There’s no reason to mess with a product, procedure, routine, that’s effective.
Last week the NCHSAA rolled out its second draft of a realignment proposal that would reclassify dozens of schools across the state for the 2025-26 school year.
For years, North Carolina has had four classifications in high school athletics – from 1A to 4A, based on total school enrollment. Those classifications are used for creating conferences that make as much sense geographically as possible, and creating playoff brackets.
Over the past decade or so, there have been some cracks beginning to show in the current system. Some 4A schools have gotten so large that the disparity in that classification is staggering, and an influx of charter schools has created a boom of what should be in most cases, 1A programs.
The logical thing to do would be to add a 5A classification, take the enrollment numbers, and make 20 percent of the schools 5A, 20 percent 4A, and so on, to alleviate some of those disparities.
But that’s not the NCHSAA’s new plan. The NCHSAA is proposing to create eight classifications from 1A to 8A.
While splitting the schools up eight ways instead of four or five may not seem like a big deal on paper, it’s already creating a headache as officials look to cobble together potential conferences.
In the second draft proposal of what the conference lineup may look like in 2025, the NCHSAA has Highlands, Blue Ridge, and Summit all in the same conference (which makes total sense). However, the proposal includes adding Rosman to the current Smoky Mountain 1-A Conference. The new league would stretch from Rosman to Hiawassee Dam with 13 teams in the league (7 football members and 6 non-football members). To make matters more confusing, four of the current 1A teams would become 2A, but stay in the same league. Cherokee, Hayesville, Murphy and Swain County would all go up a class thus creating another split among league members.
The draft proposal has some conferences with teams from 1A, 2A, and 3A all in the same conference. It’s a spider web of hard to figure out affiliations.
Everyone wants to see Highlands, Cashiers, and Summit in the same league, let’s just hope that the folks at the NCHSAA can come up with a realignment format that makes more sense as a whole.