ROTHSCHILD — As if there weren't enough issues threatening to divide WIAA schools, Doug Chickering warned Wednesday of growing pressure from national organizations courting elite athletes at the expense of those athletes competing for their schools.

In the WIAA executive director's report at the association's annual meeting, Chickering told athletic directors of a recent meeting that featured presentations from several emerging sports governing bodies who indicated their mission is to make the best athletes in their sports even better.

Those groups included the U.S. Soccer Academy, USA Football and the NBA and NCAA, who have formed a limited liability company seeking to change the structure of youth basketball and compete for players in the Amateur Athletic Union ranks. They concern Chickering because they are targeting elite athletes with no vision for the average athletes who represent the majority of high school sports participants.

"The five or six people who talked to us last week in Indianapolis, they all want to be part of the sports scene," Chickering said. "But they only want to be involved with the most elite kids."

Chickering called on schools to resist that effort.

"For high school sports to continue, we have dig in and we have to fight for what's in the best interest of everybody, not just for the elite," he said.

Chickering's comments overshadowed ongoing discussion about topics that have ruled recent WIAA meetings — such as divisional placement of private schools and tougher transfer eligibility rules.

They followed opening remarks from WIAA Board of Control president Gus Mancuso of Wisconsin Rapids, who told delegates of a proposal that would not be brought up for a vote. It called for the WIAA to relax a rule prohibiting teams from competing out of season during the school year to keep coaches from competing for players' time.

Mancuso said the Board of Control asked the WIAA staff to clarify the maximum number of players from the same school that can compete on such teams. Those maximums are three for basketball, hockey and volleyball, four for football and five for baseball and softball.

The divisional placement issue, a big issue in baseball and boys basketball where private schools have dominated Division 3 state tournament activity, appears to be no closer to a resolution.

Retiring Hartland Arrowhead athletic director Geoff Steinbach said that the schools in the Classic Eight Conference, which include two private and six public schools, are against any changes that would move some schools into larger divisions, but not others. However, Chickering said after the meeting that state tournament data, which last year indicated that surprising numbers of public school teams benefitted from open-enrolled players, did not show that this year.

``The number of open-enrolled kids on public school teams was not as many and the number of kids on the non-public school teams that came from outside of that school district was higher,'' said Chickering, who added that the number of public school students in the state's open enrollment program now equals the total enrollment of the state's non-public schools.

``And those open enrollment numbers are going to go up and the (private school) numbers are going to go down. As each year goes by, the likelihood of a very quantifiable measure to put in place (for divisional placement of private schools) is going to do down.''