Prompted by a strong nudge from the federal Office of Civil Rights, the WIAA expects to have Wisconsin girls cross country athletes run just a little bit further starting this fall.

In a letter sent to member schools on Thursday, WIAA executive director Dave Anderson said he has “asked the Board of Control to approve a change of the girls cross country distance from 4,000 to 5,000 meters, effective fall 2014.”

The Board of Control is expected to vote on the unusually fast-tracked rule change at its May 16 meeting.

“It was inevitable that this was going to happen,” said Matt Polzin, coach of the Deerfield/Cambridge co-operative program and president of the Wisconsin Cross Country Coaches Association. “The way it has gone about, though? That has left a few of us cross country coaches angry today.”

WIAA boys cross country races already are 5,000 meters. Girls have run 4,000 meters (0.62 miles shorter than the boys) in most regular-season and all WIAA events since 1993; prior to that, the girls ran 3,200 meters.

“When we switched from 3,200 to 4,000, there were a lot of people thinking ‘this is the end’” for small-school programs who had trouble getting enough athletes to come out for and stick with the sport, longtime McFarland coach Bruce Fischer said. “There was a lot of doomsday talk. But the sport has grown.”

Wisconsin is one of only eight states that still require girls cross country athletes to run a shorter distance than boys.

Typically, a major rule change must follow a circuitous path through the WIAA leadership — from coaches’ associations to area meetings to the Board of Control and, finally, to the annual meeting of WIAA members.

WIAA assistant director Marcy Thurwachter, in charge of administering cross country, said there is a reason the rule-change system is set up with several steps.

“With each group (coaches, athletic directors and administrators) having its own view of issues, it’s important so that no matter what the decision is, that it’s been looked at from all of those different angles,” she said.

“Certainly, we would have liked to see our committee structure be able to act on this the same way, working through the different levels.”

But this change — which has been discussed and debated for more than a decade — has suddenly been moved to the express lane because of the imminent threat of legal action for Title IX gender discrimination.

On April 7, Anderson received a letter from the Office of Civil Rights, informing him that the OCR had received complaints of gender discrimination from multiple Wisconsin high schools and found sufficient evidence to open an investigation.

According to Anderson’s letter: “The WIAA has been in discussions with both our own legal counsel and OCR attorneys. WIAA counsel has advised that this is a complaint in which the WIAA is not likely to prevail. The OCR has advised that increasing the girls competition to 5,000 meters would resolve this complaint.”According to a complaint received by the OCR from “multiple high schools” in Wisconsin:

“For years now there has been a plea by various groups to correct this injustice. But each year, including this one, the measure has been tabled and will not come up for discussion for at least three years. …

“The (WIAA) … has been very apprehensive to change the distance as a ‘strong’ few dictate the majority. … These ladies feel that they are being discriminated against because they are not as fast as their male teammates and are therefore a ‘weaker’ sex.”

Polzin refutes the accuracy of the comments in the complaint. He said a 2013 poll of state schools sponsoring cross country came back against changing the length of the girls race, 50.93 percent to 49.07 percent. That compared to a 56.4-to-43.6 percent vote in favor of the change on a similar poll of members taken in 2010.Polzin also said the decision to table the discussion was overwhelmingly passed by those in attendance at the state coaches’ clinic in January 2014. “The feeling was that there was fatigue on the issue. We just keep fighting about it and arguing the same points,” Polzin said.

In his letter to schools, Anderson mentioned that the WIAA’s Medical Advisory Committee “sees no medical reason to oppose 5K for girls, and would support the increase in distance from 4K to 5K.”Coaches have been allowed to set longer distances for regular-season meets, typically invitationals. But a check of the Wisconsin Cross Country Coaches Association’s website, which has a list of invitationals, shows that only 10 of the 294 events listed include a 5,000-meter girls race.

One of the concerns — that increasing the race length would negatively impact participation numbers — was refuted in Nebraska last fall, the first year that state increased its race length to 5,000 meters.

“Some Division 3 (small-school) coaches are afraid it might kill their programs,” Polzin said. “They are worried their numbers will drop because it will be harder to recruit girls to run a longer distance.”

However, an email from Nebraska School Activities Association assistant director Jon Dolliver to Thurwachter reported that Nebraska’s girls participation numbers went up from 2,080 participants in 2012 to 2,197 last fall.Polzin is a proponent of the girls 5,000-meter distance, but he’s not a proponent of court intervention to bring about the change.

“I like the end result; I don’t like the precedent it sets,” he said. “If you go through the chain of command and the results don’t come out your way, is this the way to do that?”

“My suspicion is there are a couple of coaches who are adamant about it.”