By Jon Franklin
Two Cents from The Franklin Mint
Following the distribution of ballots to each member school, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association announced last week that the proposed amendments to the Association’s by-laws were defeated.
To recap, Proposal #1 would have allowed the NCHSAA Board of Directors to change the number of classifications from four to any number of classifications. The ballot mentioned five or six classifications, with the possibility of dropping back to three or four classifications in subsequent years if the board felt it was necessary.
Proposal #2 would have required the NCHSAA to realign schools and conferences on an annual basis for the state playoffs. This could have resulted in schools having teams in different classifications in each sport, each year. It also meant that conferences and the regular season could be less dependent on school classification.
Principals were designated voters on behalf of each member school and each school received a singular vote. Any school who failed to submit a ballot was be counted as a “no” vote. In order to pass these amendments, each issue required a three-fourths vote in the affirmative of the full membership to pass, or 314 of the 418 member schools.
The exact figures of the votes were not released, but would be discussed at the NCHSAA Annual Meeting at the Dean E. Smith Center on April 30. The new realignment cycle is still slated to begin at the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.
So what does this all mean? Simply put, realignment is back at square one.
I’m not surprised to see these amendments fail. I personally believe that they were written TO fail. Whether this is true or not, remains to be seen.
Think about it. With the mass expansion that the NCHSAA has experienced since the year 2000 has allowed football playoffs to grow from four state champions to eight state champions. Sports such as baseball, basketball, softball, and volleyball have expanded their playoffs from 48 teams to 64 teams. Despite being a non-profit organization, they seem to have “profited” from this expansion. Yet again, more teams produces more games, and more games equals more money. If all of this is true, why would you change something that brings in much needed revenue, and why would you take away these games that adds to the revenue?
The truth remains in that the Association is bloated beyond belief, and its playoff selection and qualification criteria is more likened to parks and recreation leagues handing out participation awards. The more this organization continues to swell and the playoffs continue to become diluted with inferior teams, the more irrelevant the championships will become.
And yes, until change comes with the expansion to 5A, and more sensible playoff qualification and selection rules are adopted – I’ll keep repeating all of this.
So with the failure of this vote, what becomes next of realignment?
The truth is, realignment is still slated to begin at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year. While mandated by the Association’s by-laws to realign every four years, the extra year in this current cycle is designed to give the NCHSAA extra time to figure how they will expand. But if the expansion proposal was defeated how will the Association expand?
The simple answer might be to create a “Class 4AA”. This would allow the NCHSAA to expand without amending its by-laws as the by-laws only permits classifications of 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A. This is reminiscent of the “Big 16” division in South Carolina, which is a super-conference of the 16 largest high schools in the Palmetto State.
Conventional wisdom would also suggest that each of the classes would be aligned by an across-the-board, twenty percent split. Currently, schools are aligned by a 20-30-30-20 format as the highest and lowest twenty percentiles are the 4A and 1A classes, respectively, while the middle thirty percentiles are 2A and 3A.
With 418 schools in the NCHSAA membership, an even twenty percent split would give each classification approximately 84 teams. At this rate, the idea of subdividing the football playoffs and 64-team state playoffs in other sports could finally be buried. In addition, there are dozens of schools caught in gray areas. This means is that currently, there are a number of schools that could be one classification or another. An even split would place each team in its’ rightful classification.
While the measure of yearly realignment was defeated, it could be brought up in the future that realignment could be suggested to take place every two years. The data utilizing Average Daily Membership (or ADM) becomes very ancient as the Association begins to compile the data two years prior to implementing the realignment. By the time the data reaches the end of the realignment cycle, the data is six years old.
A city, town, county, or school district can drastically change in that period of time. With the rapid pace of school construction, a four-year realignment cycle could be inaccurate. An every two-year approach could be more accurate and sensible.
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If you didn’t come out to last Friday’s rivalry showdown between Orange and Cedar Ridge, you certainly missed out on some excellent games. All three games were tightly contested and all three games were tied going into the fourth quarter.
The highlight came in the Varsity Boys game as Cedar Ridge Arena was filled to capacity. The game was very much in favor of the Red Wolves as they were firing on all cylinders as senior captain Chris Tinnen (21 pts) and senior reserve Jai’kel Gibbs were laser-focused. Gibbs sent the Red Wolf faithful to a frenzy in the first quarter as he came off the bench to hit a trio of three-pointers in the last ninety seconds of the period. Tinnen was on point all game long with accurate mid-range shooting, and was all over the place defensively. Gibbs would also wind up hitting two more trifectas in the game, tallying 15 pts. Senior Mekai Collins (16 pts) also contributed with another solid performance.
Let’s not take anything away from the Panthers’ double-double duo of Jason Franklin (no relation; 26 pts, 11 rebs) and Joey McMullin (18 pts, 12 rebs), who were instrumental in keeping Orange within striking distance. But with leads of up to 18 points in the game, the Red Wolves were not going to be denied of their first sweep of their crosstown rivals since 2015.
And finally, last Friday’s games were the first Hillsborough Heat games for new Cedar Ridge principal, Dr. Carlos Ramirez and new Orange principal, Mr. Matthew J. Hunt. I was fortunate to meet Dr. Ramirez, who was immensely encouraged on what he witnessed inside Cedar Ridge Arena. Both principals (and fans) are in for a treat with this hotly contested rivalry.