With HS football realignment, ‘convenient world’ ends for Charlotte area schools

Olympic High football coach Brandon Thompson said Charlotte-Mecklenburg high school sports fans have been living “in a convenient world” for years.

And now that world is changing, Thompson said.

“If you were a fan of a CMS school, you knew that a conference game would be against another CMS school,” Thompson said. “It was a short drive, most of the time. And it was a school you knew.”

For three CMS schools — Olympic, Berry Academy and Harding — there’s a new reality this year, thanks to the statewide realignment for N.C. High School Athletic Association schools.

Coaches of the three schools say this new reality could be a mixed blessing that will require some readjustment.

The expansion from four to eight size classifications left the three schools classified as 6A . The other 18 CMS football-playing schools are either 7A or 8A. So when it came time to draw up new conferences, Olympic, Berry and Harding found themselves in a new world.

While the other bigger CMS schools compete in any of three all-Mecklenburg conferences, the three 6A schools are now members of the Greater Metro 6A/7A Conference, with five Cabarrus County schools — A.L. Brown, Central Cabarrus, Cox Mill, Hickory Ridge and West Cabarrus.

Also making a move is Charlotte Catholic, which is part of the Southern Carolinas 6A/7A Conference, with six Union County Schools.

“Our fans will have to adjust to the idea of driving more than a few miles to games,” Thompson said.

There’s the positive ...

The three CMS schools involved in the change are embracing what they see as the positive impact.

“The schools are more our size,” said second-year Berry Academy football coach Darius Robinson. “Our kids have been talking about how they appreciate playing schools that are our size.”

Harding coach Terrance Cunningham Jr., who became interim head coach midway in the 2024 season before getting the job on a full-time basis, added, “Last year was pretty tough. Some of the schools in our conference had 1,000 more students than we did.”

Olympic was able to handle the size disparity in football, finishing 8-3 last season. But Berry Academy (3-7) and Harding (1-9) had tough times, as was the case for both schools most recent seasons.

“I see this as a fresh start for our program,” Robinson said. “We’ll be going against schools our size and facing new teams. We won’t see those schools until September or October, and that will give us time to get some film on them.”

The coaches see other positives.

Cunningham has a personal reason for embracing the change.

“My dad was a quarterback at A.L. Brown,”: he said. “I know they have a historic program up there. The whole town of Kannapolis turns out on a Friday night. It’s an event. And I think it’ll be a great experience for our guys.”

Robinson added, “What an atmosphere they have at A.L. Brown! It’ll be a great football Friday night.”

The realignment also revived a neighborhood rivalry between Berry Academy and Harding. The two schools were in separate conferences the last four years and didn’t play each other. Now they’re members of the same conference.

“We didn’t play Berry the last few years,” Cunningham said. “But now the Battle of Alleghany (Avenue) is back. Having that rivalry will be good for our players.”

... and the negative

But the three coaches see some potential pitfalls too.

Teams from the three schools will have longer bus rides to conference home games. Robinson said Olympic’s longest conference road trip in recent years was to Ardrey Kell. Now the school’s teams will have a 40-mile journey to Kannapolis. In peak traffic, that could take an hour or even more.

“For junior varsity basketball, that means leaving school pretty early,” he said.

Junior varsity girls’ basketball games typically begin around 3 or 3:30 p.m.

But the bigger adjustment will be with fans. The three coaches said games against familiar CMS opponents helped attendance. They wonder if fans will still be willing to show up to see teams they’re not familiar with.

“These schools have really good programs,” Berry’s Robinson said. “We’ll have to make sure our fans understand that.”

Olympic’s Thompson said he has talked with school officials about the potential impact on attendance.

“We’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “But either way, this is our new reality. We will work with it.”

“We’ll talk to our parents about continuing their support,” he added. “I suspect the Cabarrus teams’ fans will be willing to travel. They’re accustomed to it. Our fans will have to get used to it.

“We’ll need them — home and away.”

Even longer distances

The NCHSAA realignment has left several of the area’s smaller schools facing even longer travels.

Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy, Mountain Island Charter and Thomas Jefferson Academy are the only three football-playing members of the Catawba River 1A/2A/3A Conference. They asked to be placed in a league with schools from Gaston, Cleveland and Lincoln counties but instead were assigned to a “hybrid” league with five schools from the Yadkin Valley 1A/2A/3A.

The one-way distance from North Rowan, at one end of the league’s geographic footprint, to Thomas Jefferson Academy, west of Shelby, is about 110 miles.

“We’re closer to the middle, between the two edges of our conference,” said Mountain Island Charter coach Robert Washington. “But even we’ll be doing some driving. It could be an hour and a half to some of the schools.”

“I feel the gate (attendance revenue) is the issue,” Washington said. “Are fans going to be willing to travel those long distances to games.”

“We have some really good fans,” Washington added. “They’re very loyal, and they’re willing to travel. But I don’t know if they’ll be willing to do all this traveling.”

That’s what worries Chad Little, head football coach at North Stanly. His fans will have to drive 102 miles from their school to Thomas Jefferson Academy.

“We’ll still have our games against the Stanly County schools,” Little said. “But teams in our football conference will have to learn to deal with long bus rides.”

North Stanly defensive back Cam Brown said he has mixed feelings about the new conference.

“I like playing new people,” he said. “I like the new schools — but not the drive.”