BY WIL CREWS
SPORTSCREWS@
OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
ALABAMA —
Alabama Independent School Association (AISA) Executive Director Roddie Beck opened the second day of local high school football media days last week and delivered an update on the state’s private school athletics.
“Whatever association you’re dealing with, we are in it for these athletes and we want them to have a positive experience,” Beck said.
The AISA services 82 schools in total and about half play athletics. The organization offers 11 sports to its student-athletes, along with two non-sanctioned sports; bass fishing and sporting clays.
Beck began his time on the podium at Media Days explaining that the AISA will feature the fall sports of cheerleading, volleyball, cross country and football. At this time, the AISA has three classifications — 1A, 2A and 3A — as well as an 8-man football league. There are 10 schools in both the 1A and 2A classifications, eight in the 3A classification and six playing 8-man football.
The AISA had a successful first season in its implementation of 8-man football last year, Beck said. He emphasized that the funding that comes from playing football is crucial to its member schools, and the option 8-man football fills a need for smaller schools in rural areas.
“Our 8-man we started last year and crowned a state champion last year,” Beck said. “I feel like if we had started our 8-man a little earlier, a couple years ago, we may have saved some of our member schools who are no longer open. A lot of our 8-man football schools are trying to get back to 11-man. But a lot of our rural area schools, the numbers are down a little bit. I think the 8-man football is a great opportunity for them to keep their doors open and keep their football program going.”
The culmination of the inaugural AISA 8-man football classification took place at Montgomery’s Cramton Bowl on Nov. 17, along with championship games in the AISA’s three 11-man football classifications. At this time, Beck said the Cramton Bowl is “home” for the championship series, despite rumors of a time-share with Troy University floating around the news.
“It went really well,” Beck said of the four championship games played at Cramton Bowl. “When you get to the state championship game, you never know what may happen. And that [8-man championship] was an outstanding football game. And we had a great crowd, so we do have people in our association supporting the 8-man football. Again, I wish we would have just started that a little earlier because it does give our schools an opportunity to continue to play football, which we all know is the money maker for your schools.”
In addition to explaining the state of athletics within the AISA, Beck issued what could be described as a call to action. Beck noted that there is an official shortage which is causing complications with scheduling football games. To remedy that, Beck said the AISA has asked member schools to, if possible, willingly schedule games on Thursday nights to better allow for an adequate number of officials to serve all weekly games.
“There is still an official shortage, not just in our area but across the nation,” Beck said. “The part that a lot of our folks don’t understand is that these guys and gals got to start somewhere, and we have to give them a chance. I stay on our coaches all the time, they want to get on our officials for a missed call, this, that and the other … you got to learn somewhere. And we want them to learn at a lower level and move them up. A lot of our officials are older gentlemen, and we don’t have other officials lined up that are wanting to take their place. The official shortage continues to be tough on high school athletics.”
Beck said if anyone is interested in becoming an official that there a link on the AISA’s website that will direct them on how to get in touch.
Lastly, with practices beginning as of Monday, Beck also mentioned that the AISA is in the process of adding three new member schools to its ranks, including Trinity Christian School in Opelika, and that the AISA has no plans as of now to move toward adding a shot clock for its high school basketball games.