PUBLIC- PRIVATE SCHOOL DEBATE: Private schools consider separation from public classification

Trinity athletic director and head football coach Brian Seymore believes the relationship between the AHSAA and private schools could improve with modification of the rules created in the last few years. (File photo)

By TIM GAYLE

While a lot of coaches are running players through off-season drills and participating in seven-on-seven camps, a small group of private school administrators and coaches continue to seek solutions to the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s reclassification in January that pushed private schools into their own division.

The end result are serious talks that have been ongoing even before the reclassification that propose a separate private school organization that is neither affiliated with the Alabama High School Athletic Association nor the Alabama Independent School Association.

But how serious are these discussions and is a new athletic organization for private schools a realistic possibility?

July is a pivotal month after AISA schools decided in May to join the new organization in 2027-28. A number of AHSAA-member private schools are expected to decide later this month whether they will make the same move in 2028-29.

One of those AHSAA members, Autauga Academy, elected in June to rejoin the AISA in 2026-27 with plans to join the new but yet unnamed organization next year.

AHSAA-member private schools, which have endured a student multiplier since 1999 and Competitive Balance since 2018, now have wiped out both rules by placing the schools in a separate division for postseason play beginning this fall. While the new classification faced a rash of criticism from private school administrators and coaches, the question of whether the latest decision has gone too far for private schools to remain in the AHSAA has survived the initial five months.  

But that initial test will be revisited with each sport throughout the upcoming school year as private schools face incredible travel burdens -- and the rising costs associated with that travel -- and scheduling difficulties as public schools refuse to play their private school counterparts because they are no longer part of their championship competition in a new classification system.

“I think the biggest thing is it’s really hard to play public schools,” said Catholic coach Aubrey Blackwell. “We haven’t played a lot of private schools here in many years and that’s (because of Competitive Balance and) us bumping up in classification. That makes it hard when your local teams don’t play (each other) and then when the new classification came out, some of the public schools were opting out of it as well. Teams that we have been playing in the past (won’t play now), with the exception of Eufaula. But it was extremely difficult to schedule. Every school within two hours got a phone call or a text message from me, asking them to play.”

The Alabama High School Athletic Association attempted to bridge the gap between public and private schools by naming Lee-Scott Academy coach Buster Daniels as the AHSAA’s new director of private schools, but Daniels faces an almost impossible task of trying to convince private school administrators that the AHSAA Central Board truly cares what they think.

“For some of these schools, it’s going to be a tough road,” said Trinity athletic director Brian Seymore. “I hope we can bridge this gap between public and private because I think we need to get back to playing each other again. I think we need to be mixed. I think we need to be together. I think we’ve got to meet in the middle and get back together and get everybody back in one class.

“I think private schools would take (a built-in multiplier of) 1.75, they’d take 2.0, just do away with Competitive Balance. When we’re in different areas in football, basketball, baseball, track, golf, tennis, we’re all over the place. And once you do establish and move up in Competitive Balance, it’s so hard to get back down. You have to fall on your face and that isn’t what we want.”

Over the past three decades, more than 20 Alabama Independent School Association members made the move to join the Alabama High School Athletic Association. Some of the largest schools were disappointed that several sports programs (soccer, tennis and golf) were in decline in the AISA because many of the larger schools that participate in those sports had already moved over to the AHSAA. High on the list of grievances, especially the smaller programs, was the amount of travel to play region or area rivals in the organization.

Fast forward to 2026 and the January decision to place AHSAA-member private schools in their own division resulted in exorbitant travel. One reason for the travel is public schools don’t want to play their private school counterparts.

“For the most part, public schools were not too interested in playing private schools,” Montgomery Academy football coach Ethan McBride said. “We want to play public schools. We’ve always wanted to. That’s MA, that’s what we do. We want to play the best teams possible, public or private. For us, there’s a point of emphasis to schedule public schools. We reached out to a lot of public schools, I would say 50-plus, to play non-region games. And we had two agree in Tallassee and JAG. We really want to make that a reality and we will continue to try and make that a reality moving forward.”

Now, the wheels are turning toward a new private school organization that is expected to make its debut in 2027. Born from the seeds of distrust with AHSAA officials and feelings of being ignored by the organization have fueled approximately one dozen meetings with private school administrators and coaches that are both Alabama High School Athletic Association and Alabama Independant School Association members  

Several AHSAA-member schools are expected to make the move to the new organization but an uncertain future in an uncertain organization will cause several private schools to continue to side with the AHSAA regardless of their animosity with the new classification system.

“Where are they going to be a year from now?” asked Macon East Academy headmaster Glynn Lott, who also serves as the head of the AISA coaches association and has traveled extensively over the past few months to talk to administrators and coaches of both organizations. “When we haven’t just talked about Glenwood getting on that bus and driving to Vancouver, Canada for a road game, we’ve done it. What’s mama going to think at Fort Dale when she has a boy and a girl and they played every baseball game in Dothan and every softball game in Mobile? What’s going to be the reality in a year when St. Luke’s hasn’t won but a couple of football games? When Glenwood hasn’t won a game except in baseball?

“Can it form this year? I don’t think enough of them have gotten whipped yet, I don’t think enough of them have been on that bus long enough.”

The Alabama High School Athletic Association has two cards left to play and both are huge assets for the organization.

The first is the AHSAA’s role as a member of the National Federation of State High School Associations. Any organization that wishes to join the NFHS as an affiliate association needs the permission of the primary member (i.e., the new organization cannot be an NFHS affiliate association without approval from the AHSAA Central Board of Control).

The second is the idea of cross-play between members of different organizations. The AHSAA controls this card by permitting regular-season play between AHSAA public schools and AHSAA private schools. If the private schools bolt to another organization, the most likely way to ensure cross-play is through a legislative mandate. AHSAA officials understand their organization will face severe financial burdens if this is permitted, so they will fight legislative interference as if their life depends on it.

“The number one thing is cross-play,” Lott said. “If I could walk in there and (tell prospective members of the new association) we’ve got cross-play, the Alabama High School (Athletic Association) wouldn’t have a private school division next year, I can promise you that. Now, how do we get that? It’s going to be political.

“That and National Federation (affiliate membership), they’re going to hold on to that as long as they can.”

How many AISA and AHSAA private schools will make the move to a new organization over the next year? There’s no way to know because each school will need the approval of its respective board of directors.

What is the role of the state legislature? Legislators could push for NFHS affiliate membership for the new organization (which would guarantee cross-play) or authorize cross-play, but they’re not likely to take a stance that doesn’t favor the AHSAA.

“A large percentage of the legislative people are public school supporters,” noted AISA executive director Michael McLendon, “so they’re not going to want to nurture a system that could allow private schools to exist outside of the Alabama High School Athletic Association and recruit from public schools.”

For that reason, the decision to form a new association of private school members will face a variety of challenges that schools faced in the late 1960s and early 1970s but haven’t faced in two generations since.

“It will take a lot of intestinal fortitude to do it,” McLendon said. “Their recourse is to say is we’re fed up, we don’t care about cross-play or anything else, we’re going to go do our own thing. In the end, they get enough people to go along with it and then people get to see what it looks like. That would cause the other side to negotiate because you have a potential loss of scholarship dollars, you have a loss of revenue. And there would be nothing stopping those schools from recruiting public schools.”

That last fact is why the private schools have more bargaining power than they think.

“There are some influential people in the state associated with these schools,” McLendon noted. “If they decided they wanted to be impactful, they could.”