Mount Airy concerned about conference realignment

Donald Price, the athletics director at Mount Airy High School, has his work cut for him over the next two weeks.

And there's a chance that not even a tireless effort by Price and others will change the results of the NCHSAA's latest draft of conference realignment for 2013 through 2017.

The new plan — released Thursday — has Mount Airy in a Class 1-A conference with familiar rivals East Surry, North Stokes, Bishop McGuinness and Winston-Salem Prep. The conference also includes Atkins and Walkertown, but the new plan will cost Mount Airy affiliation with several longtime conference rivals.

"We don't like it at all," Price said. "We understand that realignment is a difficult process for everybody. (The NCHSAA's realignment committee) has been working on it for some time. With 399 schools, there will be people that are upset.

"We have a large number of concerns with what they have done, and we will address it to the NCHSAA and the committee."

Price, and others unsatisfied with the latest draft, have until March 1 to appeal in writing to the committee and to request in-person appeals.

The committee will hear grievances and prepare a final plan March 15. The deadline for procedural appeals is April 1. When the NCHSAA board of directors holds its annual meeting in May, it will consider final appeals and vote on approving the realignment plan.

A 2-A/1-A conference in the pervious draft that drew unanimous criticism was disbanded, and Atkins, Carver, Walkertown and Winston-Salem Prep ended up moving away from High Point Andrews and Reidsville, perennial football powers.

"I really like it," athletics director Ricky Holt of Winston-Salem Prep said of the new plan. "I think it's a good idea to have all the 1-A schools (in Forsyth County) together. There are some very good schools in that conference, very competitive, and they have great athletic programs."

Thursday's draft was the third since November, and AD Aaron Bailey of Carver said that his school came out better this time.

The new plan has Carver joining Forbush, North Surry, South Stokes, Surry Central and West Stokes in a 2-A conference.

"Out of the past two that we had, the computer model and the staff model, out of the three, it's the best one for Carver, and I will say that," Bailey said. "Travel for instance. I think the average travel … we will have some 40-minute trips and some 15-, 20-minute trips. That will be great. We won't have any hour drives, and I think that's good. We will have an average of about 30 minutes from one school to the next."

The changes mean that there will be only one split conference left in the Northwest. The Mountain-Valley 2-A/1-A now has 2-A schools Ashe County, Forbush, Starmount and Wilkes Central and 1-A schools Alleghany, East Wilkes, Elkin, North Wilkes and West Wilkes. It will lose Forbush but otherwise stay the same.

In split conferences — created for geographic proximity or by agreement among schools — schools in different classifications compete against each other in league play, often to maintain longstanding rivalries, but go into their natural classifications for the state playoffs.

There were no changes in the new draft for any area 4-A or 3-A schools.

Price said that all 16 schools in the current Mountain-Valley and Northwest conferences had met and presented alternate proposals.

"We presented a solution," Price said. "Two weeks ago, I was worried about the Northwest and Mountain-Valley conferences. I am now worried about Mount Airy High School.

"I just believe in my heart of hearts, this conference they have put me in today will be financially devastating. My athletic program has to fund itself. We get no money, zero. My gate receipts fund my athletic program, and I just really believe when I talk about loss of natural rivalries in a conference context, yes, I can play them, but there is no value to that game. There is no conference championship tied to it."