Avery Ehrman
Online Editor
Almost every athlete at R.J. Reynolds High School hates the feeling of traveling long distances to games, only to lose to bigger, more talented schools. These out-of-conference games only happen a few times a year but are required because we are in the same Athletic Classification.
Right now, North Carolina consists of four classifications for athletics. Each classification consists of around 64 teams, the maximum per classification. Schools are assigned by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA), based on the size of the student population in each school. RJR has around 1800 students, placing us in the largest classification: 4A. Because of this, RJR gets placed with much larger schools such as South Mecklenburg High School and Myers Park High School, both teams from Charlotte, North Carolina with student bodies over 3000.
Since the 1970’s, these four classifications have been the only ones in North Carolina. NCHSAA has chosen not to expand to more conferences since then, and we seem to be facing negative effects from this even today as RJR plays these teams from larger areas. To make up for lost time, NCHSAA has plans to expand to eight classifications beginning in 2026, reshuffling numbers and allowing teams to be placed with others closer to their student body size. With RJR’s size of around 1800, RJR will likely jump to the 7A classification along with schools such as Page and Parkland.
RJR currently competes in the Central Piedmont Conference (CPC) along with Reagan High School, Mount Tabor High School, East Forsyth High School, West Forsyth High School, Robert B. Glenn High School, and Davie County High School. When schools are reclassified, there is a chance the CPC will be split up due to the differing sizes of our student populations.
“As far as the CPC goes, it depends on what the state decides,” girls basketball head coach Thomas Eggers said. “If they’re okay with split-level conferences, they might keep the CPC together and just have Reagan as an 8A school and Reynolds as a 7A school all in the same local conference.”
Having split-level conferences would mean the CPC would remain intact, but outside of conference play, RJR would all be competing against different schools in our respective classifications.
“They could also go the route where they say no split-level conferences, in which case they would find the closest seven or eight teams that are also 7A and make a new conference based on regions,” Eggers said.
Split-level conferences are not completely unheard of as many teams in Western North Carolina use them. This means that a smaller conference, similar to the CPC, would have teams of different state classifications together simply because of the region they are in.
“Split-level conferences can get messy and cause issues, but I think it would work well for the CPC,” Eggers said. “We’re all pretty evenly matched as it is, and just changing the classification each school is in won’t change that.”
The reason these mixed conferences can lead to conflict is because of playoff seeding and brackets. Smaller conferences mean lower qualifications to even make playoffs, which can get controversial.
“When I coached at Mallard Creek, the only thing you had to do in a three-team conference to get into the playoffs was beat West Meck and beat West Charlotte,” head football coach Joe Davidyock said. “You could win one game a year and get it. And I think that’s kind of wrong, but you just can’t get around it.”
However, if a split-level conference were to be successful for the CPC, it would be favorable for RJR.
“Our playoff race will be only dependent on the people that are in our classification,” Davidyock said. “The benefit for us is that it could put us in a more favorable conference when it comes to competition level and allow us some flexibility to see some different teams.”
While nothing is set in stone, the expansion plan for North Carolina athletics holds great potential. Split-level conferences would allow greater success for individual sports and a more evenly matched playoff run. While this change is going to be a long and complicated transition, the future for RJR athletics is bright.