Re-alignment: Talk of the town

This school year will be the last for the current classifications for NCHSAA athletics, as the 2025-26 school year will see the classifications doubled from four to eight. This is going to cause a shake-up for teams and athletics all around the state, and not even Sampson County will be safe from the re-alignments of divisions and conferences.

Nothing is set in stone as of yet for the the classes, except that the 8A division will be comprised of the top 32 schools, according to their average daily membership (ADM). Besides that, each classification is capped at 64 schools, and from there, the turmoil starts.

Everyone, it seems, has what they believe the classifications and conferences will look like. Whether these are based on fact, opinion, or a mix of both seems to vary, but still, they are nothing more than an educated guess. Writers across the state, even those with a better grasp of statewide sports than I have, have written their opinions on this, but that still doesn’t mean they’re correct. Some do it by keeping rivalries around. Others divide conferences by how much the teams will have to travel. Others do it by finally crossing the east-west arbitrary boundary that the NCHSAA seemingly lives by, to allow schools on either side to finally face competition that they usually don’t see outside of the playoffs. I — someone who has one of the best birds-eye views of Sampson County sports — can only throw out what I think will happen, and that could be wildly different than what actually happens.

Three things are important in my decision-making here. One, I want every rivalry to thrive. I don’t want to split historic rivalries that see great competition. I want them to continue to face off against each other as much as possible; I think it’s great for the kids, the teams, the parents, the coaches, and athletics as a whole. Two, travel times are important. Sampson County is big, and getting out of the county comes with long travel sometimes, so I want to minimize that as much as possible. Three, as much as I don’t understand them, I think split conferences will still be necessary. I just don’t see a way for them not to happen with eight divisions across the state.

Here is what I believe will happen. This comes with absolutely no insider knowledge, as I frankly haven’t discussed this with anyone who has any influence over these decisions. I believe it is better that way — I can give my true, unaffected opinion on things, and it will be fun to compare how things work out next year for our local sports. I’ll write them for their current classifications, so as to not cause confusion.

Current 1A

As it sits, Hobbton, Lakewood, and Union are all 1A schools — the lowest classification right now. With the current ADM numbers, Lakewood edges out Hobbton by just one — Lakewood has an ADM of 474, compared to Hobbton’s 473. That’s about as tight as it gets. And, due to my extensive research for the last decade of Sampson County sports, this is one of the best rivalries this county sees.

Out of the current 1A teams, Union leads the pack with its ADM. That school’s number is currently 505, meaning they have a little bit better of an average attendance compared to the similar schools in the county. It’s not a wide margin by any means, but it is enough to note.

These three schools — plus North Duplin and Rosewood — make up the Carolina 1A right now. Three different counties in Duplin, Sampson, and Wayne are represented by this conference. While the competition can be stiff at times, I think re-alignment will do them good and allow everyone to face some new teams, while keeping old rivalries fresh.

However, with how spread out everything is around here, I just don’t see a way not to cover multiple counties in a conference. Sampson, alone, doesn’t have enough schools to make one conference, unless that conference spanned across three divisions — and there would still have to be at least one other school from a neighboring county to make that up.

The ‘Super Sampson,’ as I dubbed it, would look kind of weird. Having Clinton, Hobbton, Lakewood, Midway, Union, and both East and West Bladen could work out in theory, but it would be far from ideal. Projections from multiple sports writers and experts have Clinton as 4A, Midway and West Bladen as 3A, and the rest as 1A. Having just one 4A school in the conference would lead to wild RPIs on both ends, mismatches, and just unfair competition in my eyes. This wouldn’t be a good fit.

One projection I saw, from Joel Bryant, has Hobbton, Lakewood, and Union in a conference against East Bladen, East Columbus, North Duplin, and West Columbus. I still don’t favor that, because for teams like Hobbton and North Duplin, that’s a drive. For Hobbton, it’s just about an hour and a half. For North Duplin, it’s a bit further. Any area teams playing that close to the South Carolina seems like a stretch. Not that area teams don’t often make long drives, but I would love to eliminate them if possible, especially for conference play.

The Gators are projected to be 1A, which would make this a split conference. I’m not big on that, but I could live with it if need be. They are also kind of out on an island of small schools in their location, without many nearby of similar size. I wouldn’t be terribly upset if things worked out to be that this conference was the one that stuck, especially if it had a really cool name like ‘Super Sampson.’

Current 2A

There are only two other public schools in the county, and they both belong to the same current classification and even the same conference. They are storied foes, with rivalries in nearly every sport. Clinton and Midway are Sampson County’s version of the Iron Bowl, The Game, Red River Rivalry, Subway Series, or any other big rivalry that is known in sports. Breaking them into different classifications is one thing, but taking them out of the same conference would be devastating to me.

I’m sure there are fans on both sides who are sick of seeing each other — I’d bet that there is a serious disdain for blue and white in Clinton, and in Spivey’s Corner, a hatred of black and gold may live strong. To say that there is no love lost between these two teams is an underselling of what the rivalry means. These folks, I’d say, would be happy not to face off against one another, at least in conference play. I’m sure they’ll still play, albeit less frequently, if they don’t land in the same conference.

They both currently play in the Southeastern Athletic Conference 6, not to be confused with the SEC at the collegiate level. These two Sampson County giants also face off against Fairmont, Red Springs, St. Pauls, and West Bladen. This conference covers a lot of distance, and sees a bit of back-and-forth action across all sports, but a shake-up is very necessary to add to the competition that these teams face. This is one of the most odd-shaped conferences in my mind. It could easily be split into two halves: east and west. Fairmont, Red Springs, and St. Pauls are all fairly close, while Clinton, Midway, and West Bladen are also relatively close to each other.

Midway’s closest in-conference opponent out of the west is still nearly an hour away, and the furthest two make for a drive over that mark. The last thing you want to do after playing an opponent for a much-needed conference game, is loading back up on the bus and making a long drive home — especially if you play a sport that plays its games on weekdays.

Here is where I disagree with Bryant’s projections, and I even oppose my own feelings. He has Clinton in a 4A-only conference with East Duplin, Eastern Wayne, North Lenoir, Southwest Onslow, Washington, and West Craven. Where are the rivalries there? I truly don’t understand that grouping, but it may be due to how other his other conferences are aligned. I will admit that my re-alignments are based solely on the happenings of the county here, and I don’t take many secondary or tertiary things into effect outside of a couple.

He has Midway grouped up with James Kenan, Kinston, South Lenoir, Spring Creek, and Wallace-Rose Hill. I think this is a great beginning to what could be a better conference. I’d rather drop Kinston, South Lenoir, and Spring Creek in favor of Clinton, Heide Trask, and Pender. That does have some long drives built-in, but sometimes with my model, they’re unavoidable. I think this would create much better competition for everyone involved, although Clinton would be the lone outlier as a projected 4A school. Which, if they do end up as 4A, I think that might shake things up for my plans, and I’ll have to re-evaluate this. But, there are much bigger disparities in the attendance of schools in projected conferences, so this might not be a doomsday scenario.

Conclusion

These scenarios are in a perfect world where the director of the NCHSAA reaches out to me personally and asks how things should be done. That won’t happen, but a man can dream. I want to preserve rivalries, while cutting down on travel times —not just for me and my team covering sports, but for the safety and well-being of the student-athletes, too. Long drives, especially at night, are not ideal. Safety should always be everyone’s utmost priority, especially when kids are involved.

My conferences aren’t perfect. I don’t pretend they are. But they offer a good shake-up of what can sometimes be stagnant conference play and gives teams new looks, and hopefully helps out their RPIs. Non-conference play also goes into effect there, but a heavy portion of a team’s season is against their conference foes.

If none of this happens, I at least tried from my perspective. If it all happens exactly like this, I’ll be sure to publish the winning lottery numbers for the next drawing, as I would be a modern-day Nostradamus.