Hey, LHSAA, leave districts alone!

Walk into a field house for any Tri-parish high school and you’ll find several coaches who are on high alert.

The first reason is the most obvious one – playoffs.

Yes, the postseason starts in less than 10 days and every coach, coordinator and water boy is scurrying to put those last-minute finishing touches on their playoff-bound teams.

Those who are not yet playoff bound are in even more of a frenzy, working on the field to polish their clubs for the last game of the season.

Coaches are also hard at work outside the field. Many are checking the LHSAA power rankings daily (even though they change just once a week) to calculate who needs to win and who needs to lose for them to make the Field of 32.

That’s a given, sort of expected at this time a year.

But the second reason why everyone is a bit on edge is a little less obvious – redistricting.

The state’s athletic directors have been regularly convening in Baton Rouge and are drawing new battle lines for districts. As a result, everyone wants to know where they’ll be positioned for the next few seasons.

The biggest and most drastic change our local schools will likely see (according to whispers I’ve heard from local athletic directors who wished to remain anonymous) comes in the Bayou District.

The Bayou District, where every game is a rivalry. A district with 30+ years of history and every school in the 7-team battleground is positioned along a Bayou (hence the name).

With South Terrebonne most likely dropping from Class 5A to 4A (due to a small drop in enrollment numbers), they will be out next season.

With Assumption in the same situation, they, too, will be out of the district.

OK, I understand that part. Rules are rules, and South Terrebonne and Assumption cannot be Class 5A if they don’t have enough kids in their halls. That’s fine.

It’s this next part that rubs me the wrong way.

To combat the two-school departure, local athletic directors say the current plan favored by most would put metro schools Hahnville, Destrehan and East St. John into the Bayou District with South Lafourche, Central Lafourche, Thibodaux, Terrebonne and H.L. Bourgeois.

Wait! What?

Hahnville, Destrehan and East St. John?

How exactly are they Bayou?

They’re not, and they don’t belong in this district.

Currently, there are several districts in the state with just five teams and some districts even have as few as four teams.

So, why then can’t the three Lafourche schools join H.L. Bourgeois and Terrebonne in a more compact, but more local district?

The reason – politics and agendas.

Say it with me again: Politics and agendas.

Let’s start out with East St. John High School – based in Reserve, Louisiana.

Have any of you ever been to Reserve? It’s quite a trek, isn’t it? It’s pretty far down the beaten path. Doing research, one can easily see the school is actually much, much closer in proximity to Baton Rouge and Gonzales than it is to Houma and Galliano.

They are willing to join the district because by doing so, they’d duck a more Baton Rouge-stationed district with powerhouses like Dutchtown, Central High School (in Baton Rouge) and Catholic High.

They’d be able to pretend those schools don’t exist and go about their business, even if it means longer bus rides every week.

Likewise, suburbs of New Orleans, the River Parish schools like Destrehan and Hahnville are also giddy with excitement and are practically running to the bayou, too.

Let me tell you why.

Because by doing so, they will be also able to duck their way out of a more Metro-based district with schools like John Ehret, West Jefferson and Chalmette – all which are far closer to them on the map than any Bayou District school is, but are historically more competitive, as well.

The main problem for this, however, is money.

Economic times aren’t exactly amazing right now.

Schools are laying off teachers annually and athletic budgets are far more tight-vested than they’ve ever been.

So, why exactly would we make schools pay more in travel fees when we don’t have to?

Just so a few historic football powers will be able to be in a district they feel like they have a better chance to win?

Yeah, that’s the way to set your priorities.

Hahnville and Destrehan have New Orleans to filter to.

East St. John has Baton Rouge to filter to.

We have our own schools to face.

We don’t need to take part in any political game.

We’re doing just fine as it is.