We’ve all done it before. You sit down and try to make a grocery list and you missed a key item. Sure enough, once you get home from the store you have entirely too much of one thing and are completely missing another. Unfortunately, that is what happened to areas schools during their last AAA rotation census. But this “oopsy” for football programs such as Mansfield, Magazine, Hackett, Paris, Charleston, Booneville, Greenwood, and Waldron is much bigger than merely forgetting to get butter.
In March of 2023, the AAA had an internal audit and found a whopper of a mistake. The format which is used by the AAA to determine the proper school numbers for alignments apparently had a glitch in the system which scrambled school populations with other schools. This set in motion an emergency meeting by the heads of the AAA and athletic directors from around the state. The solution was a chaotic mess that wound up being merciful to some athletic programs and a downright death penalty to others. Once the dust settled and all was finalized though, a new conference alignment format was formed. The alignments will go into effect at the beginning of the 2024 athletic season.
Mansfield will be moved from their home in the 3A-1 up into the treacherous 4A-7. This will place the Tigers football program against the likes of Arkadelphia, Malvern, Nashville, Ashdown, and Mena. “This is downright unacceptable”, said Mansfield’s newly appointed assistant coach, Bob Barker. “We leave our kids athletic careers in the hands of a centralized power to make fair and balanced decisions, but with the spin of a big wheel, this is what we get in return? The price is wrong on this move, way wrong”. The Tigers aren’t alone in their distastes for this impromptu shuffle either. The numbers for Booneville and Magazine were so messed up that their football programs had to be combined into one team which will rocket the schools into the 5A West. Now the “Rattlecats” will step on the gridiron with the likes of Shiloh Christian, Harrison, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Alma, Dardanelle, Clarkesville, and Pea Ridge. It’s long been said that Booneville and Magazine would eventually combine schools, but the move was still shocking to others. Lifelong Magazine football super fan, Clark Kent, stated “Anytime there’s trouble, us Magazine folks always have to take off our glasses, pull open our shirt, and go save the day. I guess we’ll have to do that every week in Booneville now”.
Other teams affected are Paris, Hackett, Greenwood, and Waldron. Paris and Hackett will fall to the 2A-4, which should pan out to be very beneficial for the Eagles and Hornets. The Greenwood Bulldogs days of playing larger schools as non-conference opponents though are over as they will now play them in conference play in the 7A West. That’s right, Greenwood will be in the mix with Fort Smith Southside, Springdale, Springdale Har-Ber, Fayetteville, Rogers, Rogers Heritage, Bentonville, and Bentonville West. The multi-State Championship Greenwood programs response to the news was simply “And your point is…?”. Possibly the most shocking move of them all though is the Waldron Bulldogs. The Bulldogs have been a staple in the 4A for as long as many can remember, but now they’ll be moving down into the 2A-3. That pits Waldorn against Mt. Ida, Dierks, Mineral Springs, Murfreesboro, Foreman, Poyen, and Lafayette County. Once the news broke, upcoming Bulldog senior, Wile E. Coyote said “We’re takin’ state baby. Mark it down right now, we’re takin’ state”. The only area school not affected by the shuffle will be the Charleston Tigers. That is because the AAA deemed Charleston as a cornerstone program of the 3A-1 and feared that any movement of the Tigers would cause an eventual irreversible warp in the space-time continuum thus placing the entire sport of football in jeopardy worldwide.
The miscount by was marginal at best, but the realignment is now set in stone. But what was the counts that pushed this chaotic realignment to start with? Well it was more than just a glitch. Mansfield’s count was off by just two students and a Ram 1500, Magazine by one scale, Booneville miscounted 16 of their 17 train horns, Greenwood did not mark down their business signs (which later started a war), Hackett and Paris just winged it, Charleston was off by a State Championship, and Waldron counted students on the opening day of deer season which left a lot of students lost in the woods. The football realignment process is supposed to get the final stamp of approval at noon on April, 1st 2023, also known as April Fool’s day.
RNN April Fool’s / #FakeNews
