HIGH SCHOOL

Local officials break down reclassification

Brandon Shields
bjshields@jacksonsun.com

Local officials who serve on the TSSAA Board of Control met at University School of Jackson with coaches and athletic directors from schools around West Tennessee on Wednesday to discuss possible scenarios of reclassification that will happen this fall.

Milan athletic director Greg Scott, Chester County principal Ricky Catlett and Jackson Christian athletic director Scott Gatlin had a town hall-type meeting with about 60 representatives of various public schools around the region.

Here are a few bullet points of what was discussed during the meeting:

• The officials gave the group a look at how local schools would break down in all the possible scenarios based on the enrollment numbers turned in four years ago, the last time a full realignment happened in the TSSAA.

In a six-class even split for all sports, Madison and Union City would move up to Class 2A. Union City is currently 1A in the six-class football alignment. Madison doesn’t have a football team but is Class A in non-football sports.

Bolivar would move up to 4A, and Hardin County and Dyer County would move up to 5A.

• The information lined out the concerns the TSSAA expected with each system.

• In a six-class system, 16 small districts would be eliminated since each class would have 49 schools except 6A, which would have 48.

That would leave eight regions.

The TSSAA said schools would lose $800,000 in missing out on district tournaments.

“But no district tournaments gives us an extra week of regular season,” Scott said. “That means we can have a couple extra games, and we can make up the $1,000 each school loses in district tournaments with one more home game.”

Regular season travel was also a concern.

“I’d hope we can depend on the schools to schedule accordingly and do things like not schedule your longest trips on school nights or if you have to, schedule a doubleheader at one place next year and a doubleheader at the other school the next year,” Scott said.

Four teams in each class would make the state tournaments in basketball, baseball and softball, but in Division I, six four-team tournaments would mean the same as three eight-team tournaments.

• In the proposal for four classes for all non-football sports, South Gibson, Milan, Westview and Camden would drop to 2A.

All current Class A schools except Trinity Christian, Jackson Christian and Madison would stay in A. The Jackson schools would move up to AA. All other schools in the Sun’s coverage area would be 3A.

The only West Tennessee schools in 4A would be Brighton, Henry County and Munford.

• The state tournament drawback to this is there’d need to be an extra day added to the tournament schedule each week, making them start on Tuesday for basketball instead of Wednesday, if they stayed at eight teams per tournament. But with one fewer game for each team, that would mean an extra off-day in Murfreesboro.

“Under this, you’re looking at the possibility of playing Tuesday, sitting Wednesday, playing Thursday, sitting Friday and playing Saturday if they make it to the championship,” Scott said. “Do we really want to be in a situation a month before [end of course] testing with basketball players spending a week in Murfreesboro for three basketball games?

“I don’t know. That’s up to all of you to decide for yourselves and let myself, Mr. Catlett or Mr. Gatlin know.”

• All three members of the Board of Control said they wanted to go into the meeting unified for the good of rural West Tennessee.

“Is there going to be a solution that makes everyone happy? No, not even in our area,” Catlett said. “But we need to get the solution that helps us the most, because that’s what we want to do.”

Gatlin, who is the West Tennessee (including Shelby County) representative for independent schools, said the same thing.

“I’m going to vote by how my schools want me to vote. That’s my job,” Gatlin said. “The private schools have let me know how all of them feel, and I want to be in agreement with Mr. Scott and Mr. Catlett too.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751