Thursday, May 08, 2008
Region C football to remain as it is
Both of the Group AAA football championship games will be played at Tech's Lane Stadium.
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Region C will not be reshuffling its football deck.
Meanwhile, Virginia Tech has become part of the VHSL's postseason landscape.
The VHSL Executive Committee rejected the Region C's bid to realign its districts for football in a vote Wednesday in Charlottesville, dooming the proposal until at least 2011.
At the same meeting, the executive committee voted to move its two Group AAA football championship games to Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium.
Region C officials had voted 18-7 Monday to create four new football districts -- two composed solely of Division 2 schools and two made up of Division 1 schools -- beginning next fall. The final hurdle turned into a roadblock as the executive committee voted down the proposal by a decisive margin, according to committee member and Eastern Montgomery principal Nelson Simpkins.
Simpkins, a proponent of Region C football realignment, said only three of the 24 voting members of the executive committee voted for the proposal with at least seven abstaining. A three-fourths vote was required to carry the motion.
Simpkins said several members told him they needed more knowledge about Region C's proposed realignment, which was brought straight to the executive committee without going through the VHSL's Redistricting and Reclassification Committee, a move allowed by Rule 10-4-2 in the VHSL Handbook.
Simpkins said supporters for Region C football realignment will make another attempt in time for the 2011-12 scheduling cycle.
Region C officials still are expected to expand the current Division 1 and Division 2 football playoffs to six teams in each division beginning in 2009. Radford principal Mark Lineburg said playoff expansion has "100 percent" approval within the region.
The VHSL's move to award its two Group AAA championship games to Tech after a one-year run at Virginia's Scott Stadium was passed overwhelmingly, Simpkins said.
Tech was picked as the site over one proposal to split the games between Virginia State University and the Virginia Beach Sports Plex and another proposal to hold both games in Virginia Beach.
"I think Tech really wanted it, and there were some other dynamics in place," Simpkins said.
The executive committee also approved the split of Group AA boys' and girls' basketball into two divisions after the Group AA board passed the measure in March.
