CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- State Board of Education member Lowell Johnson last week voted against a proposal to create a fourth competitive class within the Secondary School Activities Commission.
He wasn't alone. The measure to create another football and basketball classification was voted down 8-0.
Unlike several other members who voted against adding more teams to the football playoffs and extending the State Tournaments to a full week, however, Johnson's chief reason was elsewhere.
"There are a number of counties that are still consolidating schools, and quite honestly we're not building enough new schools that I think would justify the real need (for a fourth class)," Johnson said last month.
Class A schools -- as they have long been identified, at least -- are indeed disappearing from the state landscape.
The list of consolidation victims is considerable: Duval, Guyan Valley, Hamlin, Harts, Gauley Bridge, Baileysville, Oceana, Marsh Fork, Vinson, Ceredo-Kenova, Mullens, Pineville, Franklin, Circleville, Athens, Bramwell, Peterstown, Union (Monroe), Sistersville and Tyler County have all closed their doors since the spring of 1993.
Those schools combined to win 29 football and 28 basketball titles. Several of those 57 championships were won by Ceredo-Kenova and Mullens high schools in Class AA.
The 40 public schools that remain in Class A have combined to win 33 championships in the two aforementioned sports; 19 in football and 14 in boys basketball.
As small schools with successful athletic programs have gone by the wayside, the state has seen a rise in championships won by private schools.
More titles are walking out the Class A door by the end of the decade.
The creation of Mingo Central High School, to open near Red Jacket in 2010, will close longtime football powers Matewan and Gilbert, as well as former basketball powerhouses Williamson and Burch. The four schools have combined to win nine championships in basketball and four in football.
"It's been difficult just because of the numbers," Williamson boys basketball Coach Curt Fletcher said of the decline in enrollment at his school in the past decade.
Williamson has 109 students in grades 10-12.
"A lot of kids have two participate in every sport for us to be competitive and that becomes a numbers problem," Fletcher said. "We may be able to compete with anybody with our first four or five players, but after that depth makes it a lot more difficult."
The Wolfpack has won six state basketball championships, most recently in 2001. Williamson won four titles in the 1980s, and its last basketball crown was the last one claimed by a public school in Class A.
The combined grades 10-12 enrollment of the four schools is 674, which would place it between Lincoln County and Lewis County in the lower end of the current Class AAA list.
Fletcher said he expects many students in the Williamson area to transfer to Belfry (Ky.) High.
"They just rebuilt that school and it's right across the (Tug) river and they've got Astroturf on the football field and everything," Fletcher said. "I figure a lot of kids will go there instead of going out in the middle of nowhere."
The new school is part of a movement to modernize the state's southern counties. Construction of the King Coal and Tolsia highways, planned to replace U.S. 52 between Bluefield and Kenova through the southern coalfields, began in 1999.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- State Board of Education member Lowell Johnson last week voted against a proposal to create a fourth competitive class within the Secondary School Activities Commission.
He wasn't alone. The measure to create another football and basketball classification was voted down 8-0.
Unlike several other members who voted against adding more teams to the football playoffs and extending the State Tournaments to a full week, however, Johnson's chief reason was elsewhere.
"There are a number of counties that are still consolidating schools, and quite honestly we're not building enough new schools that I think would justify the real need (for a fourth class)," Johnson said last month.
Class A schools -- as they have long been identified, at least -- are indeed disappearing from the state landscape.
The list of consolidation victims is considerable: Duval, Guyan Valley, Hamlin, Harts, Gauley Bridge, Baileysville, Oceana, Marsh Fork, Vinson, Ceredo-Kenova, Mullens, Pineville, Franklin, Circleville, Athens, Bramwell, Peterstown, Union (Monroe), Sistersville and Tyler County have all closed their doors since the spring of 1993.
Those schools combined to win 29 football and 28 basketball titles. Several of those 57 championships were won by Ceredo-Kenova and Mullens high schools in Class AA.
The 40 public schools that remain in Class A have combined to win 33 championships in the two aforementioned sports; 19 in football and 14 in boys basketball.
As small schools with successful athletic programs have gone by the wayside, the state has seen a rise in championships won by private schools.
More titles are walking out the Class A door by the end of the decade.
The creation of Mingo Central High School, to open near Red Jacket in 2010, will close longtime football powers Matewan and Gilbert, as well as former basketball powerhouses Williamson and Burch. The four schools have combined to win nine championships in basketball and four in football.
"It's been difficult just because of the numbers," Williamson boys basketball Coach Curt Fletcher said of the decline in enrollment at his school in the past decade.
Williamson has 109 students in grades 10-12.
"A lot of kids have two participate in every sport for us to be competitive and that becomes a numbers problem," Fletcher said. "We may be able to compete with anybody with our first four or five players, but after that depth makes it a lot more difficult."
The Wolfpack has won six state basketball championships, most recently in 2001. Williamson won four titles in the 1980s, and its last basketball crown was the last one claimed by a public school in Class A.
The combined grades 10-12 enrollment of the four schools is 674, which would place it between Lincoln County and Lewis County in the lower end of the current Class AAA list.
Fletcher said he expects many students in the Williamson area to transfer to Belfry (Ky.) High.
"They just rebuilt that school and it's right across the (Tug) river and they've got Astroturf on the football field and everything," Fletcher said. "I figure a lot of kids will go there instead of going out in the middle of nowhere."
The new school is part of a movement to modernize the state's southern counties. Construction of the King Coal and Tolsia highways, planned to replace U.S. 52 between Bluefield and Kenova through the southern coalfields, began in 1999.
Another consolidation, just southeast of Mingo County in McDowell County, is planned for the next three years. Iaeger, which will drop to Class A for the first time this school year, will be combined with Big Creek to form that new school near Bradshaw.
Elsewhere, Fayette County schools have also become the discussion of consolidation talk. Fayette County has five schools in Class A, and Gauley Bridge High closed in 2006.
"They'd probably look at putting Fayetteville, Valley and Midland Trail together," said SSAC Executive Director Gary Ray, himself a Fayette County native from Oak Hill. "Meadow Bridge is out in left field by itself and is closer to Greenbrier West."
Ray said the possibility of a regional school to triangulate the school districts of Meadow Bridge, Greenbrier West and Summers County could provide a resolution to Meadow Bridge's geographic isolation.
"I'd say 30 or 40 of them already go to Summers because it's closer," Ray said of students living in the Meadow Bridge district.
The nine Class A schools in Mingo and Fayette counties include five of the 11 smallest football-playing schools in the class.
The logic of the SSAC classification system dictates that as Class A schools disappear through consolidation, they are replaced by the smallest of the Class AA schools.
"You're going to see more of those schools that are currently in double-A drop down," said Valley (Wetzel) football Coach Tom West, who returned to coaching this summer after six years in retirement. West led the Lumberjacks to five Class A runner-up finishes in the 1990s.
Valley has an enrollment of 182 students in its top three grades. The idea of his team and other smaller programs competing for playoff position and championships against schools such as Wetzel County Class AA member Magnolia is laughable to West.
"It's unreasonable, and the way things are going it's only going to get worse," West said.
One local member of the middle class would seem to be a prime candidate for such a move as its enrollment continues to decrease.
"We've just gradually lost a lot of our enrollment in the last few years," said Poca football Coach Bob Lemley, who led the Dots to three consecutive Class AA titles from 2001-2003.
Poca, a regular playoff qualifier in football for decades and the 1997 Class AA state champion in basketball, currently has 401 students in grades 10-12. It ranks as the 11th-smallest school in the class.
"A lot of it has just been to the west side of the (Kanawha) river, to Winfield and Hurricane, but we're still losing them," Lemley said of the migration of students away from Poca.
A drop in class by schools such as Poca, Magnolia (344 students), Tyler Consolidated (354) or Ritchie County (375) could add some cache to a variety of Class A sports among both girls and boys. It would also add more disparity between the largest and smallest schools there.
"In the last five years I think the best competition has been in Class A," Fletcher said. "You've got a lot of double-As that aren't double-As anymore playing in single-A, which has of course made it more difficult for the smallest schools, but I think overall it's the strongest of the classes."
Richwood, South Harrison, Williamstown, St. Marys, Iaeger, Man and Tucker County spent all or some of the 1990s as members of Class AA. Those schools represent seven of the 10 largest Class A schools in 2008.
--Contact sportswriter Derek Taylor at derek.tay...@dailymail.com or 348-5170.
