MIDVALE, Utah – The Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) released the latest realignment for high school athletics on Thursday.
It’s a process that takes place every two years in an effort to promote the best match-ups for prep sports across the state.
The three major factors that are considered when deciding realignment are; competitiveness (associated with enrollment changes), travel costs and preserving traditional rivalries.
The realignment announced Thursday will take effect in fall of 2013 and run through spring of 2015. It is a daunting task during which the governing body for high school sports tries to find the best compromises, but admits that it’s nearly impossible to please everyone, but they try.
“We had a public hearing where several schools came in, districts came in, gave their wish lists so to speak and through the public hearing all that information was taken into consideration as the made their final consideration into realignment” said UHSAA Executive Director Rob Cuff following the announcement.
“Obviously there are some schools that are more happy than others. There are some slight adjustments, there are a few major adjustments but for the most part the major adjustments only deal with those who have maybe gotten a lot bigger in size or a lot smaller in size over the last couple of years.”
Among the more significant changes, Bingham returns to more traditional match-ups in Region 3 (Alta, Bingham Brighton, Copper Hills, Jordan West, Jordan) after spending a stint in region 4, comprised mostly of schools in Utah County.
Corner Canyon, which begins athletic play in the fall of 2013 will be placed in Region 7 (Corner Canyon, Mountain View, Murray, Olympus, Orem, Skyline, Timpanogos).
And for football only, there will be a Class 3A and Class 3AA in order to strike a balance between travel costs and competitive play.
