by larrybird33 » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:05 am
I agree with the first post: the plan to move Watford City to District 14 is wrong on so many levels. The NDHSAA has to add a team to District 14 to make a seven-team district, but Watford City is not the team to be moved.
1) Proximity. It's not the closest school to District 14 or District 13. To the north, Mandaree is closer. To the east, New Salem is closer. To the southeast, Grant County is closer. Personally, I'd move New Salem to District 14. New Salem is in an eight team district and District 14 has six teams. If New Salem made the jump, both districts would have seven teams. No other teams would have to be moved. New Salem is just 25 interstate miles from Glen Ullin, 40 miles from Hazen, 45 interstate miles from Richardton, 50 miles from Beulah, and 65 interstate miles from Dickinson Trinity. On the other hand, Watford City's closest trip would be roughly 60 highway miles to Killdeer and all of their other road trips would be 90+ miles.
2) Balance. District 14 is already the toughest district in the state. Trinity and Hazen are big class B schools and perennial powers. The district recently added Beulah, one of the state's largest class B schools, when the Miners came down from class A. It's not all about enrollment and numbers though. Killdeer, R-T, and Glen Ullin-Hebron are medium-sized towns with plenty of athletic tradition. If you add Watford City, all of the sudden you have a District with 4 of the 16 largest class B enrollments in the state (based on the football divisions). There are 16 districts in the state, so really, you'd expect one big school in each district, but not four.
By contrast, Valley City (enrollment 375) will soon become the largest class B school in the state by at least 50 students, and they were put in a district where five of their six opponents will have enrollments of less than 100 students. It sure doesn't hurt VCHS that the NDHSAA is in their own backyard.
The NDHSAA should consider proximity and balance when they draw up the districts. Based on proximity and balance, there's no way that you can justify putting Watford City in District 14 or Region 7. The NDHSAA was either careless when they drew it up that way, or maybe had some kind of agenda and knew what they were doing all along.