May 10, 2002 By The Associated Press 4 min read

With just a couple of days before the PIAA chooses its football championship games site for the next three years, the vote seems too close to call. A joint survey conducted by two newspapers showed the decision is as unsettled as it was last month.

On April 6, the PIAA Board of Directors deadlocked 13-13 on whether to keep the games at Hersheypark Stadium, where they have been played the last three years, or return them to Altoona’s Mansion Park, where they were held from 1992-97.

The board will again consider the issue Saturday at its regular meeting at the PIAA headquarters in Mechanicsburg. The survey by the Patriot-News of Harrisburg and the Observer-Reporter of Washington showed 10 confirmed votes for Hershey, seven confirmed votes for Altoona and 10 votes still undecided.

The reason for the high number of undecided votes is the PIAA’s decision last month to send the issue back to the PIAA’s constituencies for consideration. Some of those constituencies are meeting this week.

Other board members said they wanted to discuss the matter with other members before making a final decision.

Hersheypark Stadium has played host to all four championship games since 1998, attracting larger crowds than Altoona. But a storm that dumped more than an inch of rain on the second day of games on Dec. 8 left Hershey’s natural grass field extremely muddy.

The muddy field may have played a big role in helping Neshaminy upset speedy Woodland Hills in the Class AAAA final.

The possibility of poor playing conditions at future PIAA championships drew several votes away from Hershey and gave them to Altoona. Altoona’s Mansion Park has a smaller seating capacity than Hershey’s, but has an artificial turf surface.

Some members have acknowledged they are wary of the government-created Oversight Council, which has the power to put the PIAA out of business.

“Personally, I prefer Hershey,” female officials representative Pam Cherubin said. “But after all that we’ve been through the last few years, I felt we didn’t need to go through any more.”

The state Senate investigation that led to the creation of the Oversight Committee largely came about because of the PIAA’s 1998 decision stripping Altoona of the championship games.

Members from PIAA District 7 (WPIAL) voted solidly against the PIAA’s recommendation of Hershey in April. But one District 7 representative, James Horner of South Park High School, said he plans to switch his vote to Hershey on Saturday.

Horner said he voted against Hershey as a protest against the PIAA’s refusal to back District 7’s penalties in several recent eligibility and rules violation cases that were heard by the state board.

But he now “believes (he) should support the executive staffs recommendation” and vote for Hershey.

At least one other anti-Hershey vote will change. District 1 vice chairman Randy Ireson of Glen Mills voted against Hershey, but his alternate, Holly Farnese, will vote in favor of Hershey on Saturday, according to District 1 chairman Rod Stone.

But while two votes have switched from Altoona to Hershey, several others are very much up in the air.

Coaches representative Ron Kanaskie of Danville voted in favor of Hershey in April, but is undecided now.

“I want to listen to anything they (board members) have to say about this,” said Kanaskie, who added that the Pennsylvania Football Coaches Association is officially neutral on the matter.

Also Saturday, the PIAA board is expected to take away one of District 7’s four qualifiers in each weight class for the PIAA Class AAA wrestling championships and award it to the Southeast region.

The board traditionally gives the extra spot in the field to the largest regional, which, until the latest realignment, was the Southwest region (District 7). Now, the Southeast region now has 58 schools to the Southwest’s 53 in Class AAA.

The decision could make for a much weaker tournament field. During the past 10 years, the Southeast region has had only 105 placewinners – barely half as many as the Northeast region’s 203 placewinners, even though both regions had the same number of PIAA qualifiers each year.

Also during that time, the Southwest region had 192 placewinners, including 23 fourth-place regional finishers who went on to place in the top six in Hershey.