What will happen to the NW4A

When Patton High (Burke Co.) is open next year, they expect to be 2A and go into the CVAC. The next year Droughs High will open and expect to be 3A. The following year is realignment and it is almost certain that E. Burke & Freedom will be 3A at that time. The CVAC will turn into a 2A conference with Bandys, Patton, Maiden, Newton-Conover, Bunker Hill, W. Caldwell, & Hibriten. The 3A portion of the old CVAC will turn into an all 3A conference with Hickory, St. Stephens, Foard, E. Burke, Freedom, & Droughns. This works out fine for those teams, but what about the rest of the NW4A? Think they will continue with a 5 team conference and all that travel or do you think they'll do a combo 3A/4A conference with AC, McDowell, & S. Caldwell? That leaves Watauga & AC-R in no man's land... Even if Freedom doesn't drop to 3A, Don't you think they would put them in a 3A/4A conference with Hickory, Saint, Foard & E. B.?

Just a thought.....

 

i could see watauga (geographically they have little choice) and s caldwell to be part of a split 3a/4a conference in the hickory area. ac will move to the conference withh davie county et al. mcdowell and acr i think will become prart of a 3a/4a conference based in asheville. i think tc roberson will be 4a next time that would put 3 4a's in with maybe asheville, enka,erwin and north buncombe. i can see franklin and tuscola going ito a split 2a/3a/ with pisgah brevard,smoky mt , east henderson and north henderson west henderson. just speculation but freeddom and east burke will be 4a regardless 'til the next realignment

 

I don't know how many each school will be losing when they open the new schools in Burke Co. but wouldn't Freedom have to lose ALOT to be moved to 3A? They have 2300+ students now and they would have to lose over 1000 students to be moved to 3A as schools with 1300+ would still put you in 4A (see HP Central). Maybe they are planning on losing that many, I don't know. East Burke is at 1900+ so they would only have to lose 600+ which I am sure they will. Just a thought.....

 

According to the ADM's this year Freedom is about 2300, East Burke is 1939... AC-R is 1456....but you have 19 3A high schools with 1400+ (Lake Norman has 1800+), so its real hard to tell where the cut-off will be. I know that Patton High will be ready to house 1000 when it opens, I think Droughns will be the same. My question is why doesn't Buncombe Co. redistrict so all their schools will be 3A?? That would help AC-R a bunch with travel! Watauga is just geographically screwed, no 4A schools are close to it except S. Caldwell... I can see the 3A/4A Watauga, S. Cald, Freedom, E. Burke, St. Stephens, Hickory & Foard Conference though... I guess what I'm getting at is that the NW4A as we all knew it is ending.

 

I think one thing we can say about all this is that the Northwestern 4A Conference as we all have known it to be will change in 2009. Here's my take on the issue...

First off Patton is expected to have about 800 kids next year will Draughn is expected to have around the same number in 2008. I was good by someone who I consider a legit source that the NCHSAA is looking into the idea of letting Patton and maybe Draughn run as an independent until 2009 (ala Notre Dame in football) becuase of the fact that both schools might not have all facilities ready to field a full athletic program.

The 2009 realignment brings many different scenarios. Patton and Draughn will be middle-tier 2A schools. I see one of two possible options. First, they could join the current CVAC but the schools of the CVAC might not like it because the whole idea behind that conference was to keep the Catawba and Caldwell schools because of the money thats made between all these schools. Do they wanna added two brand new schools at the expense of dropping one of their own? I have my doubts about that.

Another scenario that I think people are overlooking might be a possible split conference with Patton, Draughn, East Rutherford, Chase (2A) and the possibility of a 3A Shelby, Burns, Kings Mountain and maybe even Crest. I don't think travel would be that big an issue because both Patton and Draughn can access NC 18 and be at Shelby, Burns and KM in one hour (give or take a few minutes) and they can travel US 64/US 221 to reach East Rutherford and Chase in about the same timeframe.

What's now known as the Northwestern 4A should look significantly different. As Reynoldsrocks said, Freedom should stay 4A while East Burke drops to 3A. My first suggestion for the conference is that we keep the current folks and then add R-S Central and turn the current NW4A into an 8 team split conference (East Burke and R-S Central ), (AC Reynolds, McDowell, Freedom, Watauga, South Caldwell, Alex. Central).

Second idea (and one that would take some talking but it could be done) would be the idea of taking idea #1, but dropping Alexander Central and picking up TC Roberson. There was a big fuss about this in the Asheville paper about how the Roberson ADM is off because of their special interest students. But I think those in Skyland need to face the facts that Roberson is a growing district and then they need to join a 4A Conference. AC Reynolds was reluctant to join the NW4A for years (even thought they were already 4A in size) but after seeing the type of competition that the NW4A offers, maybe we can persuade the folks at Roberson to come aboard. So therefor my second suggestion would be a conferernce that includes (East Burke, R-S Central), (Roberson, Reynolds, McDowell, Freedom, Watauga, South Caldwell)


I just don't see McDowell splitting from the likes of Freedom and East Burke as moesyslak suggested. Too much money made along the I-40 cooridor for McDowell to leave and play their conference games in Asheville.

 

That sounds like a good idea if Alexander goes the Central Piedmont and we pick up TCR. But then again, Hickory High's ADM may increase some between now and realignment to once again become 4A and return to the NW4A. That would be an eighth team in the NW4A (CP4A would have eight too) and the NW4A would now be a true all sports power as Roberson and Hickory have had amazing success in football, basketball, tennis, golf, track, and other sports.

 

It wasn't that we didn't want to recognize that we were a 4A school, it was the travel that our administrators were so concerned with, that was our reason for being "reluctant" to join the NW4A, it had nothing to do with actually being a 4A school. We competed as a 4A school in the split 3A/4A MAC with Tuscola and Asheville for years prior to joining the NW4A so it wasn't size that concerned us, it was always travel, not the conference itself.

 

couldn't mcdowell play fredom and east burke nonconfernce?

 

Of course we could but that is not the point trying to be made...

The tradition behind Freedom, East Burke and McDowell is definitely worth saving. The fact that all three schools draw so well off each other would really make it a tough spill to swallow if they were all to split from each other.

 

If Crest is still 4A, could go 3 depending on student movement, would they move Crest back to make it at least a 6 team league. The Big South has 7 teams now and it would drop back to 6. Of course if Crest is 3A, they move back into the Southwestern with Shelby, Burns, and Kings Mtn.