In an interview with the athletic director at Shiloh School in Springdale, the Blackhawks former district opponent in the 4A-1 Conference, it was announced that Shiloh will again be a member of the league when the current cycle ends in June 2014.
Citing travel concerns, the private school will not petition the Arkansas Activities Association to remain a member of the 5A classification as they did two years ago before the current two-year cycle took effect. Boasting of their ability to be successful on any level of competition, the Springdale private had far less of the success that they had enjoyed while a member of the 4A-1.
Their desire to move up to 5A was precipitated when they were assigned 3A classification two years ago and they balked at the idea of playing in the smaller and much less glamorous 3A-1 District. They were also unhappy that the seven other members of the 4A-1 voted to exclude Shiloh from participating in district junior high events and activities two years prior which led to their decision to move to 5A.
Parents and supporters of the school have been known to have been very unhappy with how that move turned out with the greatly increased travel time required to attend games that were much further away than were games with members of the 3A-1 or 4A-1 districts. All the extra travel along with the much less successful athletic programs made their move back to 4A almost a foregone conclusion.
The schools voted to exclude Shiloh from junior high competition due to their unfair advantage they had gained in their recruitment of star athletes from other schools even going out of state to pull in some.
Their abusive treatmentof Berryville in a varsity football game where they mocked and derided the Bobcats while piling up a huge margin of victory got the ball rolling that eventually paved the way for their exit out of the 4A-1.
Schools may not vote to exclude high schools assigned to their district with the penalty being that no school from that district being allowed to participate in state playoffs or competition. When member schools realized that since junior high competition had no state playoffs, they could vote Shiloh out of the junior conference without penalty, which they did. With Huntsville being forced to move up to 5A for that cycle, the Eagles were more than happy to remain in 4A for the junior high seasons while the varsity competing in 5A. While a school being in two different classifications at the same time is highly unusual, in Arkansas at least, it is legal.
In the meantime, the AAA worked hard and long to defuse the situation and came up with a new rule that states that any student transferring into a private school had to sit out a year of competition before becoming eligible. This immediately ended Shiloh’s strategy of enticing senior athletes to transfer in and it also has had a very chilling effect on other area athletes who might otherwise succumb to the private school’s tempting offers.
Unlike college, when you miss a year of athletic competition, you can’t make it up later. You just have to miss a whole year of competing which is quite a lot to ask of any youngster.
Of course, Shiloh can still recruit on the elementary level. Several of our own grade school sports stars have been approached by Shiloh boosters over the years with offers to attend school down south. Happily, none have done so.
While they can’t go around raiding other schools’ talent as they once did, their immensely impressive facilities and deep pockets in attaining coaching talent will likely mean that they will never be a low performing school athletically speaking. They will have to get them early and train them to be successful, like all the other private schools have done in the state.
With Farmington moving up to 5A, I personally hope they (the 4A-1) extend an invitation to the Cardinals to remain in the 4A for junior high competition.
Going up to 5A will force the Cards to either expend a lot of time and money in travel, or opti to play in the northwest Arkansas big boy schools league with all the junior highs in Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, etc With the way our local school is growing, perhaps we might be facing a move up ourselves some day but, hopefully, other schools in northwest Arkansas might go up with us, the way the whole area is growing.
These past two years playing with schools on the same level with the same basic programs has been nice. Dealing with arrogance, condescension, less than sportsmanlike behavior is not something I look forward to going back to.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 8 on 06/12/2013