RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
For the next two years, Randolph High School athletic teams and their fans will get to know the Hill Country really well.
On Feb.1, as part of its athletic district realignment, the University Interscholastic League put Randolph in District 27-2A, which is made up of four schools from the Hill Country and three from San Antonio. Randolph will compete in the new district during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.
Every two years the UIL realigns the districts and puts high schools in different classifications, A to 5A, based on the number of students each school has.
District 27-2A consists of Hill Country schools Blanco, Comfort, Harper and Johnson City, San Antonio Cole, Randolph and a new school, San Antonio Brooks Academy, which will begin playing varsity sports for the first time in the fall.
Randolph head football coach and athletic director Pete Wesp said the new district has schools with strong all-around athletic programs, some of which the Ro-Hawks have faced before.
"All of the schools have good winning traditions," Wesp said. "Harper and Johnson City are coming up from Class A where they were successful. In football, we have played Cole regardless of whether they were in our district or not."
Harper and Johnson City move over to District 27-2A from District 28-A, which includes Hill Country schools Center Point, Leakey and Medina, while Blanco and Comfort come from a West Texas region-based district.
For the last two years, Cole was in District 30-2A, which consisted of South Texas schools Cotulla, Dilley, Jourdanton and Natalia and San Antonio schools Gervin and Hawkins.
Previously, the Ro-Hawks were in a district with Cole that included Hill Country schools. When the district lines were realigned in 2006 -- putting Cole in another district - the Ro-Hawks continued to play Cole, their Fort Sam Houston Army rival, in non-district football; but not in boys basketball, where both teams have always had a competitive rivalry.
With the new realignment the Ro-Hawks boys basketball team will be able to renew their rivalry with Cole for at least the next two years.
Randolph is currently in District 29-2A, which is made up of South Texas schools Karnes City, Kenedy, Nixon-Smiley, Geronimo Navarro, Poth, Stockdale and York-town. Those schools will remain together in newly formed District 28-2A, except for Yorktown, which drops to Class A.
When it comes to UIL realignment, Wesp said the Ro-Hawks had two choices, staying with the schools in the South Texas area or going to the area Randolph eventually wound up at - the Hill Country.
The new District 27-2A will not force the Ro-Hawks to travel any farther than they presently do in their current district, Wesp said.
"The travel distances will be about the same," he said. "We will be giving up Yorktown and taking in Harper, so there is not much difference in terms of travel."
A big question among the District 27-2A schools is whether Brooks Academy will compete in football this fall. If Brooks Academy does not have a football team, it will affect district schedules among the remaining schools.
"I am hoping Brooks Academy will be able to play football, or we and the other district teams will end up with two open dates during the season," Wesp said.
Now that the Ro-Hawks know what district they will be in next season, Wesp released the Ro-Hawks' non-district football schedule. The Ro-Hawks open the season against Marion, play Ingram Tom Moore and then go up against former district rivals Karnes City and Navarro.