When the SCHSL underwent its most recent realignment, the decades-old four-class system was scrapped for a new five-class system. The hope was that reducing the difference in size between the largest and smallest school in each class would level the playing field in terms of competitiveness. At least in the case of Class A, the powers-that-be obviously don’t think that move went quite far enough, since the new realignment proposal unveiled today (set to take effect next school year) reduces the overall size of Class A a bit and the number of football-playing schools considerably.
Every two years, the SCHSL undergoes realignment, a process of grouping schools into regions based on size and proximity. Before we analyze the new plan and the proposed changes, let’s take a look at the current make-up of regions and the proposed changes that realignment would bring. Current: Region I- Calhoun Falls, Dixie, High Point Academy*, McCormick, SCSDB*, Ware Shoals and Whitmire. Region II- Governor’s School for Math and Science*, Great Falls, Lamar, Lewisville, McBee and Timmonsville. Region III- Blackville-Hilda, Denmark-Olar, Estil, Hunter-Kinard-Tyler, North, Ridge Spring-Monetta, Wagener-Salley and Williston-Elko. Region IV- Baptist Hill, Charleston Charter, Low Country Leadership*, Military Magnet, Palmetto Scholars*, Royal Live Oaks* and St. John’s. Region V- Bethune-Bowman, Branchville, C.E. Murray, Cross, Richland One Middle College* and Scott’s Branch. Region VI- Creek Bridge, East Clarendon, Green Sea-Floyds, Hannah-Pamplico, Hemingway and Lake View. Proposed Region I- Calhoun Falls, High Point*, McCormick, SCSDB*, Ware Shoals and Whitmire. Region II- Governor’s School*, Great Falls, Lamar, McBee and Timmonsville. Region III- Blackville-Hilda, Denmark-Olar, Hunter-Kinard-Tyler, North, Ridge Spring-Monetta, Wagener-Salley and Williston-Elko. Region IV- Baptist Hill, Bridges Prep*, Estill, Lowcountry Leadership*, Military Magnet, Phillip Simmons, Royal Live Oaks* and St. John’s. Region V- Bethune Bowman, Branchville, C.E. Murray, Cross, Richland One Middle College* and Scott’s Branch. Region VI- Coastal Leadership*, Creek Bridge, Green Sea-Floyds, Hemingway and Lake View. A * Denotes that a school does not field a football team or that the football team does not compete in the SCHSL or maybe I think a * spices up an otherwise boring block of text. So, Region I stays the same except for losing Dixie, which moves up to AA. In Region II, Lewisville moves up to AA. Estill moves out of Region III, which is an upperstate region and goes to Region IV, which is a lowerstate region. That actually makes sense, because Estill is many things, but “located in upper anything” don’t make the list, Hambone. In addition to picking up Estill, Region IV loses Charleston Charter to AA, picks up the new Phillip Simmons High and adds something called Bridges Prep. I don’t know if it’s located near a bridge, or if it was founded by Todd Bridges, I just know that it was built with lots of love. Moving on…Region V is the only Class A region not to change at all and Region VI gets all small-ified with the departure of East Clarendon and Hannah-Pamplico. Also something called Coastal Leadership joins them. Their website bills them as “Horry’s County’s best kept secret” which seems accurate since I heretofore did not know they existed. So overall, Class A goes from 40 teams down to 37 but the number of football playing schools drops from 34 to 29. The low-to-high enrollment ratio is 106 to 365 under the current system. Under the new system it will be 94 to 339, so not a huge change, really. I understand East Clarendon moving up. It would be hard to justify keeping a team with over 400 students (and growing apparently) in Class A in general and in a region where nearly everyone else has less than 300 students in particular. The others don’t make much sense to me at all. Hannah-Pamplico gained eight students from 2015 to 2017 (up to 354) yet are moving up to AA. In terms of their region match-ups, the difference isn’t huge…if they stayed in their current region they’d be playing Creek Bridge (175 students), Green Sea-Floyds (334), Hemingway (297) and Lake View (284). Now they’ll face Carver’s Bay (389), East Clarendon (405), Johnsonville (398), Kingstree (623), Latta (479) and Mullins (423). They aren’t so much bigger than their current Region VI-A brethren that they represent an unfair match-up for anyone. They had a good 2016-’17 athletic year but weren’t dominant in any sport that I recall. It’s not like they are badly needed to balance out an undersized AA region. Moving them up, in fact, makes VII-AA a bloated seven-team region and reduces to VI-A to a five-team region, with only four schools that play football. Why not leave them where they are, giving each of those coastal regions six teams and giving VI-A five that play football? I have no clue why the Charleston Charter School for Math, Science and Extra Long Recesses (or whatever their name is) is moving up to AA with 277 students. On it’s face, that’s complete lunacy. I’m sure there is a reason and if you happen to know what it is, please leave it in the comments section or tweet me @CNR_Sports. I’ll then share it with everyone because it’s never to late for me to pretend like I knew all along. Assuming there’s a good explanation for Charleston Charter etc. etc., moving up, Lewisville has the second biggest beef of any school. Per the old 135-day numbers, Lewisville was the largest school in Class A at 365 students and per the new numbers they gained 15 (up to 380). Again, they aren’t so crazily out-sized compared to their region mates that they should be shoved up to AA. They’ll go from playing McBee (projected to be the new largest Class A school at 339 students), Lamar (323), The Governor’s School for Math, Science and Animal Husbandry (250), Great Falls (193) and Timmonsville (193). The Governor’s School number is actually a little misleading since they have only juniors and seniors on campus. Now, Lewisville would be almost twice the size of Great Falls and Timmonsville, but when you have schools with under 200 students, you are going to have trouble finding totally like-sized schools to pair them with. That’s just a fact. Now Lewisville will be in a region with North Central (469 students), Chesterfield (510), Pageland Central (607), Buford (624), Andrew Jackson (633) and Lee Central (637). So they’ll be facing one sorta, kinda like-sized school, one that has 130 more students than them and four that have more than 225 students than them. Compiling a realignment plan is difficult and someone is always going to get the dirty butt end of things, but that differential is stark. And here again, it’s not like they are the only school in an area where someone is needed to help bulk up a thin AA region. Take them out and that’s still a six-team region. Taking them out of II-A leaves that as a five-team region, only four of which play football. So, it would be understandable if one viewed that as the larger class being taken care of, while Class A is offered the furthest and driest of hind ti…you know what, we’ll stop there. Let’s just stop there. Maybe there is a thought that with all the industrial growth in the Richburg area, Lewisville is on the verge of a population explosion and they may as well go to AA now. I can tell you, though, that hasn’t happened yet and if it’s going to, it will be a while, since there isn’t enough housing in that area at this point to support a boom. Also, in terms of travel, Great Falls gets kicked in the jubblies if their county rival moves on. That means their closest region game is 102 miles and more than two hours round-trip (to McBee). Once every other year for football isn’t awful, but that’s a yearly trip for every other sport. You have to think about that random Tuesday night softball game. Bad as the plight of the Lions is, no one, and I mean no one, got a larger, more underserved rootin’ from this new realignment than Dixie. The school actually saw its enrollment numbers DROP from (363 to 354) and somehow still moved up to AA. They would have been the largest school in their Class A region by a bit, but this goes back to what I said about Lewisville playing Great Falls and Timmonsville. It is impossible to create a region in which Calhoun Falls Charter, with 94 students, will be playing liked-size schools. Dixie isn’t so much larger than Ware Shoals and McCormick that they can’t be competed with. With the exception of softball, I don’t remember them being untouchably dominant in any sport in their region. They’ll now be matched up with Abbeville (487), Batesburg-Leesville (542), Fox Creek (589), Ninety-Six (493), Saluda (603) and Silver Bluff (640). So schools who are world-beaters in every sport and have nearly 300 more students than Dixie. Have fun with it, Hornets. It gets even worse come playoff time, when they (and Lewisville and the others) will be competing not only with much larger public schools, but with the private and charter schools (the ones who can offer scholarships, have no fixed attendance lines and cap enrollment whenever they like) who previously dominated Class A and are now taking over AA. I don’t understand, again, why a AA region that would be just fine with six teams gets an undersized seventh thrown in from Class A. That leaves Region I-A with six schools, but two of those field very few athletic teams and (once more) only four play football. I find it odd that the league wants to move five Class A schools up to AA, but aren’t moving a single AA team down to Class A. That includes Allendale-Fairfax, who would dearly like to be back in Class A and have one more student (340) than McBee. NOPE! I don’t know this for certain, but it sure feels like someone either subconsciously or unofficially decided 340 was the cutoff to be in Class A. I certainly don’t think the league is intentionally trying to short change any individual school and dividing up over 200 schools into regions and classes that make sense is extremely difficult. I’ve reached out to the league with some questions about why certain moves were made and will share the answers here if I get them. Lewisville had a very good year all-around in athletics but they only won one state title (in baseball) and the other borderline schools going up didn’t dominate in multiple sports either, so it doesn’t seem like the moves were made for competitiveness sake. As currently constructed,, the new realignment only seems to make Class A smaller for the sake of making it smaller.
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November 2021
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