UIL Realignment: The day after

February 4th, 2008, 6:38 pm · Post a Comment · posted by wbaker

Well, realignment is in the books for another two years. It’s my second one of these, and it seems like I’ve learned to appreciate the day more this year. Even though it was around 8 a.m. when I arrived, as the room began to fill up with coaches from across the Rio Grande Valley — and a few from outside — the electricity began to build.

I mean, how often can you find Tom Chavez, Dave Evans, Joe Solis, Tony Harris, Fred Sanchez (at your far left), Mario Pena, Jim Helms, Mel Rios and Tony Villarreal in the same room at the same time? And this place was crazy. It’s like the stockmarket for football coaches. It’s a guys place. It’s a gym, minus the sweat, weights and eye candy, as I mentioned in today’s column.

And, as for the actual realignment, it did nothing to make it interesting this year. But the key here, is that even though it lacked the fireworks when the magic box, as they called it, was opened at 9 a.m., you still have the feeling that this was the place to be on Friday.

Here’s some of the keys from Friday:
>> Mission High remains a 4A school, and is proud of it.
>> There’s one 3A Valley district. I’d like to personally thank the UIL. You guys in Austin have no clue how much easier you made my job of budgeting coverage next season.
>> Weslaco and Donna will not play. What? That’s right, Tony V. and Manny Moreno can’t lose their jobs because of losing to their archrival during the next two years.
>> Laredo, our South Texas neighbor, experienced a bit of shock. The UIL split their schools up, creating a 5A and 4A district and a lot more travel. The keyword out of Laredo was “shock.” Read this story by the Laredo Morning Times’ Dennis Silva, which says that the Laredo schools plan to appeal the realignment to the UIL.