Once upon a time, the Southwest District was the largest league by far within the VHSL. Beginning with statewide reclassification in 1970 and continuing throughout the decade, the membership roster of the district was extremely stable and comprised of the following ten schools:
Abingdon, Gate City, Graham, Grundy, John Battle, Marion, Patrick Henry, Richlands, Tazewell, and Virginia High
As most of these schools already had longstanding relationships with one another (Graham, Grundy, Richlands, and Tazewell have identified themselves as part of the SWD by name since approximately 1956), the lineup was very favorable from an operational standpoint. For example, athletic directors had the luxury of putting together football schedules with nine out of ten opponents guaranteed on an annual basis, and the luxury to continue popular (and profitable) non-district matchups such as Virginia High-Tennessee High and Graham vs. Bluefield.
Region IV was also a model of efficiency, as its membership was contained within two districts (the SWD and the New River). The format for playoffs at the regional level was a simple two-round affair. The champions of the New River District and SWD were paired against the runners-up from the other league, with the winners going on to determine the Region IV championship.
Things hummed along nicely for a time in the area, both in terms of athletic administration as well as economically. Several schools actually witnessed significant increases in enrollment during the decade. In fact, Richlands flirted with numbers at the apex of that trend which would have pushed the Blues to membership within Group AAA (a logistical nightmare well beyond what Carroll County is facing currently). Of greater note was the growth in enrollment taking place at our neighbor to the south – Lebanon. While Richlands never met the requirements which would have mandated a move up to Group AAA, Lebanon was ultimately mandated to find a new home in Group AA after toeing the line for many years in the Lonesome Pine District. The SWD was the only logical option, although it became immediately apparent that this could not be any kind of a longterm solution.
The addition of Lebanon in 1980 swelled the ranks of SWD membership to eleven teams. Obviously, this had major impact upon the district’s operations. The most prominent obstacle related to scheduling. Although it would have been conceivable to play a football slate comprised entirely of district opponents, administrators were not keen on the notion of giving up the lucrative non-district games of the type mentioned previously. Whether this objection was related more to economics or politics is highly debatable. Abingdon had scheduled the Pioneers as their non-district football opponent for several seasons prior to the expansion. But otherwise, the Pioneers had very few direct relationships with their new peers in the SWD.
Ultimately a compromise was reached which had far-reaching negative consequences – to preserve the ability to play a non-district game, each member school would continue to play a 9 game district schedule by “dropping” another school based on the previous year’s standings. There was at least one occasion in which a school played a schedule comprised entirely of SWD members (and I believe it was John Battle), but one of the games didn’t count toward the standings for the district championship.
Basketball operations were even more chaotic. The previous 10-team league membership still allowed for an equitable mix of guaranteed opponents and participation in compelling non-district matchups within an overall 20-game schedule. Expansion beyond ten proved to be untenable in several ways. Although somewhat less controversial than in football, the desire to preserve non-district matchups precluded the notion of SWD members playing a schedule comprised entirely of non-district teams.
The compromise used to resolve that issue had much more significant ramifications. For scheduling purposes, the district was effectively split into two “divisions.” One was geographically tied to the I-81 corridor and contained six schools (Abingdon, Gate City, John Battle, Marion, Patrick Henry, and Virginia High). The other contained the four historical core members (Graham, Grundy, Richlands, and Tazewell) plus Lebanon. The format for scheduling under this arrangement meant that schools played every member of their “division” twice and each school from the other “division” once. Effectively, this created an inequity in the number of district games played by schools from each division. The “I-81” schools played 16 games, while the others only played 15. This was a critical issue during the 1984-85 boys basketball season, when Richlands finished 13-2 and Abingdon finished 14-2. Although the Blues had a superior overall record (the two district losses were their only regular season setbacks), Abingdon was named the regular season champion (and given the associated automatic berth in the regional playoffs) with the explanation that they had won one more game than Richlands. This action was taken by vote of the membership, with a predictable split of 6 to 5 along divisional lines (a common development from 1980 to 1986). Similar politically-charged situations evolved in other sports, particularly when decisions were made about honors such as all-district teams.
Other examples of inefficiency included the difficulty in scheduling tournament brackets. To promote simplicity and provide incentive for competition, only the top 8 schools qualified for the SWD basketball tournament during much of this time. Although the Blues developed a formidable hoops program beginning under the tenure of Reggie Blevins as head coach, Richlands was in a definite mode of rebuilding (to put it charitably) in the early years of the 11-team SWD. In fact, Richlands hosted the tournament one year despite the fact that the Blues did not even play in any part of the event itself.
After six years of inefficiency, politics, and growing animosity, administrators of the six schools nearest to I-81 voted to withdraw and form the Highlands District in 1986. This forever changed the landscape of Region IV. In addition, as economic and demographic factors affected enrollment in Southwest Virginia, a pronounced trend emerged in which Group AA schools began to drop to Group A at a significant pace. Further complicating matters was the decision to split each statewide Group into two “divisions” for state championship considerations which coincidentally took effect in 1986.
Because of George Orwell’s eponymous novel, 1984 was the source of a lot of media attention back in the day. However, 1986 is the year when everything changed for high school athletics at the Group AA level in Southwest Virginia.