News: VHSL New Alignment Still Faces Hurdles

(Oct. 12, 2012) - Change is certainly not easy and the Virginia High School League major overhaul of its classification and alignment system for public high school athletic programs still has a few hurdles to clear after the Executive Committee's emergency legislation approval of the new six classification system on Sept. 20 by a 23-3 vote.

For starters, the Franklin News-Post reported on Wednesday that the Franklin County School Board has opted to see legal counsel to address Franklin County High School's placement in the Piedmont District in the new plan. And looming on Tuesday at the Double Tree Hotel in Charlottesville is VHSL Group Board and Membership meetings in which member schools could challenge the VHSL emergency legislation from the floor but would need two-third of the membership in support of overturning the new plan.

Getting a two-thirds vote to overturn would be tough with almost all the A smaller schools in favor of the new plan and the majority of AA schools also in favor.

John Champe High School athletic director Joe Breinig, Jr., who serves on the Executive Committee, said such a proposal to overturn the legislation would first have to emerge from the A, AA or AAA group meetings in the morning, which would require a simple majority at that level to advance to the floor of the general membership meeting.

Many AAA schools, particularly the Eastern and Central region schools from the Hampton Roads and Richmond areas, have expressed their displeasure at the radical changes.

"I think ultimately it's a good thing because the issue of competitive balance is going to be addressed," said Breinig.

The general upshot of the new plan is to move Virginia from three classifications for most sports (football is already a six classification sport and basketball awards state titles in five classifications) to six. District tournaments would no longer serve as the entry into postseason play but a new level -- called Conferences -- would be the starting point towards a state title.

Conferences are formed around schools of equal size in a geographic area. From the conference level, schools would then advance to regional or sectional play with each classification divided into two regions or sectionals. From there, a state tournament with four teams would be held.

Football is the exception as teams would advance from regular season straight to a 16-team regional or sectional based on their football rating.

For Loudoun schools the changes would be good news for those schools that keep getting bounced up and down from AA to AAA as schools can now play in districts for the regular season with schools of different sizes. Currently, when a school moves up to AAA, it must leave the AA Dulles District which is based in Loudoun.

Starting in 2013-14, the Dulles District for regular season play would be John Champe, Dominion, Heritage, Loudoun County, Loudoun Valey, Park View and Woodgrove and a new district, the Potomac District, would include Briar Woods, Broad Run, Freedom, Potomac Falls and Tuscarora. Stone Bridge would be the only Loudoun school not in either district as the Bulldogs requested to remain in the Liberty District with seven schools from Fairfax County.

For postseason play, Stone Bridge would join the five Potomac District schools in Conference 14 of the 5A North Classification. In 4A North, Dominion, Heritage, Loudoun County, Park View and Woodgrove would play in Conference 21 along with Sherando, James Wood and Millbrook.

Loudoun's two smallest schools, John Champe and Loudoun Valley would play in the 3A East Conference 28 with Central-Woodstock, Warren County, William Monroe and Skyline.

"We are in favor of it with some reservations," said Broad Run athletic director Jack Kirby. "There are a lot of unanswered questions."

How teams would be seeded from regular season into their conferences, how teams would advance from conference to region and how sports such as lacrosse would be handled where not all schools in the state play still have to be answered.

And Broad Run and other schools in 5A North are awaiting a decision on how to balance the four conferences as Conference 13 located in Fairfax County has eight schools (TJ, Marshall, Edison, Falls Church, Mount Vernon, Stuart, Wakefield, Lee), Conference 14 has the six Loudoun schools, Conference 15 has six schools from Prince William and the counties south on I-95 (Freedom-PW, Potomac, North Stafford, Brooke Point, Massaponax, Mountain View) and Conference 16 currently has just three schools (Albemarle, Orange and Halifax).

Breinig said handbooks have to be written for the new regions and all the details such as handling finances, playoffs, etc. have to be ironed out on that level.

The change is also making it interesting for schools to schedule football games for the next two-year cycle and Kirby said Broad Run is still scrambling to find two opponents for its 10-game regular-season schedule.