By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Being bonded together in the same conferences tends to make school officials pleased in Alamance County.
There wasn’t much for area schools to fuss about when the North Carolina High School Athletic Association released initial drafts for conferences that will be in place beginning with the next school year.
Five schools – Eastern Alamance, Southeast Alamance, Southern Alamance, Western Alamance and Williams – are in the same group. Cummings and Graham remain united in another league, while Clover Garden and River Mill are projected to stay together in a conference.
“We’re happy with the first draft,” Williams athletics director Bob Grant said. “We’re excited about keeping the county together.”
If the draft is adopted, Southeast would move up to join the four other largest schools in the county.
“You could nitpick a little bit,” said Southeast principal Eric Yarbrough, whose school is in its second year of existence. “But I think we’re all pretty happy.”
Eastern athletics director Brad Costa said the Eagles like the make-up.
“It’s nice to be in a conference with teams that are in the county and already in the same conference,” he said.
Schools can appeal the initial draft. From there, the NCHSAA will determine what changes would work best in a process that should wrap up this month.
Generally, there are changes to the first realignment drafts. Making one change often leads to others shifts.
The NCHSAA is expanding from four to eight classifications, meaning more split conferences.
Todd Davis, athletics director for the Alamance-Burlington School System, said most thoughts turn to the competitive aspects and financial components of a conference’s make-up.
“With our small schools, Graham and Cummings, there’s a little more travel (based on the initial draft),” Davis said.
Cummings athletics director Cherie Pettiford said she was hoping the Cavaliers would be part of the conference with all the six other football-playing schools in the county. That would have required three different classifications in the same league.
“It definitely would make travel a lot easier,” she said. “It would help generate more revenue.”
However, Cummings and Graham don’t field teams for a few sports that the larger schools have.
The Alamance County schools in a current Class 3-A league also are joined by Orange and Cedar Ridge. Those two Hillsborough schools aren’t included in the proposed circuit. Schools in Alamance County wouldn’t be opposed to having those two schools part of their group.
“We got a good thing going,” Grant said, noting strong working relationships.
Yarbrough, a former principal at Orange, said he thought Orange and Cedar Ridge might be part of a conference with Alamance County schools.
“If there’s any change, I would hope that would be it,” he said.
For Eastern, Orange is actually closer in proximity than Western Alamance.
Orange and Cedar Ridge are in a proposed six-school Class 5-A group with Durham School of the Arts (DSA), Seaforth, South Granville, and Oxford Webb. DSA doesn’t field a football team.
Rockingham County is a bit of an outlier, but that school has been in the same conference with Alamance County schools in many years. Meanwhile, Eastern Guilford and Northeast Guilford have made overtures about joining the conference with the larger Alamance County schools.
Western Alamance athletics director Sean Quinn said he’s on board with the conference make-up as presented by the NCHSAA, though other options might be feasible.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Quinn said. “We have great rivalries within the county. … (With this set-up), we’re going to play those big games at the end of the season.”
Split conferences come with complications, but benefits tend to be fewer miles on buses. Grant said if Williams becomes part of strictly a Class 6-A conference there would be more travel involved.
Meanwhile, Cummings and Graham often have been clustered with Bartlett Yancey and, at times, Reidsville, so there’s familiarity there. Plus, McMichael has been on Cummings’ schedules.
Overall, there were few complaints.
“It seems to be OK,” Pettiford said. “The only concern is (Winston-Salem) Carver. That would be a good deal of travel.”
Pettiford said that Bartlett Yancey wasn’t included in the conference with Cummings and Graham on a first draft four years ago and then was added through a revised draft.
So there could be movement.
“How many people put in a request?” Pettiford said. “It will be interesting to see how far from the first draft it is from the final.”
Davis said the feedback he has received from area schools has generally been positive.
“Ideally, we’d have all seven (ABSS schools) in the same conference,” he said. “It’s never going to be perfect in everybody’s eyes.”
Lists of proposed conferences that include Alamance County schools:
Class 1-A: Clover Garden, River Mill, Discovery Charter, Excelsior Classical, Falls Lake Academy, Woods Charter.
Class 3-A/4-A: Cummings (4-A), Graham (4-A), Bartlett Yancey (3-A), McMichael (3-A), Winston-Salem Carver (3-A), Eden Morehead (4-A), Reidsville (4-A)
Class 5-A/6-A: Eastern Alamance (5-A), Southeast Alamance (5-A), Rockingham County (5-A), Western Alamance (5-A), Southern Alamance (6-A), Williams (6-A)
