By Terry Cookston
Herald-Banner Sports
The University Interscholastic League released its 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 Reclassification and Realignment of football and basketball districts on Monday, and as usual featured numerous changes and surprises.
Rockwall and Rockwall-Heath will remain in District 10-4A for the next two athletic years along with Highland Park and Richardson Pearce. Joining the four returning teams will be former Class 5A Wylie, first-year Wylie East, McKinney and McKinney North to make up the new eight-team District 10-4A.
Royse City and Greenville will move to District 13-4A with Sulphur Springs, Mount Pleasant, Sherman, Denison and Texarkana Texas High in one of the biggest travel districts.
Current 10-4A members Carrollton Newman Smith and Carrollton R.L. Turner will move to District 9-4A with Carrollton Creekview, Frisco, Frisco Centennial, Frisco Heritage, Frisco Liberty and Frisco Wakeland.
Enrollment cutoff numbers used for UIL realignment were 2065-and-up for Class 5A, 990-2064 for Class 4A, 430-989 for Class 3A, 200-429 for Class 2A, 199-and-below for Class A and 99.9-and-below for 6-Man.
Rockwall turned in 2045 and Heath 1965.
The 2010-2012 Realignment and Reclassification marks the first time in the last 20 years the UIL cutoff numbers actually dropped.
Appeals may be made on assigned districts, but must be made by February 11th and will be heard at a scheduled meeting on February 18th.
According to RCISD head coach Greg Strahm, Royse City won't appeal its new alignment even though it will take approximately two hours drive time to Texarkana and more than one hour to Sherman, Denison and Mount Pleasant.
RISD athletic director Scott Smith joined most of the area's high school coaches and ADs at the Birdville ISD Athletic Complex to watch the new realignments and classifications on three large projection screens and to work on setting up new non-district games.
"I'm really excited about the new district," said Smith. "We really won't know for sure until we get into it, but geographically it's good."
Both Rockwall and Heath are actively working on new non-district schedules for the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons. "We have a good idea now," said Smith. "But, everything's not totally set yet."
District 10-4A Teams
for 2010-2012
Teams Previous
Rockwall 10-4A
Rockwall-Heath 10-4A
Highland Park 10-4A
Richardson Pearce 10-4A
Wylie 8-5A
Wylie East 1st Yr.
McKinney 9-4A
McKinney North 9-4A
