By Jason Chlapek
editor@fairfield-recorder.com
Disclaimer: This column will not feature the lyrics to C&C Music Factory's song by the same title as this column's headline.
This column, in fact, has nothing to do with the aforementioned song. This column has everything to do with the UIL and its realignment, or in this case, debacle.
Where do I begin? Hmm, let's start with football.
Not only are we going to start with football alignments, we're going to look no further than here in the Bi-stone region. At the expense of sounding like the late Mean Gene Okerlund when Hulk Hogan turned heel in 1996, what in the world are you (the UIL) thinking?!
After two years of having the Class 3A Bi-stone schools in the same football district, the UIL has split them up. Groesbeck and Mexia are going west, and Fairfield and Teague are going east.
While it's tempting to give the cronies at the UIL gold stars for at least keeping the Limestone County schools together and the Freestone County schools together, I must digress. After all, these people have doctorates which makes me question if academic fraud is involved in these people obtaining these degrees.
Groesbeck and Mexia are in District 5-3A-Division I with Grandview, Maypearl, West and Whitney. Fairfield and Teague are in District 9-3A-DI with Crockett, Diboll, Huntington and Westwood.
Former district mates Eustace, Kemp and Malakoff went their separate ways as well. Kemp moved up to Class 4A, while Eustace and Malakoff are members of District 7-3A-DI with Commerce, Mineola, Mount Vernon, Rains and Winnsboro.
Not only did the UIL put the Limestone and Freestone County schools in different football districts, but they also put them in different football regions. District 5 is in Region II and District 9 is in Region III. If all pans out, there could be a state championship game involving Groesbeck or Mexia vs. Fairfield or Teague.
At least "The Bi-stone Four" are in the same district for basketball and other sports - 20-3A. Fairfield, Groesbeck, Mexia and Teague are with Buffalo, Elkhart and Westwood in 20-3A for the next two years in the non-football sports.
Franklin was moved to 19-3A with Cameron Yoe, Lexington, Little River Academy, Rockdale, Rogers and Class 2A refugee Thrall. Former 19-3A members McGregor and Troy moved into 17-3A, and former 19-3A member Lorena moved up to 4A.
The 3A basketball alignment worked well with the exception of two things. The first one is I would've had Districts 17-20 in Region II as Districts 9-12, and moved Districts 9-12 to 13-16, and moved Districts 13-16 to 17-20.
This would've put Central Texas and North Texas in one region, and Northeast Texas, East Texas and Southeast Texas in another. Regions I and IV were done correctly.
The biggest boo-boo the UIL did with the 3A basketball alignment was put Sadler S&S Consolidated in a different district with Whitesboro. Sadler and Whitesboro are located a stones throw away from each other and putting them into two separate districts is asinine to say the least.
If these alignments are going to make any sense whatsoever, the UIL needs to get into a new mindset. The starting west, moving north then east and south is outdated.
It worked in the 20th century before the metropolitan areas in Austin, DFW, Houston and San Antonio exploded with population. It's time to progress with the times.
For starters, take a look at how many schools you have from each metro area per classification. If there are 73 schools from DFW Metro in Class 6A, that's nine districts - eight districts of eight and one district of nine.
Put eight of those nine districts into one region and save the ninth for another region. Then look at Austin, Houston and SA.
There are 96 Greater Houston schools in 6A - 12 districts. Put eight of those districts into another region and save the other four for another region.
If you include the seven Central Texas schools and 17 Greater Austin schools in 6A, that's 24 from those areas. Put those schools into three districts of eight, and put them in the same region with the ninth DFW district and the four remaining Greater Houston districts for a third region.
That leaves the El Paso area, West Texas, Greater San Antonio, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley for the remaining region in 6A. It's a puzzle that's a lot easier to build if you look at the metro areas first then build your regions and districts.
I have mock basketball alignments that I drew up a couple of weeks prior to the release of the official realignment. Feel free to check them out online - www.fairfield-recorder.com or www.teaguechronicle.com.
I didn't draw up football districts because I've never been a fan of the split-division districts. That practice makes me go "hmmm."