantage (and disadvantage). The CIAC has adjusted tournament multipliers and removed the “school of choice” designation from vo-ag schools for fairer placement. Much of the work began with individual sports committees, eventually resulting in positive change. Why? The CIAC listened.

And yet as we discovered last week, more work looms.

I’ve been critical in the past of the CIAC’s flawed hypothesis that equity manifests itself through enrollment numbers. Example: If Immaculate (a Danbury-based Catholic school) and Old Lyme have roughly the same number of girls, they should occupy the same Class S soccer division. Except that enrollment numbers aren't nearly as significant as how they are amassed.

Immaculate draws kids from 28 different towns and two states, per its website. Old Lyme draws from two towns and one state, thus giving Immaculate perpetual competitive advantage. The schools do not belong in the same division because they do not play by the same rules. And yet Immaculate has eliminated Old Lyme from nine different Class S tournaments since 1992.

Which brings us to 2024.

Waterford girls’ soccer coach Chris Ghiglia was understandably chafed that his No. 2-seeded program in Class L lost to Sacred Heart, a Hamden-based Catholic school, in the quarterfinals. Ghiglia, once the coach at a Catholic school (St. Bernard), has endured some of his best Waterford teams losing to Catholic schools: Northwest Catholic (2015), St. Joseph (2021) and now the events of 2024.

I haven’t railed much about the plight of public vs. Catholic schools in the Class L (or LL) divisions, mostly because I find the Catholic schools’ primary advantage — the ability to draw students from multiple towns — gets mitigated some by public schools with hefty enrollments. But Ghiglia, who also thought Bacon Academy got the shaft having to play Northwest Catholic in Class M, believes it’s time the girls’ soccer committee changed its divisional alignments.

“I sent an email to a fellow coach on the CIAC soccer committee who agrees with me totally that this is an unfair situation,” Ghiglia said. “I proposed to him a five division state tournament similar to what basketball does. It moves us from a four-division system with approximately 40 teams per class to five divisions with approximately 32 teams each.”

What does that create?

“Divisions III, IV and V would be for smaller/medium public schools. Divisions one and two would be for the largest public schools and Catholic schools,” Ghiglia said. “For the Catholic schools, you could use a success factor to decide whether they go into Division I or II.”

Waterford was among the smallest enrollment public schools in Class L this season. Ghiglia’s proposal would have dropped the Lancers into a lower division with similar-sized public schools. I believe that’s closer to equity.

“The Sacred Heart coach runs the local premier team,” Ghiglia said. “He basically admitted to me before the game how he brings in players from the club to play for him at Sacred Heart. Not exactly a like-for-like situation. I also coached St. Bernard for many years and we definitely had an unfair advantage when we were competing in the ECC Small Division.

“Today the ECC does a really good job to create balanced divisions, so the smaller ECC public schools aren’t at a disadvantage. This can definitely be done fairly at the state level as well.”

Ghiglia is correct. Except that this needs to start at the committee level. Ghiglia, and perhaps by extension Waterford athletic director Chris Landry, needs to wave the flag for this until there’s an official proposal for CIAC officials to consider. The ECC, for example, proposed a change to the basketball committee about tournament multipliers this year as it relates to placing ECC schools in tournament divisions. The CIAC adopted the proposal, sending Wheeler, for example, back to Division V.

This season, there were several Catholic schools in Class S girls’ soccer. They don’t belong there. But it’s up to the coaches, athletic directors and other administrators to fight for change.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro