Besides

when Barnes and Noble will open, perhaps the one question

that has been on the forefront of a lot of people's minds

in the community is, "What's going on with region

realignment?"

A good

question with one heck of an answer. Last week, school

administrators, athletic directors and the Georgia High

School Association sat down and hammered out what is to

be the alignment for Region 4-AAAAA. The region will

feature 16 teams, involving schools from Fayette, Coweta,

Clayton and Henry counties. It also includes Evans High

School, which is not really in the surrounding area.

Football

will be split into two sub-regions, A and B. Sub-region A

will feature Eagle's Landing, McIntosh, Morrow, Mt. Zion,

Jonesboro, Newnan, Riverdale, Starr's Mill and

Stockbridge. B features East Coweta, Evans, Fayette

County, Forest Park, Henry County, Jonesboro, Lovejoy and

North Clayton. Each school plays all of the other teams

in its sub-region, plus three crossover games with teams

from the other sub-region.

The

baseball region will be split into sub-regions as well,

east and west. The east sub-region has Eagle's Landing,

Forest Park, Henry County, Evans, Jonesboro, Mt. Zion,

Jonesboro, Morrow and Stockbridge, while the west

features East Coweta, Fayette County, McIntosh, Lovejoy,

Starr's Mill, Newnan, North Clayton and Riverdale. The

scheduling will be similar to football.

Basketball

teams will play a full region schedule of 15 games with a

region tournament at the end of the season. Teams can

play 25 games and the region tournament, allowing for

some pick-up games and a holiday tournament. Every team

in the region will make the region tournament with

seedings based on a win-loss record.

All of the

other sports will follow the sub-region described for

baseball, which is a geographical alignment. The

alignment of these sports could be discussed and voted on

differently in the fall. Soccer is the sport that would

be affected most. Fayette County, McIntosh and Starr's

Mill would all be in the same sub-region, meaning one

team might not make it to the playoffs despite being a

stronger team than one of the teams from the other

sub-region.

There is

still much to be discussed and decided upon. Region

4-AAAAA is the largest in the state and was to include 18

teams. The re-alignment seems to promise an exciting

2000-2001 athletic season that is sure to invigorate the

community as well as excite fans, players and coaches.