Right now NCHSAA are having a zoom meeting about realignment. Some schools saying they have to drive 4 hours round trip or more.
ZOOM
- Thread starter buzzcoach
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I wonder what schools are affected by a four-hour drive. I don't think any of the schools in the new NWC are complaining; they are just trying to find non-conference games and move on.
The ones that were complaining were the schools who were in the "football only" conference which included schools as far apart as N. Rowan and Thomas Jefferson.
Other than me reading in a thread where Cardinal Gibbons just asked to be moved up to 7A, are there any complaints on the Eastern half?
Martin County had a list of objections to the conference they're in. I didn't catch all of them. Fike also objected to being in a conference with N. Nash.
Caught the tail end before lunch. A few of the Asheville schools were at bat, so to speak ... Enka and Noth Buncombe if I recall ...
N. Brunswick up after lunch and talks about how transient their student population is. They want to trade with Cardinal Gibbons to go down to 6A. Apparently, they have the second lowest 7A ADMs, but Smithfield-Selma is lower, and the board worries about why they weren't part of the discussion.
Piedmont and Sun Valley are up, and they express concerns about being in a conference with Charlotte Catholic. Piedmont also mentions how they aren't competitive with "other county schools", which I took as code for Weddington. Sun Valley points out that there could have been 6A and 7A conferences in the Charlotte Metro, which would mean fewer split conferences. The speaker alleges that there is a "palpable" political agenda at work where the Charlotte schools "don't want a private school (Catholic) in with them". Sun Valley speaker says however he prefers Catholic to Weddington and Marvin Ridge, citing declining enrollment.
The other option for TJCA is the SMC with 5+ hour round trips to Andrews and Murphy. Kind of a rock and a hard place for them.
West Iredell asks to be in with Burke and Rutherford County schools. Admits Rutherford County is concerned about travel.
I think Cherokee (2A) or Hayesville (2A) could play down to 1A and Robbinsville (1A) should play up to 2A if not Robbinsville will be winning the State (1A) Championship every year and they should be wanting to play up taking advantage of smaller football programs that never even make it past the 2nd or 3rd round in the West and even worse Eastern teams.
Who would be complaining up this way ? They should have left it with the 1st draft. There were no changes in the 2nd and 3rd drafts but I could have lived with either or a combination of the 1st and 3rd drafts. I can't imagine how else they would change it. Walkertown is the only Forsyth County school that I would want ! !
I wish Ashe would make their proposal available to the public, since it apparently would impact many schools across a wide area.
- 3A/4A Conference C
- North Wilkes (3A)
- Surry Central (3A)
- West Wilkes (3A)
- Ashe County (4A)
- Forbush (4A)
- North Surry (4A)
- West Stokes (4A)
- Wilkes Central (4A)
I’m trying to remember, but someone this morning referred to “page 100 of our proposal” and I think it was them, so it’s very detailed.
Put them back in their 2024 conference and see how the like it.
 Watauga | 4-0 | - | 10-1 |
 Freedom | 3-1 | 1.0 | 6-4 |
 Alexander Central | 3-3 | 2.0 | 5-7 |
 South Caldwell | 2-3 | 2.5 | 4-6 |
 Hibriten | 2-4 | 3.0 | 3-8 |
 Ashe County | 1-4 | 3.5 | 4-6 |
Ashe wants out of that (draft 3). I think they had a proposal of 6 schools and said they would be ok with Alleghany, Wllkes County, Elkin and Starmount minus Forbush. This was original draft 1
I think that was East Wilkes, I thought Ashe was complaining about some travel to the Surry. County schools. Because Hampton made some comment about he had traveled between N. Surry and Ashe in a car and that was a very different trip in a bus.
I appreciate that the association made this meeting open to the public so we could all listen, transparency is a good thing. But I think they should have taken a little more time to go over some of the appeals. NCSSM-Morganton, for instance, asked to be moved to the Western Highlands. They talked about navigating Charlotte and Concord traffic for the conference they're assigned to when they made their presentation, but that was never talked about when the panel voted on it. Instead, they simply looked at what the farthest driving distance was. But NCSSM knew all of that and still asked for the change, so they had their reasons. I think they figured in that being in the Western Highlands meant there would be some schools closer than any in their new conference. They don't play football, baseball, softball or volleyball, and they're really only competitive in soccer and tennis, so it wasn't like it was going to be a huge scheduling issue. But the panel only spent a few minutes discussing it, overlooked many of the points NCSSM made and then voted their disapproval.
I watched the whole presentation from start to finish. Yes, I know, I have no life. I was extremely surprised that they voted period yesterday. It appeared at times no one took notes and they were trying to reconcile what the schools had asked.
I bet they were trying to avoid Superintendents and principals going to their state representatives and getting them involved which would have made things even messier.
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Those are the people that made up the committee. The NCHSAA did not have a vote in this decision. No one should blame the NCHSAA for this fiasco. Politics were in place. Everyone was looking out for number 1.
There was a live blog kept, but, it's behind the HSOT "Insider" paywall. Only a general summary on the free part of the website.
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Any updates on actual changes or when the final will roll out. Seems like all non-football charters would be assigned a league with the same. I do not want the senate (politicians) running high school sports and it seems like the NCHSAA would have a say since they are supposedly the organization putting out the information and overseeing sports in NC. The outlier small rural schools and small city schools are the ones that often get what they get because the big counties are well repped on the selection committee and they do not want to play those schools (poor gates, competitiveness, scheduling and other unnamed issues).
Yes, the video of yesterday's 10 hours is still on High School OT and on the right side under realignment. It is the free version. You may have to do a search at the top of the page for the conference meeting 3/3/2025, as I just did. Surry and Wilkes' school parts are in the last hour. The final vote discussion on Surry and Wilkes may last the final 15 or 20 minutes
So what conference will Thomas Jefferson be in? As an Alleghany fan glad we went back to first draft. Much rather play ashe and Wilkes schools and have a chance instead of getting blown out by mt airy East surry and West stokes
