UIL Re-classification?

[kicker]

I posted this on another thread and decided to make it a topic. Just seems that the big schools are getting HUGE and the others aren't growing at all. Here is my take.......

Is it just me, or is 3A getting HUGE? Seems like 3a has twice as many teams as any other classification. I'm sure I'm wrong,but sure seems that way. Another thought is looking at all these 3A schools that were 4A power houses as little as a couple years ago. Seems like we have a very interesting trend here.......the 5a schools are getting so huge they are the size of some colleges. 4A seems limited now and 3a is growing by the month. Does anyone think the UIL needs to re-classify the whole state? Make a 6A and get rid of the subdivisions in the other classifications? You would have 6 through 1A. Maybe the 4a schools would be 5a, the 3a schools be 4a, etc.

[liltex]

I'm in it w/you they should have a 6a classification.As for 3a there could be several more teams that are in a declining enrollment in metro areas but choose to stay in 4a where they usually get clobbered once they get to the playoff games outside their area.Teams like Yates a long time powerhouse usually is the most successful 4a metro program but outside basketball they've not been as successful for a few years.The biggest problem in re-classification is distance traveled to play any sport and esp.those 2 or 3 games a week in some sports as well as other UIL events.Already teams in sm rural towns of sm.population travel extreme miles to compete esp. far reaches of Texas.There is alot of ?? about long distance travel in a downturn economy w/fuel prices expected to keep trending higher and get the kiddos home safe @ a reasonable hour.I would expect a few schools will turn to cutting out some sports and a few already have.

[Rebel Yeller]

The 6A Idea has been tossed around for many years. Schools like Plano that fought to keep only one school in their community until it could no longer except enrollments growing close to 5000. Look at Katy just west of us. They have gone from a single high school to their very own district in just over 10 years.

The UIL is not a part of the Texas Education system (it's owned and operated by the University of Texas) and it has found a cash cow in the multipule divisions in the larger sports. If 5 championship football games made money for the UIL think what 10 must do now. The same goes for the Division 1 & 2 basketball for boys and girls. The UIL does not receive money from any round of the playoffs short of the state games. Why would they drop from 10 to 6 playoff games? That would not make good business sense!

So you can look for the same alignments for years to come. The only real change I can see is the State Education Agency forcing 1A schools into situations where they have to merge with larger schools in order to provide mandated services or programs that their budgets will not allow. If that happens then you just might see reclassification, but it will not have the same form as any of us would expect it to be.

Just wait and see what happens, I believe the landscape of high school athletics will look much different in 10 years and the busineeses that are advertising on the scoreboards and programs will soon be making deals for their names to be on uniforms. Get ready for high school athletes to begin looking like international soccer players as schools sell jersey ads to try to have budgets for school athletics.
 

[football]

3A was the smallest(number of school wise) for as long as I can remember. 

[football]

Checked out the latest alignment:
1a - (Not including 6-man) 168 schools
2a - 217
3a - 190 (7 bb only schools)
4a - 251 (3 bb only)
5a - 244

[BHFAN]

[quote name="football" post="1233036" timestamp="1340819310"]
Checked out the latest alignment:
1a - (Not including 6-man) 168 schools
2a - 217
3a - 190 (7 bb only schools)
4a - 251 (3 bb only)
5a - 244
[/quote]

Thanks :) I was looking all over the place for those numbers becasue i thought 4A was bigger than 3A. Turns out it is the largest classification

[AHUDDLESTON]

Unless you include 6-man with the rest of the 1A.  Remember, they do count as 1A for all other sports.  300+ schools