Lawrence County school consolidation could change sports landscape for local teams

By Staff
Scot Beard
The 2009-10 school year could see record numbers of teams from Franklin County earning playoff berths as the proposed consolidation of Lawrence County High Schools will shrink the number of schools in Class 1A.
Suffering from budget issues, the Lawrence County Board of Education is proposing to combine Hazlewood with R.A. Hubbard, Mount Hope with Hatton and Speake with Lawrence County.
The result would be a loss of three teams from Class 1A, Region 8 for the upcoming football season and a loss of two teams in Class 1A, Area 15 for basketball, baseball and softball.
"In the past if a school closed in the middle of a classification period, they would be removed from other schedules and the region would retain the new number of schools," said Ron Ingram, director of communications for the Alabama High School Athletic Association.
He said when two schools combine the school that becomes the new campus retains its schedule. This means R.A. Hubbard, Hatton and Lawrence County will keep their schedules.
Consolidation has not been made official, and opposition to the plan is strong, so there is still a chance Hazlewood, Mount Hope and Speake will still be competing next season.
"Teams in Region 8 will lose (three) games and have to make them up somehow," Ingram said.
Darit Riddle, Tharptown's principal, said the region's coaches have gotten together and decided to make up the lost games by playing region opponents twice.
"The first game is for the region standings," Riddle said. "The second game will be for the gate."
In the solution, Tharptown will play Vina, Phillips and Shoals Christian twice.
Attempts to find out which other schools Vina would play twice were unsuccessful.
The consolidation, from an athletic standpoint, has its advantages and disadvantages for the upcoming season.
The biggest advantage would be less competition for playoff spots. The biggest disadvantage would be schools growing in size competing against schools with smaller enrollment.
In the latest reclassification, the AHSAA released the following numbers as the enrollments for the schools.
Lawrence County has 395.1 students; Hatton has 180.55 students; Speake has 117.65 students; Hazlewood has 105.2 students; Mount Hope has 69.25 students and R.A. Hubbard has 62 students.
The new enrollments, according to these numbers would be Lawrence County with 512.75 students, Hatton with 249.8 and R.A. Hubbard with 167.2 students.
This would move all three schools to a higher class, but since it is in the middle of a classification period, the schools will retain their current classes.
In Class 1A, the class R.A. Hubbard will remain in, Belgreen is listed as having 113.65 students, Vina is listed with 76.6 students and Tharptown is listed as having 70.55.
In Class 2A, the class Hatton will be in, Phil Campbell is listed with 205.05 students and Red Bay is listed with 191.15 students.
Russellville, in Class 5A, is listed with 479.4 students.
Ingram concedes there will be an advantage in numbers, but that might not translate to success on the field.
"There is a disadvantage in the kids that have not played together before," Ingram said.
Ingram did say after the 2009-10 school year the state would reclassify schools to take make the regions and areas more competitive.
For now, however, the new Class 1A, Region 8 in football will have R.A. Hubbard, Phillips, Shoals Christian, Tharptown, Vina and Waterloo while Class 1A, Area 15 for basketball, baseball and softball will consist of Belgreen, Phillips, Tharptown and Vina.
Area 15 will guarantee Franklin County will have one team reach the playoffs in baseball and softball while one team will make the sub-regional round of the basketball playoffs.