Apples won’t have to compete against oranges to win state championships in South Carolina high school sports past this school year thanks to the S.C. High School League’s Executive Committee, which last week approved a competitive balance proposal that will level the playing field for traditional public schools competing with private and charter schools who aren’t bound by attendance zones.
The executive committee voted 12-4 to approve a “multiplier-times-three” for every student who lives outside of its attendance zone — a policy that will apply across the board, though it will have the largest effect on private and charter schools, which have dominated the Class 2A and 1A divisions in recent years.
The ruling corrects an imbalance that has been an issue for some time but has recently become untenable. Schools such as Oceanside Collegiate Academy in Mount Pleasant and Gray Collegiate Academy in Columbia have become powerhouses in Class 2A, competing against small-town rural schools such as Hampton County and Ridgeland-Hardeeville, while the likes of Southside Christian, Christ Church Episcopal, and St. Joseph’s Catholic have racked up titles in Class 1A by dominating tiny rural schools like Whale Branch.
To that point, the best high school football story in the state — if not the country — is unfolding in Hampton County, where the Hurricanes have parlayed the consolidation of two communities and schools into a perfect storm, roaring to a 12-1 record and earning a trip to the Class 2A Lower State championship game. Combined with Patrick Henry Academy’s run to the SCISA 1A title — the school’s first since 1994 — this football season has provided a much-needed distraction from the tragic and traumatic story that continues to cast Hampton County in a negative light through national media.
In order for the Hurricanes to win it all, they’ll have to go through Oceanside Collegiate, the powerhouse Mount Pleasant charter school that is a magnet for high-level athletes throughout the greater Charleston area, which claims a population of around 750,000 (nearly 100K in Mount Pleasant alone). Hampton County’s population is south of 20K. In the entire county.
Nonetheless, this Hampton team is loaded with generational talent that has been developed and cultivated by an outstanding coaching staff. The ‘Canes are united in a true spirit of brotherhood that cannot be imitated or replaced. They are confident they can win Friday, in spite of the odds.
And if they do? They’ll either face Gray Collegiate Academy — another charter cleaning up in Columbia — or go toe-to-toe with another giant-killer in perennial power Abbeville.
If the latter comes to pass and the Hurricanes and Panthers both beat the long odds, it will prompt some to argue the coming changes are unnecessary and too drastic, but don’t hear it.
Next year, this dilemma will be moot. Here’s to hoping two gritty underdogs can usher in a new era earlier than expected.