Comments about ‘High school sports: Hearing on realignment offers no easy answers’

I don't understand the board's reasoning sometimes...well make that most of the time.

They recently told the Ben Lomond High School administration that the population of the alternative High School, George Washington High, would be included in the student population of Ben Lomond because it resides within their boundaries. This decision pushed Ben Lomond's overall student population up over the limit and into a higher classification where it makes it difficult for them to compete. Even though very few of the students at the alternative high school participate in sports; the board felt it necessary to include GW in.

Can't wait until two years from now for the next realignment process when the board will probably come up with the bright idea to include the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind and the Millcreek Youth Correctional Facility in Ben Lomond’s population count. After all those facilities lie within the boundaries of Ben Lomond as well.

The East-West proposal for 5A makes way too much sense, adopt it!!

Since when is competition about everyone being on a level playing field. If making every school competitive in every activity is what the UHSAA is after all they'll accomplish is giving themselves a big headache every two years while ticking off one school to appease another. The UHSAA shouldn't worry about making any team or club competitive, that is the responsibility of the individual schools, their administrators, coaches, students etc. All the UHSAA can really do is group schools together first off by enrollment keeping the ratio of the biggest and smallest schools in all classifications as close as possible. Travel and geography while they should be addressed shouldn't be a deciding factor. As far as rivalries are concerned they too should be the responsibility of individual schools and can live on even if teams are in different classifications.

A fair and level playing field only means each team is held to the same regulations and rules. Not each team is competitive with all their opponents.

You have to have a full 5A region in Utah County! You have to

Lone Peak, PG, AF, Lehi, Westlake, and I'm sorry but Timpview should be 5A!
That could be region 4,

Putting Bingham, Riverton, Herriman, Copper Hills, West Jordan, and Tville.

That right there would make travel arrangements at an all time low!

Binghams farthest game would be to Herriman,
Lone Peak would have to only to out to West Lake, which is better then driving Bingham and playing.

Region 1 should have its own region like they do.

The big deal is the 4a-5A schools who we determine just off Enrollment.
Saying West is a 5A school, but East is a 4A school, dumb!
Skyline has plumeted to 4A,

But just make sure there is 6 5A teams in utah county.

Make sure Spanish Fork is going 4A, no more 3A for that school is takes MASSIVE pride inthere sports programs!

5A should have gone like this:

Region 1- layton, Northridge, Syarcuse, Fremont, Davis, Viewmont, Weber.... (North)

Region 2- Jordan, Alta, Cottonwood, Taylorsville, West, Brighton.......(East)

Region 3- West Jordan, Copper Hills, Herriman, Bingham, Riverton, Hunter.....(West)

Region 4- Lone Peak, American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Lehi, Westlake, Mountain View....(South)

*Granger stays 4A
*North stays the same
*Region 2 is East of Redwood Road, close to I-15
Region 3 is West of Redwood Road, Close to Bangerter
Region 4 is all Utah County!

Not as hard as UHSAA makes it out to be!

Here is how I would divide the classifications for football.

1A Ratio 2.05 to 1
1A West
Enterprise
Parowan
Kanab
Milford
Diamond Ranch

1A East
Whitehorse
Monument Valley
Monticello
Altamont
Duchesne
Rich

2A Ratio 2.3 to 1

2A South
San Juan
Grand
Emery
N. Sevier
S. Sevier
Beaver
Gunnison

2A North
N. Summit
S. Summit
Millard
Delta
ALA
Summit Academy
Manti

3A Ratio 2.11 to 1

3A South
Canyon View
Cedar
Hurricane
Desert Hills
Juab
N. Sanpete

3A North
Bear River
Carbon
Juan Diego
Union
Grantsville
Morgan
Judge

4A Ratio 1.61 to 1

Pine View
Dixie
Snow Canyon
Salem Hills
Spanish Fork
Payson

Orem
Provo
Maple Mountain
Timpanogas
Mountain View
Springville

Park City
Uintah
Wasatch
Corner Canyon
Highland
Stansbury
Tooele

Ben Lomand
Ogden
Logan
Box Elder
Bonneville
Woods X

5A Ratio 1.31 to 1 (5A and 6A Not in regions)

Timpview
Murray
Skyline
Cyprus
Kearns
Bountiful
Roy
East
Olympus
Sky View
Hillcrest
Clearfield
Granger
Brighton
Mountain Crest
Jordan
Westlake
West Jordan
Taylorsville
Viewmont
Fremont
Layton
Weber
Northridge

6A Ratio 1.3 to 1

Lehi
Pleasant Grove
Cottonwood
Syracuse
West
Hunter
Herriman
Riverton
American Fork
Copper Hills
Lone Peak
Davis
Bingham
Alta

you forgot LCA which should stay in 1a for football. They have only 25 plyers and rarely compete.

4 Classifications of 32 schools each. 4 eight-team regions in each classification. Put the extra schools in 1A because most of those schools don't have all the sports anyway. Base it on population...nothing else. I hate the argument that Lone Peak can't travel to Alta becaue you change county lines, but North and South Summit can travel to San Juan and nobody cares. Everything right now is too watered down. It should mean something to win your region and even make the state playoffs, let alone win them. I could fix this issue before lunch.

Knowsabunch.....

To go along with your topic of meaningful region champs....how about this?

Region Champ gets a bye in the first round...
Second and THird seeds fight it off in quarterfinals...

The rest are getting ready for next season....
End the meaningless first-round blowouts and get ready for football in October!

I had LCA in my 1A north region...just missed them when I typed it up. Thanks for pointing that out 2afan

Why dont we just keep everything the same and stop trying to make everyone happy? So many little schools are throwing a fit cause they cant compete. Hurricane is a prime example of how hard work, dedication, and consistency can make you a better team. They used to be the laughing stock of region 9. They used to be a joke. They implimented a very basic, simple, hard nose football program, and after several years they are a football power house. They have stayed in 3A the whole time. They didnt complain about not being able to compete, they did something about it. Why doesnt everyone else?

I agree with the idea of getting rid of the inter-region play-in. In addition I say no bye weeks just take the top 8 teams in each classification and start the quarterfinals like they used to. With that format all classifications can play their respective championship games at Rice Eccles, 1A and 2A on either Friday or Saturday and 3A 4A and 5A on the other.

The 5A east-west address proposal by the Granger principal makes no sense from a competition and balancing perspective. Putting all the best sports programs in a single region (which is what his Region IV would look like with Alta, Brighton, Jordan, Lone Peak, PG and AF) is unfair to the teams within that region who would beat up on each other with only one region champ crowned, and seeding for playoffs and home-field advantage in the early rounds dictated by the happenstance of region alignment rather than quality.

You don't believe me that the "best programs" are from southeastern SL valley and northeastern Utah valley? Here are the 5A champions in the four most popular sports (2 from boys, 2 from girls) during the past 5 years:

Football:
2012: Jordan (demolished Fremont)
2011: Lone Peak
2010: Bingham
2009: Bingham
2008: Alta

Basketball (boys):
2012: Lone Peak
2011: Lone Peak
2010: ???
2009: West Jordan (against Lone Peak)
2008: Lone Peak

Soccer (girls):
2012: Viewmont (against Alta)
2011: Alta
2010: Alta
2009: Alta
2008: Alta

Volleyball (girls):
2012: Pleasant Grove
2011: Davis
2010: Lone Peak
2009: Pleasant Grove
2008: Lone Peak

The written plan should be adopted as is.

The solution is simple. Let the schools decide, and create their own regions - similar to the collegiate structure. The schools that join other "like-minded" schools. If the most important thing for a school is to play in the most competitive football league, they can make that decision. The schools can choose to keep historic rivalries if they want. The schools that have the budget, or are OK with travel can get themselves in to a league that would require more travel. I have to think that the pricipals and AD's would be able to work out what is best for their school. From their, I think you could easily separate out the different classifications, based primarily on enrollment. A league that included Waterford, Rowland Hall and the Summit County schools isn't going to accept Alta, and Alta isn't going to want to play in that league. The schools could quickly work it out. If a new school ie Summit Academy comes onboard, they just petition to get in to the league that best fits their competition level. Problem solved.

The one that gets me is that Payson begged to go 3AA because they couldnt compete in 4A. So, for non sports they are basically in last years region 12 with Richfield thrown in and without Spanish and Delta. But for football they are in with the St George schools? I believe you will see Payson football completely die out within a few years. I think that they should have stayed in the same region for all sports.

2010 5A basketball champs, Alta.

This is crazy. Way too many pans in the fire! I wish we would go to 4 classifications and have region and state mean something not have 6 champions. Not everyone needs a trophy there are great lessons learned when you don't win!

1A in football needs to adopt 8-man. Right now there are only 9 schools in Utah playing football at the 1A level, and according to this article, there are 4 that could die any day. So adopt 8-man for 1A, and give schools that are currently successful at 1A (like Duchesne) the option of moving up to 2A, or staying down to play 1A 8-man. Also this will give you a chance to start adding schools that currently don't play football because of their smaller numbers. Idaho has over 30 schools playing 8-man football at the 1A level right now. Here in Utah, most of the schools play baseball in the fall. That is silly! Fall is football season. Give these small school kids the chance to play the great game of football.

The IRS agent is on to something. Let the schools decide.

FatMan86

You can call 8-man ball what you want but to me it's not football. It resembles is but isn't the same. The closest thing I can compare 8-man to is intramural flag football with pads. When your entire offensive playbook is pretty much trick plays and any number is eligible to be a receiver it just doesn't sit quite right. Most teams I know that play 8-man would rather play 11-man even if it meant going "ironman" but their state associations etc won't allow them to. 8-man equals a program on life support, not football.

Secondly you wouldn't add many schools even to 8-man. Most of the larger 1A school currently don't play football at all. Why would they decide to if 1A played 8-man? Milford has 85 students in their top 3 classes and along with Rich (90 students in their top 3) play football and Rich is highly competitive. Panguitch, Wendover, Pinnacle, Wayne, St. Joseph and Legacy are all larger and could field 11-man teams but don't. So why would they decided to play if there was 8-man in Utah?