Published: May 15, 2008 04:55 pm         

OH GOOD GREIF: Kudos to dad; TSSAA to shuffle the deck in June

Before I get into the gist of my column, I want to say how happy I was to see my dad receive an honorary associate of arts degree from Roane State Community College during their commencement exercises on May 3. That was a long time coming, and should have been done several years ago.

Dad has been doing the PA for the Rockwood Tiger football team for 50-plus years, along with basketball and has been the volunteer reserve seat sales coordinator for as long as I can remember. He has done the PA for some of the Roane State basketball games for the last couple of years, plus been involved in many community activities in Rockwood, including Rotary.

Dad, along with mom and her three older brothers, helped establish the Adele S. Bernard Scholarship at RSCC in 1973 in honor of my grandmother's 75th birthday. When my uncle Jack died in 1976, the scholarship was renamed the Bernard Scholarship.

After my mom passed away in May 2000, the scholarship was renamed the Bernard/Greif Scholarship, which will be awarded for the 35th time this month to a deserving RHS graduate who plans to attend Roane State.

The press box at Rockwood's Civitan Field was named in his honor in 1996.

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Now, the important stuff.

The TSSAA has a daunting task ahead on June 10-12 when the board will consider realignment of its 375 member schools, according to a proposal published on their Web site.

Fall 2008 enrollments of member institutions will be used to determine classification for 2009-'13. If those figures are unavailable, 2007-'08 numbers will be used.

The board must decide to continue use a multiplier for non-public schools in Division I and, if used, determine the number as a multiplier. They are also going to determine if volleyball and golf will be placed into three divisions (A, AA, AAA) in Division I.

The third option is to place all 375 schools (entire membership) in three classes by enrollment, which would determine the break for both Division I and Division II. Then allow all schools the option of going to Division II. Presently, schools choose Division I or Division II first and then classification breaks are determined in each division, according to the proposal.

They have three classification plans.

One is to keep everyone thing like it is.

The second is a three-class plan for football district re-alignment with AAA being split into two classes (5A/4A) and AA into two classes (3A/2A) for football playoff purposes. Class A will remain one class in football due to the large number of non-football playing schools.

In football (Class AAA), there would be 16 districts with top two teams qualifying for the playoffs for 32 teams. The upper half (by enrollment) of the schools in AAA would be 5A and the lower half would be 4A.

The 32 teams finishing first and second in each of the 16 districts would be played in 4A and 5A. The remaining spots in each (4A and 5A) would be filled with wild cards.

There would 32 teams in 5A and 32 in 4A for a total of 64 teams in Class AAA.

The playoff brackets would be set.

This would be followed in AA (2A & 3A).

The brackets would then be set in the same manner as 2A football in 2007.

If enrollment figures hold, Cumberland County would drop to AAA (4A) and Stone Memorial would move into AAA (4A) for 2009-'13.

After attending a meeting in Chattanooga recently, CCHS athletic director Jon Hall indicated CCHS, White County, Cookeville, Warren County and Coffee County could be placed into a district, with Bradley Central, McMinn County, Cleveland, Walker Valley, Rhea County, Soddy-Daisy, Ooltewah and Red Bank being placed into a new district. It would be logical to put SMHS in with CCHS.

With several new schools opening in 2008-'09, the TSSAA will likely use the fall enrollment figures to determine the re-alignment.

One rationale for this would be to place schools in the same districts for football, basketball, softball, etc. decreasing travel schools using three-class plan rather that five and keeps five football classes that have similar make-up to present plan.

Plan C is a four-classification plan. The board would classify all schools into three classifications by enrollment. All schools in AAA (by enrollment) would become the top classification (AAAA).

Class AAA would be all schools in metropolitan areas, by definition of the National Center for Education Statistics in Class AA and A (by enrollment). Class AA would be all schools in AA classification outside metro areas and Class A would be all schools in Class A outside metro areas.

The AA possibility (based on 2006) enrollment has SMHS in with Anderson County, Kingston, Loudon and Scott County, with Clarkrange, Clay County, Jackson County, Monterey, Pickett County and Red Boiling Springs in District 6A.

For football only (same as plan B), Class AAAA would be divided into two classes for a total of five football classifications. This could either be done as present (upper half of schools, by enrollment, in eight regions and same for lower half or follow procedure as outline in 4B, according to the TSSAA

Division II is not as detailed.

You can read the entire proposal on the TSSAA Web site.

Ed Greif is the Chronicle sports editor, and his column appears periodically.