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Saturday, August 29, 1998
High school football: A is for abundant
An AP Guest Sports Column
By JOHN KELSO
Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN -- With high school football upon us, it's time to mention
the need for Texas to eliminate the superfluous letter A from
the high school football size-ranking system.
Since all of the high school football teams in the state get
the letter A as part of their school's designation, such as in
Class 1A for the smallest schools and Class 5A for the largest,
the A means diddly. So let's get rid of it.
I don't mean to sound like Mr. Thinks He Knows Everything,
but how come every school rates an A? I suspect it's for the same
reason you never see any Grade B eggs at the grocery store. Nobody
wants to be called a Grade B egg.
Besides, since all of the high school football teams are designated
as one sort of A or another in Texas, rampant use of these A's
constitutes a serious waste of A's, which could lead to a serious
A shortage.
And think of all the trees that could be saved if newspapers
stopped printing all of these meaningless A's in sports stories
about high school football games.
Follow me closely on this one, and you'll see what I mean.
In Texas, you've got the designation 5A for high schools of
1,780 students and up; 4A for 780 to 1779 students; 3A for 345
to 779 students; 2A for 160 to 344 students; and 1A for 159 students
and fewer.
Since all schools get this A as part of their tag, why use
it? Everybody knows Texas is a Class A football state anyway.
So why not conserve A's and rate the high school teams by size
as simply Class 1 through 5?
Even Charles Breithaupt, athletic director of the University
Interscholastic League, which governs Texas high school sports,
agrees with me.
In this case, the A, he admitted, "has no significance."
"We've thought about going to something like the NHL,"
he said. The National Hockey League names its divisions after
people. For example, in the NHL there is the Smythe Division,
named after some clown named -- you got it -- Smythe.
To make it Texan, "we could have something like the Billy
Bob Division," Breithaupt said.
This whole A overload got started, Breithaupt explained, back
in the days when Texas had both Class A and Class B high school
football teams. From 1952 through 1979 Texas had Class 1A through
4A schools, along with a Class B designation for the smallest
schools.
As you can imagine, the little Class B schools crabbed because
they thought being called Class B made them sound second-rate.
"They didn't want to be B," Breithaupt said. "They
thought it was a substandard conference because of that designation."
The whole thing reminds me of churches. Ever notice how you
never see a Second Baptist Church? At some point one of these
outfits had to show up second. But none of them will admit it
because Americans have this hang-up about being first.
his is why, after football games, you never see guys marching
through the streets holding up a bunch of fingers and hollering,
"We're No. 9."
It's kind of like the deal with pizzas. Ever notice how you
can't find a "small" pizza anymore? It's all medium
and large these days. Or, if it's teeny, they label the pizza
"individually sized" so they can jack up the price and
charge $8.95 for this midget.
So since all the high schools in Texas are ranked A, why keep
the letter? Let's make A take A hike.
------
Distributed by The Associated Press
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