LITTLE ROCK Arkansas school and athletic administrators are discovering how difficult it is to combine math and geography.
They all want their athletic teams to have a fair and competitive shot at a state championship.
They don't want the competitive balance disrupted because there is a significant size discrepancy among the largest and smallest 32 high schools in Arkansas.
They wanted to maximize gate receipts while limiting travel.
They want conference alignments that work well geographically.
They are under pressure to cut expenses and travel costs for all sports.
They want to limit extensive travel on school nights and limit missed class time.
Particularly at the highest levels, they want eight-team conferences because that makes it easier to develop a consistent and workable state playoff format.
But when you examine where the large schools, the medium schools and the little schools are in 6A and 7A in Arkansas, the geography is such a force-fit that it jars the competitive balance and severely bruises the pocketbook.
Things are overweighted to the west. Schools in northwest Arkansas, even ones in previously rural districts such as Pea Ridge and Elkins, are growing. Springdale and Rogers now have two high schools, forcing the move of Van Buren to 7A Central.
Some schools in central Arkansas are experiencing significant growth. Others are stagnant or struggling. That's the fault line.
Schools in east Arkansas, particularly the Delta, are getting smaller and smaller. Several are dying or have been forced to merge.
Larger schools such as Texarkana, West Memphis and Jonesboro are becoming more isolated from schools their size. Mountain Home has always been isolated. By all indications, Siloam Springs will move from 5A to 6A soon. There are two eight-team conferences in 6A. One would put Siloam Springs in a conference with Jonesboro and West Memphis with Sylvan Hills one of the shortest trips. Another would place Siloam Springs with El Dorado, Texarkana and Camden with possibly Little Rock Hall the shortest trip. How one gets from Siloam Springs to Mountain Home requires both a map, a GPS device and several crossed fingers.
Tuesday, the AAA-member schools rejected a proposal developed by Conway Athletic Director Buzz Bolding to align the 32 largest schools geographically for conference play in football, then have a large school/small school divisions for state playoffs.
A major concern and objection was that it didn't address sports that required more weekly travel.
"For years and years, the smaller schools have told us that football was the manpower sport and it was different," Bolding said. "That's what the proposal just addressed football."
There is a major competitive discrepancy in football in 6A between larger and smaller schools. It's much less of an issue in almost all the other sports.
For example, 6A, from top to bottom, was significantly superior to 7A last year in track and field. It was overall better in basketball and probably baseball. If a team has a softball pitcher such as Jessica Sheldon of North Little Rock or a golfer such as Mary Michael Maggio of Conway and it doesn't matter what size it is. It's automatically a state contender.
In sports other than football, there's going to be a fluctuation of really talented players and great success, even among schools of great size. Otherwise, Rogers, for several years one of the two largest schools in the state, would have won everything in anything.
With fuel prices and travel expenses and general costs (the $1 menu at fast-food restaurants could become a $1.25 menus soon), all schools are having to reduce costs.
Some kind of geographic arrangements in which size is a lower priority is inevitable. It's not unrealistic that at some point, one might see Conway, Greenbrier, Vilonia, North Little Rock and Morrilton and possibly Searcy in the same conference. AAA officials might eventually have proposals, because of travel, weather and testing dates, to move baseball and softball seasons to June and July. School administrators no doubt may have to sacrifice the neat template of having exclusively eight-team conferences across the board at the highest level. They might have to look at some five-team and 12-team conference with non-conference play aligned with more geographic rivals that would produce more revenue.
"We know at some point we are going to have to start thinking outside the box," said Lance Taylor, executive director of the AAA.
There's a challenge to even discovering and defining "the box."
(Sports columnist David McCollum can be reached at 505-1235 or david.mccollum@thecabin.net)
