May 25, 2018
Mr. Jerome Singleton, Ms. Nessie Harris, Mr. Dan Matthews, Mr. Ozzie Ahl, Mr. Mickey Pringle, and Mr. Shawn Johnson, As the father of two single A cross-country athletes at Dixie High School, I am troubled by the sequence of decisions made by the SCHSL that disenfranchise single A cross country (XC) athletes from across the state. The SCHSL policy of requiring the participation of a minimum of 12 single A schools in order to hold a state championship event for that classification and gender, in conjunction with the SCHSL choice to whittle the number of single A schools down from 42 schools in 2016-18 to 39 in 2018-20 work together to discourage participation in XC at the single A level. Among the schools that were moved out of the single A classification are Hannah-Pamplico, Lewisville, and East Clarendon. Each of these schools was among the 13 teams that competed in the single A boys XC state championship in November 2017. The loss of these three XC schools from single A drastically reduces the likelihood that there will be 12 single A boys XC teams to meet the arbitrary SCHSL requirement for a minimum of 12 teams in order to host the event. The apparent purpose of moving to five classifications in SCHSL athletics was to provide a more level playing field in terms of school size and resource allocation. If the SCHSL in turn reduces the number of single A teams below the point of viability, this strategy is completely negated, to the detriment of small school athletes across the state. I do not accept the premise that my sons’ athletic endeavors are less important or less worthy of support and recognition by the SCHSL simply because they participate in XC rather than football or basketball. This 12-team minimum conveniently protects the mainstream sports and the larger schools, and harms the small school “niche sport” athlete. Since there will be a XC state championship meet in November 2018 for all of the other classifications, the cost and logistics savings achieved by this arbitrary 12-school minimum are nil. There is simply nothing gained by discouraging the growth of the sport of XC among the single A schools, while depriving these small school athletes of the opportunity to compete for a state title amongst like-sized schools. Since moving to South Carolina 5 years ago, I have each year been amazed that despite the protections ostensibly provided by Title IX, the SCHSL does not facilitate a single A girls XC championship. “Allowing” those young women to compete against the disproportionately sized and resourced AA schools at the state championship level is not an opportunity equal to that which has been provided to every other XC athlete in the SCHSL. It is not to my credit that I never attempted to advocate on behalf of the single A female XC athletes in South Carolina until this opportunity has been threatened for my own boys. At Dixie High School, the XC programs for boys and girls were reactivated in 2015 after years of dormancy. As the number of boys involved in the XC program at Dixie has steadily climbed since 2015, the average XC times for the boys team has also markedly improved. The Dixie girls team has seen no such progress. With all other measurable resources being equal for these two teams, the important missing ingredient on the girls’ side has simply been HOPE. It is an insurmountable task for a single A girls team to successfully challenge the AA (primarily private and magnet school) XC powerhouses. The Lewisville girls team placed 9th in 2017, and 12th in 2016 as the top-placing single A school in the combined A-AA meet, with an average time 5 minutes behind the top-placing AA champion each year. Although Lewisville can be undeniably proud of their strong effort in each of those championship meets, what they should really be doing is celebrating their back-to-back single A state championships in XC. If single A girls were provided with access to their own state XC championship, we would see an increase in participation across the state, and the average times for these small school teams would concomitantly drop. Training through the long hot South Carolina summer without any hope of post-season reward is simply cruel, and produces predictable results. If the single A boys are divested of their chance to compete for a XC championship, I believe we will see an almost immediate reduction in XC participation from single A schools across the state. The competitive distance between the single A and AA schools is not a small one. My oldest son was 3rd overall at the SCHSL single A XC championship in 2017 as the top runner on the state runner-up Dixie team. He would barely have been the 7th place displacer on either of the top two teams in the AA classification that day. In fact, an “All Star Team” comprised of the 7 top single A runners at that meet would have been thrashed 44-110 by the AA boys champion St. Josephs in a results-merged virtual meet from the single A and AA boys championship races that day. If the top 7 runners from EVERY single A school combined are unable to score with the top teams in AA, it is clearly not a matter simply of enrollment numbers, but also an issue of an enormous disparity in resources and facilities. It is an excellent learning experience to race against elite competition in the regular season, and all of our single A programs do exactly that. Clearly, however, these two SCHSL classifications are not on a level playing field in XC and thus merit independent post-season championship meets. This is, after all, the reason why we have a school classification system to begin with. When the cadre of XC-dominant private schools was promoted from single A to AA following the 2015 XC season, the hope of a boys XC state championship became something more than a pipe-dream for single A public schools. In 2015, Governors’ School, Dixie, and Green Sea-Floyds were the top three public schools in single A; placing 6th, 8th, and 9th respectively with a combined average time of 20:02. In 2017, after the promotion of the private schools, those same three schools placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively in the single A XC championship, with a combined average time of 19:02. A one-minute average time decrease is an enormous difference in XC and a monumental accomplishment. Hope fuels the pursuit of excellence, and the lessons learned in that pursuit are the very point of interscholastic athletics. I had the privilege of attending the SCHSL State Championship Track Meet this year on an oppressively hot day in Columbia. At that meet, Vaquan Wilder from Scott’s Branch repeated as the single A champion in the pole vault. For the second consecutive year, Mr. Wilder won that event with no other opponents entered at the state meet. Mr. Wilder is very deservedly a track and field state champion just the same as any other athlete that won any other event from any classification. Vaquan Wilder figuratively overcame every barrier that prevented all other athletes at the single A level from vaulting over a physical 10-foot bar. He, along with his family and coaches, should be proud of that state championship. The crowd present in the Spring Valley stadium was certainly in enthusiastic agreement with that sentiment. I am not suggesting that it would have been reasonable to host an autonomous single A pole-vaulting championship for a single competitor (even if track and field worked that way). However, the inclusion of the single A pole vaulting championship in conjunction with a much larger track and field multi-classification championship was practical, appropriate, and just—allowing Vaquan to showcase his hard-earned success. I am simply asking that the SCHSL allow all of the XC participants, both male and female, the opportunity to chase that same championship dream against classification-appropriate competition in a sport with far more than one participating school. The SCHSL is going to host a state XC championship meet in November for AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA. The course will be marked, the officials on site, the parking and security all arranged. The single A boys and girls could easily run the course simultaneously and be scored separately. The number of available starting lanes would allow the boys and girls to start side-by-side, rather than having the girls behind the boys (which would not be acceptable for a championship meet). The single A boys and single A girls could instead be run concurrently with the AA athletes and scored separately if we really don’t rate your full attention. Please do not tell our single A student athletes that they are not worth your time, and not worthy of competing for a single A XC championship of their own. Yours sincerely, Joel E. Boyd
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