[twitter-follow screen_name=’LoCoSports’]
By Owen Gotimer
LoCoSports Editor
(July 22, 2015) – This is a plea to the Virginia High School League: please put all of the Loudoun County Public Schools high schools into two athletic conferences.
Under the new approved conference realignment for 2015-2017, the 15 public high schools in Loudoun will move from three to five different conferences.
The largest gap between student populations at any two of the high schools in the 2015-2016 academic year will be Briar Woods High School (1,707) and Riverside High School (1,052). A 650 student population difference might be too much to play in the same conference, but if the opening of Riverside as a new high school has any similarities to the recent opening of John Champe or Rock Ridge high schools, Riverside will not be the smallest high school in the county just a year after its opening.
While I understand the concern that you have to balance school size across the state and not just in Loudoun County, it should be plausible to make exceptions to the school size rule to incorporate all schools in the same county into one or two conferences throughout the state.
Yes, it would suck for those smaller schools having to play in a higher class, but pinning teams against better – which does not necessarily translate to bigger – teams is what makes teams better. You can’t play cruddy teams and expect to improve.
In 2015-2017, a school sized between 1,835 and 1,470 students will play in the VHSL 5A class. Five LoCo schools – Briar Woods, Broad Run, Potomac Falls, Stone Bridge and Tuscarora – fit into that classification. Three additional schools – Woodgrove, Freedom and Loudoun County – just missed that cut and could very easily perform at the 5A level.
The seven remaining high schools in Loudoun County have at most a 299 student population gap and — once Riverside opens its doors to a senior class — that maximum gap could shrink to less than 150.
The schools in Loudoun County plainly fit into two classifications and by opening up the county to five different conferences across three different classifications, the county’s high school athletic programs lose out.
Rivalries have been – and will continue to be – destroyed.
School size definitely does – and unfortunately has to – play a role in some of those broken rivalries, but there are clear examples where school size should not be the reason crosstown rivalries turn into smack-talking mashups between two groups of people with no one in the stands to cheer them on. These crosstown rivalries should be packed with fans!
Under the new approved conference realignment, two high schools – Loudoun Valley and Woodgrove – in the same classification, in the same town, less than four miles from each other, will be in different conferences. This is absurd.
Rivalries in Loudoun County will become obsolete – other than in the 5A class where football powerhouses Briar Woods, Broad Run, Stone Bridge and Tuscarora will still compete against one another for a regular season conference championship.
Next, why is VHSL confusing everyone with a combination of conferences and districts? Coaches, athletes, teams and schools celebrate district championships, yet winning the district means one thing in most conferences: bragging rights.
District champions don’t move on to the region and state playoffs. Conference champs do. So why confuse the whole league by operating with both.
WARNING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION
After everyone gets used to the current conference realignment VHSL is moving onto the new realignment – which I will eventually get to in this article – and then two years after that realignment, a source tells me that VHSL is GOING BACK TO DISTRICTS in 2017-2018!
2012-2013: “Districts are so overrated.” –VHSL
2013-2014: “Wait, what conference are we in?” –Athletes
2014-2015: “So we’re in the same conference, but different districts?” –Athletes
2015-2016: “Huh? I thought Freedom was a 5A school.” –Athletes
2016-2017: “This conference thing is finally starting to make sense to us.” –Athletes
2017-2018: “Suckers!” –VHSL
My final question – a question I have gotten from parents, fans, athletes and coaches alike over the last two months – before the unveiling of the realignment is this: Will Conference 21A and Conference 21B have one conference championship or two?
If the answer is one, great. If the answer is two, why not change one of the conferences to another number? There are a bazillion numbers in the this universe and the last time I checked only 48 conferences in the VHSL.
No matter how much I rant this summer, nothing can be done to fix this ridiculous system, so below you will find the VHSL Final Adopted Conference Alignment for 2015-2017.
Big O, out.
Owen Gotimer is a graduate of Syracuse University where he earned a degree in broadcast and digital journalism. Before attending SU, Owen graduated from Heritage High School in Leesburg. Follow LoCoSports on Twitter (@LoCoSports) for up-to-date news and scores from around Loudoun County.