The next step for the North Carolina High School Athletic Association is to set the playing calendar for the 2025-26 school year and devise playoff formats for the new eight-classification set-up.
Expect that to be expediated.
“If we had it ready, it would be out there,” said NCHSAA president Stephen Gainey, who’s also superintendent of the Randolph County School System. “We know the coaches and the ADs and principals need it.”
The NCHAA board of directors completed the conference realignment process last week by approving a final version.
Gainey and NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker answered questions last Thursday.
The calendar is a priority and that comes in conjunction with establishing playoff formats. Tucker said NCHSAA staff has worked on several draft calendars depending on a 32-team or a 48/64-team bracket is used.
The task involves determining how teams will qualify for playoffs in team sports and addressing the postseason process in individual sports. There will be challenges sorting out playoff fields stemming from multi-class conferences, Tucker said.
As a former principal, Gainey said he understands the need for an NCHSAA calendar to help in forming schedules.
“We had to get past (March 3),” Gainey said of last week’s board approval. “We are in a good spot. It is time for schools to start making decisions. Having your conference is one thing. The next thing is getting your non-conference schedule set.”
The board heard 26 presentations on appeals last week before locking in the conference groupings that will be in place for at least two years.
“We anticipated that it would be challenging,” Tucker said. “Yes, this was the most challenging one because of the expanded number of classifications.”
Gainey and Tucker said the board was cognizant of the months-long efforts of the realignment committee when reviewing appeals.
“Not everybody is happy with the final draft,” Tucker said. “With eight classifications … it became very clear pretty quickly that we were going to have many conferences that were multi-class conferences.”
The realignment committee heard appeals and submitted three drafts for consideration.
“I know that everything we do may not always make everybody happy, but I can assure you that we will not ever do anything intentionally to make somebody unhappy,” Gainey said. “This has been an historic realignment process, no doubt. … I’m proud of the membership. They wanted this and they put forth their vote.”
The realignment has come under criticism in various parts of the state, mostly with schools disappointed in their conference assignments. Gainey said it was clear that there would be hurdles with such a drastic shift from four to eight classifications.
“I hope it’s everything the member schools wanted because they wanted this,” Gainey said. “When they wanted something this bad, something beautiful is going to come out of it. … They saw something that said we need to do something different. I’m going to trust that.”
There were countless factors in setting conferences.
Many of the realignment considerations were based on travel distances between schools. Gainey said that was appropriate.
“I want to be in a conference that I’m spending all my money I set aside for my athletic program in the gas tank,” Gainey said. “We’re going to have more resources to use for our kids.”
The conference involving Eastern Randolph, Southwestern Randolph and Uwharrie Charter Academy has six schools. UCA doesn’t field a football team.
“You leave a conference with five teams, that leaves a real difficult situation for the five that are left,” Gainey said.
