PIAA will return basketball state finals to Hershey

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/ FROM KEITH GROLLER RodFrisco.com among other media members are reporting what has been speculated for weeks and months -- the PIAA basketball championships are returning to Hershey for four years starting next March. The finals have been held at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center since 2006, but attendance has greatly diminished since the title games were moved to Happy Valley. Most District 11 officials that I have talked to felt that a move back to Hershey was coming and the vote of the board of directors was 29-0 this morning; not a surprise at all because everyone agreed something had to be done. RodFrisco.com is also reporting that Hershey allegedly submitted a zero-rent bid which would be music to the cash-strapped PIAA's ears. Personally, I wonder if this move alone will bring back attendance. The problem is not where the games are played as much as who is playing in them. District 12 has emerged as the dominant force in basketball and many of those schools simply do not have the strong following of schools from smaller, more rural areas. Also, the rise of charter schools has impacted the crowds. The best crowds come from the schools where an entire town or community can get behind a team, like Whitehall in 1982 for instance. When you have some kids coming from this town, and some coming from that town, and you have the perception that all-star teams are being assembled, you don't have a unified community getting aboard the bandwagon. From a Lehigh Valley perspective, this is good news because many more basketball fans are likely to take the hour and 20-minute ride ot I-78 and I-81 to Hershey than navigate the close to three-hour trip to State College.