SACCO: Injustice of split is lack of equality

When reporters surrounded Ken Tilley during halftime of the Hidden Valley-Greensville County Group AA girls basketball semifinal in March, the VHSL’s executive director knew what was coming.

Word had gotten out that, hours earlier, the Group AA committee voted to follow in Group A’s flawed footsteps and split its basketball championships into two divisions. Everybody smart enough not to walk out of the media room for the news conference knew it was coming and Tilley, who looked like he was walking to his execution as he sat in front of the mass of notepads, pens and tape recorders, was well aware of the grilling he was going to get.

It’s no secret: The media types didn’t like the split and a few of the savvy old-school coaches didn’t either.

The tearing of Group A into two divisions for basketball was labeled an experiment, but that’s like saying paying $3.75 for a gallon of gas is just a quick fix to see if fewer people will drive. Sorry, but both are here to stay. So let us moan and complain all we want, but tears and frowns won’t fill up your car for 15 bucks, nor will it turn things back to the way they used to be when it comes to high school sports.

The Group A split wasn’t a complete failure. It provided some great stories. It helped Buffalo Gap enjoy its second state title in as many seasons when the girls basketball team showed the Bison football team that, hey, they could win this whole thing too.

It also gave Bland County, a school with a whopping 180 students, the chance to pack up two rickety yellow school buses and travel across Interstate 64. It was a scene straight out of Mayberry. You wouldn’t have shot a second glance if you saw Barney Fife driving the Bland County Sheriff’s Department Ford Explorer that escorted the country caravan. The Bland fans were just as loud as the others and, despite a group of girls suddenly becoming the dartboard for all to target for everything wrong with the split — the Bears entered the Group A, Division 1 semifinals with a 14-14 record — their fans were defiantly happy to be in Richmond.

“Well, that’s a bunch of bullcrap,” Bland senior Dakotah Crouse said to all the naysayers. “We’re here. They’re not.”

But the questions for Tilley were obvious. Where’s the equality? Why do basketball and football only get the shot for two state champs per group? What about soccer? Tennis anyone? Golf? Baseball, softball and volleyball? Do those Final Fours make as much money as the roundball and the pigskin? That’s a no, which means no dice and no extra love for “minor sports.”

Riverheads girls soccer, a Shenandoah District powerhouse for years, lost its shot at a trip to states last season by falling 3-1 to George Mason in the Region B semifinals. If soccer were split, the two teams would have never met, with Mason classified as a Division 2 school in basketball and football and Riverheads in Division 1.

That’s life when you’re outside the big-buck sports and forced to look in, and that is the ultimate problem with this split. We can’t turn the clock back to 1978; what’s done is done, whether it’s for the better or, in this case, the worse. And when Tilley was asked about equality at the Siegel Center, you saw it in his face as he took a deep breath and chose his words carefully before answering.

“The main reluctance on the part of the schools is, ‘Do we go too fast?’ ” he said. “ ‘Let’s make sure we do it right.’ ”

With Group AA’s official vote May 8, they didn’t do it right. They did move too fast. How else can you explain bowing down to basketball, then turning to other athletes and saying, “No. Not yours.”

Injustice isn’t having more state titles or enjoying an easier road to the Final Four, it’s slapping the other sports in the face and hoping they won’t punch back.

Here’s hoping they do, because, right about now, Group AA deserves to have its clock cleaned. It chose money over fairness, a below-the-belt shot to so-called minor sports that deserves a response.