BREAKING NEWS: Private school officials vote on new association name - approve Gulf States Independent Athletic Association

Macon East headmaster Glynn Lott announced that a newly formed group of private high schools approved the name - Gulf States Independent Athletic Association. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

The new private school association now has a name after a meeting among the state’s private schools in Montgomery on Friday afternoon.

The Gulf States Independent Athletic Association (GSIAA) will begin forming a founding board for the new association that will be ready for play next season and will begin in earnest in 2028.

Eighty-five people voted on the new name while 89 of the 93 private schools in the Alabama High School Athletic Association and the Alabama Independent School Association were represented at Friday’s meeting. Approximately 150-175 people attended the meeting.

“We showed them a structure,” said the meeting’s director, Macon East Academy headmaster Glynn Lott. “We have the by-laws done, we have a handbook done, but it’s a slate that is all subject to change once we select a founding board.”

While there were no public schools at the meeting, several public school representatives have expressed an interest in joining the organization. Several representatives of schools in the Panhandle Christian Conference in south Alabama and northwest Florida also attended the meeting.

“It was a really good turnout,” Lott said. “The vote was really close on the name. That’s what we’re going with unless there’s a legal issue that we cannot use it.”

The organization also came up with a backup name in case of trademark issues.

Organizers went through 15 different athletic association by-laws to hand pick issues such as name, image and likeness, recruiting and transfer rules and built a template for the founding board. The number of the founding board members will be at least nine, Lott said, with three different regions from three different classifications. (Although there also is a model for four classifications) 

“For the transition, the foundation board will be a mixture of both (AHSAA and AISA) members with some people who may not vote but will be involved in helping to make the rules,” he said. “We will have equal representation between the two groups. We showed them the structure -- there’s a revenue sharing part of it, there’s an NIL part if they want it. It can be in there or not be in there. That’s for that group to decide.”

The organizational structure of the association includes a Board of Control and an executive director, along with committees that report to both. At the top of the structure is the Member Assembly, dubbed “the owners,” that provides one vote to each member school. Amending the by-laws or even changes within the group that may only apply to one of the classifications requires two-thirds approval.

“There is a board but the board can’t change a bylaw without two-thirds vote of the whole group,” Lott said. “It’s totally run by the schools.”

The decision to form the association, while a point of discussion in the past, took shape in the wake of a Jan. 23 decision by the Alabama High School Athletic Association to put the 61 private schools in two classifications separate from the public schools for postseason play.

In early June, Autauga Academy voted to leave the Alabama High School Athletic Association and rejoin the Alabama Independent School Association for the 2026-27 school year. Autauga plans to join the new association next year, but the new association has no ties to either of the two biggest high school athletic associations currently in the state.

“It has nothing to do with either association, not one thing,” Lott said. “That’s how I started the meeting, making that point.” 

A big selling point to the participants was a “competitive factor” that involved enrollment numbers -- a program with an enrollment of 100 students playing schools with an enrollment of 300, for example, would have a competitive factor of 3. Using the Jan. 23 AHSAA classification numbers, schools in Class A Private and Class AA Private are significantly higher than public schools in the lower classifications.

And travel is a major sticking point with athletic directors and coaches in the two private school classifications released on Jan. 23 from the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

The new association presentation briefly touched on those two subjects, but made it clear that the association is not at war with the teams or administrators from the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

“This is what we said we were going to offer,” Lott said. “Student-athletes first, independent schools first, fair competition, geographic common sense, shared governance, transparency and financial responsibility. That’s basically the mission statement of what we want to do.

“Even the AISA schools haven’t had that say-so besides the people that are on the athletic committee. This is truly to give them a chance to have a say-so. Every school has a say in their governance. Because they have none right now.”

The four largest AHSAA private schools -- McGill-Toolen, Briarwood Christian, Faith Academy and John Carroll -- were not part of the statistical data presented to school administrators at Friday’s meeting because those schools are significantly larger than the other 89 programs. At least two of those schools were present at Friday’s meeting, however, and will receive presentations from Lott in the future.

AISA member schools will vote this fall on jumping to the new association for the 2027 football season. AHSAA schools can make the same decision at the conclusion of the upcoming school year but are more likely to wait until the end of the current two-year classification system in 2027-28 to decide their association for the 2028 season.  

“After the AISA board votes, we’ll probably start after January talking to (AHSAA private) schools (about joining),” Lott said. “Give them time to play in the league (under the new classification).”

Lott said an executive director is “not named yet,” while the next major move following the creation of the founding board is to work on the bylaws and the handbook. Trying to gain acceptance to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) as an affiliate member and the idea of cross play between AHSAA and GSIAA schools in the future is high on the new group’s wish list.