Rumors Swirl Around a Possible District Appeal by Team in Central's New District

SAN ANGELO, TX— The Euless Trinity Trojans are scheduled to play the San Angelo Central Bobcats in District 3-6A at San Angelo Stadium on Oct. 5.

According to San Angelo Central Booster Club Members, Trinity was supposedly set to file an appeal to be removed from District 3-6A to avoid an eight-hour round-trip to the Concho Valley.

“Euless Trinity has not filed an appeal of its district assignment at this time,” said UIL Media Coordinator Kate Hector. “Written notice of an appeal must be submitted to the UIL office by Feb. 11.”

“We haven’t heard of an appeal [by Euless Trinity],” said SAISD Director of Communications Derrick Jackson. “But we may be having a different conversation later in the week.”

The UIL aligned Central with Trinity, Abilene, Haltom City Haltom, Hurst L.D. Bell, North Richland Hills Richland, and Weatherford in their biennial alignment on Feb. 1.

The 2018 realignment marked the first time in which the UIL used mapping software to organize districts. The software used is able to use real time traffic data to graph the travel for every team in a district.

Trinity has historically stayed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex during UIL realignments and while the varsity football aspect will not interfere with much class time missed, sub-varsity teams, who play on Thursdays, and other sports like basketball, soccer and volleyball, who play on Tuesdays and Fridays, are going to feel the burden of missing class, traveling west and getting home at an absurd hour.

The move to the Metroplex for the Bobcats comes after Central and Amarillo Tascosa were unable to reach an agreement to play district games at a neutral site like Lubbock. The need for such an arrangement stemmed from Amarillo having four teams that share Dick Bivins Stadium and the nearly 10-hour round-trip travel each school would have if they played a home and home schedule. Central and Tascosa played a Thursday game in Amarillo during the 2016 season.

According to a post on the San Angelo Central Booster Club’s Facebook page by Martin Farris, Deputy Director of Athletics for the UIL Jamey Harrison said the Amarillo and San Angelo school districts had not reached out to each other to make an arrangement. Without an arrangement in place, that meant the UIL would keep San Angelo out of Tascosa’s district.

Tascosa was the lone outlier when it came to travel discrepancies in District 2-6A for Central. Frenship was a manageable three hour trip one way and all other schools were around an hour and a half drive one way.

So it was asked that San Angelo Central be put in a San Antonio district, if possible. The 27 San Antonio schools filled three districts, leaving schools like Eagle Pass, Del Rio and five Laredo schools. That is more travel than Central has in its current district.

While some people would say an appeal would show some disrespect toward the Concho Valley from Trinity, it would likely be made with the factor of missed class time in mind and with no malicious intent