In the light of the passage of SB452, NCHSAA staff decided not to change the process for distributing regional berths for the Fall 2023 girls tennis individual tournament in singles and doubles.
NCHSTCA’s Board of Directors had recommended a change to that process that would more fairly distribute regional berths among the conferences, and at our summer meeting with NCHSAA staff, it was agreed to implement that change for the fall season. At the time, NCHSAA staff believed it had the authority to implement the change administratively.
Believing that the change would take place, we posted on our website a detailed step-by-step explanation of how regional berths would be distributed amongst the conferences.
NCHSAA staff agree that the NCHSTCA proposal is an improvement to the process, and will result in greater fairness regarding the distribution of regional berths.
However, SB452 sets forth procedures for rule changes, requiring that a period of public comment take place, and that notice be sent to the state superintendent in advance, and NCHSAA staff did not feel empowered to implement the change without walking through those steps. The staff would also like to seek Board approval for the change at the December NCHSAA Board of Directors meeting.
NCHSAA staff encouraged us to formalize the proposal and submit it to the Board for consideration, and the NCHSTCA Board of Directors will consider taking this step at its fall meeting, scheduled for Saturday, October 14th.
The distribution of regional berths for the fall individual tournaments can be found on the Women's Tennis page of the NCHSAA website.
Each conference receives berths based on the number of schools in that conference fielding tennis teams, relative to the total number of tennis teams in the region as a whole. In cases where two or more conferences have an equal claim to a remaining berth, a random draw is conducted, and the winning conference receives both the singles and doubles berth in question.
By contrast, the NCHSTCA proposal would, whenever possible, split that berth between the two conferences involved, such that one would get the extra singles berth, and the other would receive the extra doubles berth.
Should the NCHSTCA Board of Directors vote to proceed with this policy change, the proposal will be posted on our website as soon as it is prepared.
We thank the coaching community for understanding, as both our organization and the NCHSAA are dealing with unprecedented changes imposed by the legislature, creating uncertainty for all concerned.
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