Thoughts on the NCHSAA vs. Haywood County situation? I personally think this is just the beginning, but I am glad that someone is standing up to the NCHSAA and their unfair procedures
Haywood County vs. NCHSAA-Denied
- Thread starter BeachCarolina
- Start date
Thanks. Some very interesting points. As a private nonprofit, I assume the Association is also shielded from public records and open meetings law requirements. Yet they completely manage a function of state educational institutions which operate (the institutions) with taxpayer dollars. If so, it seems unethical at best.
Totally unethical and my bet is they make a profit and are probably way overpaid with it !
Do we want to see the state run athletics? The same way they have education? The way teachers have been treated and sold out? The lottery money used as a substitute and not additional funds? On and on...
There needs to be changes but reinventing the wheel is not the answer. Two year realignment would seem to be the solution to this issue.
There needs to be changes but reinventing the wheel is not the answer. Two year realignment would seem to be the solution to this issue.
All these people get paid to screw up our realignments every 4 years and our brackets every year. I searched all over the NCHSAA for salaries and found none. If I missed it and it is not there then it should be posted since it gets taxpayers money. This is just what the NCHSAA's executive director Charlie Adams made alone made in 1991 and all on salaries I could find.
According to a report in the News & Observer, Adams is paid $190,164 a year. 20 years later it is probably well over $200,000.00.
https://www.nchsaa.org/about-nchsaa/staff-directory
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Do they get “taxpayer money” or generate income based off the gates from athletic events and corporate sponsorships?
What do you think the director should make? What position are they equal to in education, in business?
I don’t know what Que Tucker makes, and suspect I wouldn’t have a problem with it. My problem with the setup is that, since they manage a function of the educational system, they should be a public body, subject to all applicable laws for public governmental bodies. That includes open meetings and public records requirements. The schools for which they manage this important function are funded with taxpayer dollars.
I'm with you. My school is 2A with just over 700 students. We play in a conference that already has 1 of the over 1,000 student 2A schools in Atkins. For this 2 year re-alignment, we also add another 1,000+ school to our conference in North Forsyth. When the state added them to our conference our AD wrote a letter to the state to protest and state our arguments against. He basically got a reply that said: "Thanks, we acknowledge that you sent us a protest." Every school in our conference had to change their schedule, some losing traditional non-conference rivals, in order to put NF into our conference schedule. Unfair playing conditions and loss of gate money and the best the state can do is say they appreciate us letting them know. I don't know how much the set-up needs to change but we could definitely use a change in leadership.
North Forysth lost over 19% of their enrollment since the last realignment and the trend is expected to continue. They went from 1,260 to 1,014. NF already plays two of the six 2A conference members non conference. Their 3A conference had them playing in a seven team conference with five of the schools having 500 more students than NF. I thought they were a school that the mid alignment request for classification change was intended for.
Forsyth County has been pointed out as a problem with the numerous smaller schools being built and WS Prep pushing their schools into the smaller classifications. The county has schools in all four classes.
One school that hadf their request to be moved from 3A to 2A denied was Parkwood. Parkwood had a drop in enrollment but with 1,119 students would be the third largest 2A school and there were 27 schools with smaller enrollments in 3A before the changes. To me they were not even borderline and were correctly denied!
Personally, I did not think Tuscola met the requirements to change but common sense may have worked better there. If all of their current conference members approved the move as would the new conference I would think it should be approved for a move to 2A.
The two year alignment would be the most simple fix of this issue. In the past schools have requested to stay at the four year calender. From being around this for many years I have learned that all schools want options but once they are put on the table they seem to revert back to what has been used for several years.
Forsyth County has been pointed out as a problem with the numerous smaller schools being built and WS Prep pushing their schools into the smaller classifications. The county has schools in all four classes.
One school that hadf their request to be moved from 3A to 2A denied was Parkwood. Parkwood had a drop in enrollment but with 1,119 students would be the third largest 2A school and there were 27 schools with smaller enrollments in 3A before the changes. To me they were not even borderline and were correctly denied!
Personally, I did not think Tuscola met the requirements to change but common sense may have worked better there. If all of their current conference members approved the move as would the new conference I would think it should be approved for a move to 2A.
The two year alignment would be the most simple fix of this issue. In the past schools have requested to stay at the four year calender. From being around this for many years I have learned that all schools want options but once they are put on the table they seem to revert back to what has been used for several years.
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As a Tuscola graduate and fan, I agree. Just play the games. Coach Brooks played anyone, anywhere at anytime. Waynesville is a different community now. JMO.
1a school are dealing with a huge problem. Be thankful Tuscola's small problem will be fixed at the next realignment.
Two year realignments period. Simple as that. Adds more work to the NCHSAA, but they are paid well. So get it done. Good for Haywood County, fight for your schools and what's right.
Agree 100% and all the other schools that are disadvantaged should join Haywood County and complain about the NCHSAA poor job they do for all the money they take from the schools. I think 1A schools should have more say about who they are forced to have in their conference. The NCHSAA seems to want to ignore all requests to how their conference is set up and force them to play schools that bring gates of maybe only 100 and are as much as 3 times the distance and the rival schools bring a huge as much as 6 to 8 times as many to watch the game. Now, this is in reference to football but basketball is the same but most high school gyms hold far less than football stadiums. The NCHSAA can care less because they get their cut mainly on the endowment and playoff games if I am correct. Maybe if possible when voting on things that affect the schools could they let each of the divisions vote on what they want for their division which are the 1A voting for 1A and 2A,3A & 4A all voting for their division. If that won't work then let all the advantaged schools have their own playoffs. Something needs to be done and the NCHSAA needs to spend whatever time it takes to fix these problems. They seem to be deaf or dumb and maybe think they can take school money and only give back 70% effort instead of 100% to fix what is complained about every year..... Football gates probably pay for 50% or more of all sports and football needs the gate money to carry all the other sports
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Here is the issue that the NCHSAA faces with 1A, the legislative support of the charter schools. Take a look at your state rep and state senator and see how they vote on charters. Most likely they are very supportive. If you want a change start calling on your representative but first educate yourself on the topic.
I have always liked the idea of a two year realignment schedule. When I was told that many schools did not like it I asked some ADs and coaches. I was told by several of them that they liked building long term relationships and rivalries. The thing I find is most schools do not like much change especially when they feel they are in a good or decent situation.
I have pushed for a six division playoff in football where teams would qualify and then be placed in a division based on enrollment. This would have nothing to do with their classification. If a school had 3A enrollment, was in a 2A conference, they would play with like sized schools. Six divisions with D1 having the largest 32 and D6 the smallest 32. 192 playoff teams with each class having the same percentage of teams (from their class) qualify. Six champions, five rounds. May be the eventual answer for all team sports.
I have pushed for a six division playoff in football where teams would qualify and then be placed in a division based on enrollment. This would have nothing to do with their classification. If a school had 3A enrollment, was in a 2A conference, they would play with like sized schools. Six divisions with D1 having the largest 32 and D6 the smallest 32. 192 playoff teams with each class having the same percentage of teams (from their class) qualify. Six champions, five rounds. May be the eventual answer for all team sports.
They have the enrollment numbers each year for the playoffs. Shouldn't be that big a problem.
The numbers is the simple part. Placing the schools in classifications is fairly simple but placing them in conferences always brings a lot of back and forth.
Prior to the last realignment one of the main items that the schools wanted to do away with were split classification conferences. By using the Max Preps rankings I think this should be less of an issue but in the old playoff seeding by conference finish and record there was a lot of complaints about the larger classification schools in split conferences and the seeding process involving those schools. The smaller schools complained from the opposite view.
Split conferences should be banned as of yesterday.
Try 10 team conference with 7 2A and 3 1A. How much sense does that make? Largest team having 1027 and smallest having 422!
Fire the whole lot of 'em and let Mister Tango, Sports Nut Seventeen, Brian Simmons , and Mister Kidd run the show. I'm serious.
And one of those 1A teams usually finishes 5 or 6th and gets an auto bid with a .300 win percentage in some sports.
Seven years ago a similar plan was put forth among about five potential realignment options. This was blown out very quickly. Coaches want the conference to be as equal as possible and for the conference finish to be a determining factor for seeding. I find the differences in conferences and non conference scheduling are too drastic to go off record and conference finish only.
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Well, here a couple of problems you could address,
Is this a football only solution or for all sports? If all sports then what happens to schools that do not offer all sports? The Little SMC has no football. Others don’t offer soccer. How does that work?
Assuming that they use 8 teams conferences (easier for sports that have tournaments and allows some playing dates for tradition opponents). Let’s for the sake of argument have the new SMC football be Hayesville, Murphy, Andrews, Robbinsville, Swain, Cherokee, Franklin and Smoky Mountain. Does that move Rosman in with say, Pisgah, Tuscola, Brevard, AC Reynolds, Hendersonville, Polk Co and say Asheville ? Not many wins every year for the Tigers in that group.
Non football can be with football teams, they just don’t play that sport and schools know that ahead of time.
Heck why even have conferences at all. Just have regions or sections, let teams negotiate the 10 games they want to play, and then based upon the computer rankings they can be placed in the playoffs based upon their size that should be determined every year.
Heck why even have conferences at all. Just have regions or sections, let teams negotiate the 10 games they want to play, and then based upon the computer rankings they can be placed in the playoffs based upon their size that should be determined every year.
SMC schools have a difficult time finding non conferences games now and you want to change to a system where they have to find 10?
I’m assuming they would like the freedom to play whoever they want. I’m guessing they could still play whatever teams are in their current conference, and add a few more, so really no different then now. If conferences and split conferences are the problem maybe the solution is to get rid of them. Just spit balling.
Maybe let the lea’s decide who they want to be in a conference with, at least then I think the charters and other special schools would have to fight it out on their own.
Maybe let the lea’s decide who they want to be in a conference with, at least then I think the charters and other special schools would have to fight it out on their own.
Nearly impossible to get rid of all split classification conferences to geography and logisitics. That would be the goal though.
If you let the schools decide and a group does not schedule a school because that school whips their butts then how do you handle that? A governing authority has to be involved. The schools cannot come together on some of the most basic items. The football coaches cannot come together to make a united stance on what they want to present to the NCHSAA Board of Directors (which is representatives from the schools) so they seldom get any thing near what they want.
How about this... divide each part of the state into super conferences. North east, south west, etc... each super conference includes a specific number of schools, say 50. Each super conference school can play anybody else in their conference. Big schools give you more points, good losses give you points, etc... at the end of the season the top half of each super conference is divided up by size and the playoffs begin.
Say the top half (24 schools) consists of 12 4A, 6 3A, 4,2A, and 2 1A. Think the 1A schools will like this.
There have been proposals of more geographic “conferences” with little relevance to enrollment reviewed in the past. Very little traction. Realignment before the current one being used is when there were numerous options out on the table to look at. One was three classifications and subdivide all team sports to six champions. Schools felt there was too much differential in the potential conference members. Remember that is a complaint with four classes and it would grow with one less class. Football coaches questioned why two champions would be dropped and less playoff teams which was no surprise.
Five classifications was also an option. At the right regional meetings one of the first, if not the first question, from the schools was if football would still subdivide which would mean ten champions.