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On the road again ... forever: Realignment could mean travel to end of the world
Staff and wire reports
If you’re an Alpine Bucks football fan, you know that long Friday night road trips are a way of life.
Those road trips will be getting longer. Just how long remains a matter of conjecture.
What had been persistent rumor became fact Monday when the Texas University Interscholastic League announced that Class 2A football (the level at which Alpine plays) will be divided into two divisions prior to the start of the 2010 season.
As a result of a referendum ballot, Class 2A superintendents across the state voted to divide football brackets into two divisions (Division I and Division II) before the season would begin. Class 2A superintendents voted 121-75 in favor of the rule change.
The results of the referendum ballot are binding, and will take effect in the 2009-10 school year. Since 2006, Conference 1A 11-man and Conference 1A six-man football have been split into two divisions.
Please read the following sentence carefully: THIS APPLIES TO FOOTBALL ONLY.
The Class 2A divisions will be broken down into “big school” and “small school” divisions. The cutoff point between big and small is expected to be an enrollment between 300 and 325.Alpine’s enrollment is at 305.
If Alpine goes into the small-school division, it will probably be in a district that includes Crane, Sonora, Anthony, Tornillo and maybe Ozona (which may be moving down to Class 1A) or Stanton (which is expected to move up from Class 1A).
Granted, that district would involve more travel for the Bucks, as in those dreaded four-hour trips to El Paso.
Two more trips to El Paso, however, is really small change compared to what looks to be the option if the Bucks move into the big-school Class 2A division.
In that case, according to Alpine head coach Shad Hanna, the Bucks would be looking a district that could include Kermit, Wall, Grape Creek, Brady, Bangs and Ballinger.
In case you’re wondering, here are the one-way mileages to each of those cities:
Alpine to Kermit, 138 miles, estimated travel time 3 hours.
Alpine to Grape Creek, 262 miles, estimated travel time, 5 hours.
Alpine to Wall, 275 miles, estimated travel time, 5-plus hours.
Alpine to Ballinger, 291 miles, estimated travel time, 6 hours.
Alpine to Brady, 325 miles, estimated travel time, 6-plus hours.
Alpine to Bangs, 341 miles, estimated travel time 7 hours.
If you’re looking for perspective, consider that Bangs and Arizona (yes, the state) are about the same distance from Alpine.
If you need more perspective, let’s look at what a trip to Bangs might entail.
A trip to Bangs would be a 682-mile round trip.
That’s about 14 to 16 hours on the road; after all, you have to account for food and bathroom breaks.
Pregame, game and post-game stuff normally takes up 6 to 8 hours.
If the Bucks do what they normally do - which is cram travel and the game into one day - that means the team is looking at a 24-hour non-stop day. Same for fans.
If you’re a player, a fan or a coach, that’s downright frightening.
There are only two ways to work around a day like that: (a) have the team spend the night, which costs a bunch of money that our district really can’t afford, or (b) play most games at neutral sites.
Obviously, none of the alternatives are attractive.
The super’s view
As stated above, 121 Class 2A superintendents of schools voted for the realignment, 75 voted against. Alpine ISD Superintendent Jose Cervantes voted against, for some very obvious reasons.
“I voted against it for this reason — we fall under Division I and with our enrollment (currently at 305), we might fall under the ‘big schools’ division. It would require a LOT of travel.
“Speculation is that Alpine, Kermit, Wall, Grape Creek and Brady … would be” grouped together,” he added.
“ … We’re on the cusp of what is considered a ‘big school’ — in this area it would be Alpine and Kermit. The enrollment cutoff is 429.
“Travel is a great concern to us. … We were hoping the UIL would have seen the [difficulty] of traveling such great distances,” and he gave Grape Creek as an example.
“It’s hard enough to find 2A schools in this area. … Anthony should be 2A. … Last word I had was they want to go to 3A because of the travel issue.”
Cervantes said that ideally, Alpine would be grouped with Tornillo, Anthony, Clint, Pecos and Fort Stockton — primarily for travel reasons.
“Grape Creek is a 6-hour drive in a car; you would add 2 more hours to that when you’re riding in a yellow dog (school bus). … I’d like to see UIL [officials] come down here and make that trip.
“One thing I did not appreciate was the UIL did not release its decision to superintendents first,” he added.
Cervantes also offered this anecdote:
“One year, Iraan went to Anthony [to play]. Considering the time change, by the time the kids got back home to Iraan, the Odessa American was already on their porches.”
If future were now?
If the new Class 2A football realignment had been in place for the 2009 football season, Alpine would have been in a district with Ballinger, Grape Creek, Brady and Wall.
The change means the UIL will split Class 2A as evenly as possible, with the same number of teams in each division. Each division will have 16 districts, and each district will send two teams to its respective state playoff brackets.
Kim Rogers, UIL chief of staff, told Buck Cargel of MaxPreps that the divisional alignments will not affect how UIL determines which schools go into the five classifications.
“We will take the top (largest) 245 schools for 5A, and then work our way down,” Rogers told Cargel.
Once classification ceilings and floors are set, UIL will divide the 2A schools into equal-number groups (as it will 1A and Six-Man).
The UIL attempts to gain a 2-to-1 ratio between the largest and smallest schools in each classification, from 4A down to 1A. Class 3A has historically had the largest ratio - almost always well over 2.5-to-1 - while Class 2A has been closer to the target ratio.
In the 2008 realignment, any school with an enrollment of 200 students and less than 430 was placed in Class 2A.
Using the 2008 UIL enrollment numbers, here’s a mock-up by MaxPreps of how things would have looked if the new stand-alone divisions had been in effect two years ago.
Following are district projections, based upon 2008 enrollments. (Note, on Oct. 15, all Texas schools reported new enrollment numbers that will be used for the 2010 realignment).
Each school’s 2008 enrollment numbers are listed. Numbers in parenthesis indicate the UIL-assigned football/basketball district for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
An enrollment of 325 would have been the exact middle of the 2008 UIL specifications for Class 2A. However, to balance the number of schools in each division, the cut would have had to drop to 294.
DIVISION I
Smallest: Alpine 294, Hearne 294, Paradise 294, Elysian Fields 296, Ballinger 299, Jacksboro 299
Region I
District 1, 6 teams
River Road, 398
Bushland, 339
Childress, 311
Friona, 328
Muleshoe, 358
Tulia, 300
District 2, 5 teams
Denver City, 374
Littlefield, 413
Roosevelt, 329
Shallowater, 404
Slaton, 346
District 3, 7 teams
Alpine, 294
Ballinger, 299
Brady, 391
Grape Creek, 347
Kermit, 365
Presidio, 388
Wall, 331
District 4, 9 teams
Bangs, 329
Clyde, 419
Coleman, 316
Comanche, 338
Dublin, 324
Early, 406
Eastland, 325
Merkel, 359
Jim Ned, 340
DIVISION II
Largest: New Diana 293, Trinity 293, Corrigan-Camden 292, Arp 291, Franklin 291, Howe 291, Millsap 291, Rosebud-Lott 291, Cooper 289, Dimmitt 289
Other notables to stay down: Arp, Cisco, Holliday, Lone Oak, New Waverly, Paul Pewitt, Refugio
Region I
District 1, 6 teams
Amarillo Highland Park, 216
Dimmitt, 289
Floydada, 273
Panhandle, 247
Sanford-Fritch, 261
Spearman, 228
District 2, 8 teams
Abernathy, 223
Coahoma, 248
Colorado City, 281
Idalou, 263
Ozona, 235
Post, 253
Reagan County, 236
Sonora, 276
District 3, 6 teams
Anson, 216
Cisco, 266
Millsap, 291
Olney, 205
Hawley, 221
San Saba, 228
District 4, 6 teams
Alvord, 236
Chico, 216
Henrietta, 280
Holliday, 255
Nocona, 261
WF City View, 281
Realignment notes
Fort Davis is expected to stay in Division I in the six-man classification.
Rumors are floating that Marfa might slip down to six-man, probably not the case.
Other UIL action:
Decided that, starting in 2010, the state championship football games in Classes 1A-4A will be played at pre-determined sites.
The UIL has determined the site for the Conference 5A state football championships since 2006, and both games are televised.
Schools involved in the games will continue to make all decisions regarding the games other than the site and time of game.
Approved a rule change to allow seventh and eighth graders to participate in summer strength and conditioning programs conducted by their school coaches. A separate amendment allowing each school or school district the ability to designate a starting and ending date for strength and conditioning programs not to exceed a six-week period during the summer was also passed.
Added one extra contestant in each event to the State Track and Field Meet, increasing the number of contestants per event per classification to nine.
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