The Hawaii Interscholastic Athletic Directors Association has brought together an impressive array of speakers for its annual conference this week, including former Moanalua basketball player Angela Perez Baraquio-Grey — who also happened to be Miss America in 2001.

Maybe something she says will inspire and motivate the high school athletic directors to deal with the biggest issues in Hawaii prep sports in future years. But as for this session, the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s executive director said the conference lacks earth-moving proposals.

"I don’t see too many," Chris Chun said. "Seems like it’s pretty tame."

That’s too bad. Because the complaints and solutions — or at least some ideas — are out there and have been voiced. And if the leagues really wanted to, they could take on the hot-button, two-headed issue of competitive balance and safety in football.

If you follow prep football in Hawaii, you may have read the Star-Advertiser’s Paul Honda’s and my proposals, which are basically the same and boil down to this basic premise: Combine the two Oahu leagues, break the teams statewide into three divisions and increase the state tournaments from two to three.

It is the logical extension of two-level classification. But even with two divisions there are too many mismatches that lead to forfeits and injuries.

Recruiting contributes to this situation more and more every year. It has always been a reality, no matter what kind of rules are put in place regarding transfers and district exemptions.

At least the OIA’s overreaction transfer proposal that would make anyone have to sit out a year appears to be off the table. Quite the coincidence its demise coincides with the departure of Rich Miano from his head coaching position at Division II state football champion Kaiser.

It’s a fairness issue whichever side you agree with. In other pursuits, kids are allowed to go to the school where they can best flourish. Why not sports? Maybe because winning football and basketball teams mean more to communities than, say, winning debate teams or outstanding drama productions.

Nobody says a word when talented youngsters go to schools (private and public) far from their homes if that talent is not athletics. They’re viewed as sacrificing and committing to nurture a gift, not as traitors to their neighborhood.

Would three football classifications instead of two cut into recruiting and purely athletic transfers disguised as something else? Hard to say, it could be a happy byproduct.

But it’s easy to see it would mean fewer mismatches and fewer forfeits due to safety concerns.

Chun said it’s up to the leagues, "but it doesn’t seem like there’s any momentum."

Why? Because the OIA doesn’t want even its best programs to play on what it sees as an uneven playing field against private schools, and the ILH doesn’t want to play league games on TV, which the OIA does.

So gridlock as bad as any in Honolulu continues, status quo that doesn’t benefit anyone.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.