[New] Realignment and restructuring

It seems odd to say, but even before league play begins in earnest this January, I already feel wistful about losing what will amount to a number of exciting rivalries—both basketball and otherwise—that will be torn asunder next year due to the reclassification of teams in New York State.

There’s going to be a lot of change next year with the NYSPHSAA’s new classification system. While it’s too comprehensive to get into here, suffice it to say that Section I is going to look a lot different in the coming years. Depending on the sports, we’ll see mainstays in certain classifications moving up or down, depending on enrollment, upending the normal order of things. Smaller Class A football powers like Rye will find themselves playing (mostly) Class B schedules next year, while larger Class

A hoops squads will have to test their mettle against traditional AA powers. Leagues that have been in existence for years—at least as long as I’ve been working at the paper—will be reshuffled, and we’ll all be force to get used to a “new normal.”

Which is not to say this is necessarily a bad thing; we’ve seen teams move up and down in class before, and eventually those new homes just start to feel right. But it will take some time for people who have been following these teams for upwards of a decade; change can be unsettling, after all, especially for older people—such as yours truly—who get set in their ways.

Kids, on the other hand, are much more adaptable. By the middle of the fall season next year, one can only assume they’ll be locked into their new current situations, hardly giving a through to how things were run in previous years. As long as certain games remain scheduled outside of the traditional class and league structure—such as ‘The Game’ between Harrison and Rye—will our student-athletes give these shake-ups more than a passing thought?

Like many things these days, we’re going to have to take a “wait and see” approach. These new classifications may be a godsend; they might level the playing field, so to speak, and allow for competitive games to be played across all school sizes in New York State. At the same time, they may put some of these programs— especially those being force to play against larger schools—in tough position, where it will take time to adjust to playing against new opponents.

In the meantime, what is there to do? Not much, really. We can simply chug along this year and appreciate the current system for what it is. It reminds me in many ways of the shifts in NCAA conferences, most notably how the Big East was—for many years— decimated when several larger schools left the traditional hoops heavy conference to seek glory— and money—in the football sphere.

It pained me in many ways to see these traditional rivalries fall by the wayside in the name of progress, but now, it’s just the way things are. With this, too, we will get there. It just may take a little time.