realignment news and views


Part 1 - late June, 1998

Have you heard about the new, ultra-weird playoff format for Group AA?
Neither has anyone else.


On June 19th, the VHSL's Redistricting and Reclassification Committee passed a Proposed Classification Plan by a vote of 11-1. It is now in the hands of the schools (and some press and members of the public), where it will be reviewed, debated, and cursed until September, when the VHSL’s Executive Committee will decide whether or not to accept it for the 1999-2001 period. (Schools may request an amendment to the recommended plan by notifying the VHSL in writing by September 4, specifying what modification they are seeking and the rationale for the request.)

Group A will have 88 schools and Group AA will have 85.
The enrollment numbers for AA will be approximately 520 - 1040
(my different sources have used different numbers, and I haven’t seen that specific part of it personally).

But, because of the bickering by the AA schools over the past few years, the Group would be split into 6 Regions!!! Will this mean 6 Regional champions ?? An extra round of playoffs ?? Two teams ‘earning’ a bye??????

VHSL Executive Director Ken Tilley said "this approach seems to solve several geographical problems in the eastern and western ends of the state. Of course, this raises questions about playoff berths and pairings, but the committee felt those matters could be resolved."
(Yeah, right. Would YOU vote for a new alignment without knowing how the playoffs would be structured ???)

The new AA alignment would produce 2 Regions (both east of Roanoke) with 17 schools and 1 Region with just 10 schools (heh, heh, heh). You know, Region 6 looks an AWFUL lot like the old Southwest District - Grundy, Graham, Richlands, Tazewell, Gate City, Va. High, Abingdon and Marion, with Lee and Carroll Co. in place of current Group A school John Battle and ready-to-go-A-again Lebanon. (Can you imagine 80% of the schools making the playoffs ??)

A lot of District shuffling will occur East of Roanoke, with the biggest change probably being in Group AA’s Northwestern District in Region 2. James Wood and Sherando would move up to Group AAA, while Park View, Broad Run and Potomac Falls drop from AAA to take their place. Current NW District school Fauquier was placed in AAA, but they have already filed an appeal to stay AA because their projected enrollment puts them just over the AA limit for 1999, but back under it in 2000. Chancellor and Courtland are also dropping from AAA because of a realignment of school districts in Spotsylvania County caused by the opening of a new school, Massaponax. All 3 of these will be joining Spotsylvania in the Battlefield District (in new Region 2). (corrected 7/25/98)

Other moves "out East" would see Group AA schools Prince Edward & Franklin dropping to A, Group A schools Powhatan, William Monroe and Central (Woodstock) moving up to AA, and 2 new schools in the Jefferson District : Orange Co. (from the Battlefield) and Monticello, a new school near Charlottesville (Why didn't they call it Southern Albemarle???). (corrected 7/25/98)

Region 4 (12 schools) will be the Dogwood District (minus current members Altavista and William Campbell, which would drop down to Group A’s James River District, where Central of Lunenburg plays), and the Seminole District, which will welcome (?) back Heritage of Lynchburg.

Region 5 (14 schools) will consist of the Blue Ridge and the recently split Piedmont Districts. But that could change in a few years because of a proposed new school in Roanoke Co. This new school would probably be AA, and, it would reduce the number of students at nearby Cave Spring to AA levels. This would push the Blue Ridge up to 10 teams, making it the largest district in Group AA and equal to the smallest region.

(Think maybe Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Carroll Co., Patrick Co. and Salem would consider re-creating the New River District and joining Region 6 ??? Me neither.)

Speaking of Carroll Co. and Lebanon, the new alignment would affect them a second way. I’ve heard from sources over the last few years that the Cavaliers weren’t happy with being placed in the SWD, due to the travel time required. Using Mapquest, I followed up on a recent commentary a former co-worker of mine wrote for a local paper. I found that the following pairs of schools were basically the same distance from Hillsville : Marion & Graham, Va. High & Richlands, and Gate City & Grundy. Tazewell is about 7 miles closer than Abingdon. Who does that leave us with? The Lee Generals, whose field is only about 165 miles from Hillsville. You split the state into SIX regions and it’s still a 3+ hour drive (longer by bus) to a DISTRICT opponent? I think UVA waited waaaaaayyyyyy too long to decommission that nuclear reactor in Charlottesville.

The only change in Regions C or D would have indecisive Lebanon dropping back down to Group A once again --- this time into the BDD. (I don't think they'll be happy there, either.)


The complete plan can be found at "Twinkie’s" wrestling site.

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After about 2 weeks of tossing around possibilities, I’ve only come up with 2 ‘feasible’ play-off formats:

Group A (and AAA) will stay the same : each Region advances 4 team in each Division, or 16 teams per Division at the start. But you can’t divide 16 teams evenly among 6 regions, so Group AA will be split in half : East (Regions 1-3) and West (4-6).

Option 1 : Play the first 2 rounds as usual to produce 6 Regional Champs and seed them as West or East 1-3, based on regular season power ratings. Have the lower 2 seeds meet for a ‘play-in’ to the state semis. The top seed will have an off week, and the state title game will be played a week after the A & AAA title games.

Option 2: Each half of the state will get 8 berths, with the District champions getting the top 3 seeds based on power ratings. Each district will then qualify a 2nd team (based on district record), which will be seeded 4-6, again based on power ratings. The last 2 seeds will be ‘wildcard’ entries, based on which of the remaining teams from the 3 Regions have the best power ratings. These last 2 teams could be seeded so that they would not play THEIR District champ in the first round, with power ratings used as a tie-breaker.
This would bring an end to having Regional champions in Group AA, but it would avoid that extra week.


On paper, both of these look viable. But so did scheduling the 1998 title games on turf.


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BTW... the VHSL allows schools the option of 'playing up' if they so choose. (A good example is Graham, which could have dropped to Group A a few years ago, but wished to stay AA because of the quality of competition.)
This year, a vote to allow schools the option of 'playing down' did not pass, I guess because it would mess up their proposed plan, which will draw enough comments as it is. The option was intended only for schools whose enrollment was 'on the border' of their Group, so it will be interesting to see what happens with Fauquier.


Also ... Since this year is a 'float year' (see changes ), there are no major changes in the classification of S.W. Va. schools (just Patrick Co. and Jefferson Forest moving up to Div. 4 and Tazewell and Lord Botetourt dropping to Div. 3 - corrected 8/18).
The complete, state-wide list can be found on this VHSL page.


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UPDATE - Aug. 29

Well, well, whatdayaknow.

It seems that the VHSL executive committee has put the plan on hold, so we should have the current alignment at least until the Summer of 2001.

To update some of the stuff mentioned above, it seems now that the new school being proposed for Roanoke Co. (in either the Merriman or Woods End area of SW county) will end up being AAA, while the Dogwood may lose even more schools to Group A (the largest dist. school currently has 609 students).

A new school is also on the drawing board for Elliston, in the eastern part of Montgomery Co. The last I saw about this was a discussion scheduled for a board of Supervisors meeting over the summer. My guess is that it will be a replacement for Shawsville.

And those rumors about a new school in Buchanan Co... well, the land has been purchased, but plans are to consolidate some of the elementary schools and leave the high schools as they are.

I was thinking the other day... what if some of those small AA schools go ahead and drop to A? Imagine Thomas Walker & Rye Cove being joined by Gate City, or Bland & Pocy being joined by Graham. Not pretty.


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UPDATE - Sept. 27

Finally... it's official! The proposed realignment plan for Group AA is DEAD!!!
It was made official by a unanimous vote this past Thursday (9/23) in C'ville.

If you saw the Bristol paper article, you know that there will be no changes in SW Va., other than Region IV's Piedmont District picking up Dan River and Tunstall from Region III's Dogwood Dist. But the online article had a few omissions and a mistake that should be pointed out.

The Dogwood District will pick up Nelson Co. from Region II, but this WON'T drop them to 6 schools, since Appomattox will be moving in from the Seminole District, and Altavista and William Campbell didn't want to drop to single-A.

Meanwhile, the Seminole will once again have Amherst Co., after the Northwest Region's request that they be forced to stay in Group AAA died due to the lack of a motion. (Who do they think they are, anyway? Trying to FORCE a school to stay AAA when they can drop to AA. GEEZ!!!)

Also, all of the above changes (other than Amherst) came about because they were requested by the individual schools and approved by committee vote. Also approved were requests by Carroll Co. & Lebanon to stay where they are instead of being moved like originally planned, and a request from Pulaski Co. and the Northwest Region to NOT merge the Western District with the Roanoke Valley District.

However, not every school got it's wish. Rockbridge Co. and Rustburg wanted to leave the districts they are currently in, and Central of Woodstock tried to keep from being moved up to double-A, but these requests were denied.

Also, while AA gets Amherst back, they lose Sherando, which moves up to AAA.

And something else to ponder... a couple of sugestions were presented to be thought about in the near future. One was that the districts which are concerned about losing class time due to travel consider following in the footsteps of the SEC and developing East & West Divisions.

Also, someone from the coalfields suggested that maybe Group A should be divided into THREE divisions. (Gee, think that would allow ALL of the LPD schools to make the playoffs????)

So, what this all boils down to is that nothing will change west of Roanoke until the start of the 2001-2002 school year.

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