Among the many nuggets to come out of Monday’s Arizona Interscholastic Association executive board meeting, was a new sport.
To better align itself with Title IX — the 1972 Federal Law requiring gender equity in opportunities at Federally-funded institutions — and after a year of working with USA Volleyball, Arizona will pilot the first sand volleyball season this spring. With success could come a sanctioned sport in the near future.
Beginning in February, it will be a minimum of eight schools participating with a maximum of 32, with an eight-team state tournament …

In a somewhat futile attempt to plan ahead and get tons of logistical nuggest set up for the November nuttiness (football playoffs and fall sports state tournaments), I was rummaging through the football playoff brackets and noticed that the Div. I, II and III quarterfinals are on all being played on Thursday, Nov. 10.
The reason being Veterans Day is Friday, Nov. 11, and the AIA wanted to stay away from that date in terms of logistics, and with most schools closed on that date.
Meanwhile, Div. IV and V quarterfinals are …

In the wake of the lightning/weather fiasco from a couple weeks ago, some revisions were made to the by lawys by the AIA Executive Board during its Sept. 13 meeting.
The biggest of which is that games that are called due to weather, and which both sides agree to discontinue playing and a resume date can’t be agreed upon, those games were previously ruled an automatic “forfeit” by the losing team at the time of suspension and went into the books as a 1-0 victory with no stats being official.
Now, if …

Here’s the full AIA statement released on Wednesday regarding the Jarvis Lewis case involving his old school (Glendale Raymond Kellis) and his new school (Chaparral). After being investigated for a possible recruiting violation, Lewis – who missed the Firebirds’ first four games of the season – has been cleared to play on Friday night.
“The AIA Executive Board (Board) considered investigation findings regarding possible violation(s) and/or eligibility issues arising from a transfer by a student from Raymond S. Kellis High School (KHS) to Chaparral High School (CHS) in its board meeting …

The Arizona Interscholastic Association is set to determine the eligibility of Chaparral defensive lineman Jarvis Lewis on Tuesday at 3 p.m. at a meeting in Prescott.
Lewis, who has verbally committed to play at Arizona State next season, transferred over from Glendale Raymond Kellis after last season, but hasn’t played this year after Kellis brought up recruitment allegations pertaining to the transfer.
The AIA had a private investigator check into the matter, with those findings expected to be the key determinant in the ruling by the executive board members.
Lewis had 59 tackles …

Football schedules may not be made public until July 1 — when everyone’s on vacation and likely to not see them — but that doesn’t mean they’re not viewable.
At the softball state tournament last weekend, Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Director Harold Slemmer said its member schools agreed to wait while many of them work out kinks in the fall schedules (including but not limited to football), especially dealing with schools trying to coordinate game dates among themselves.
He also said the plan — details are still being finalized — is to …

More headaches for both the AIA and its member schools surfaced this week regarding the new computer schedules and supposed geographic realignment.
Since opponents for team sports were released earlier this month, athletic directors and their coaches were supposed to have the 2011-2012 dates for all team sports (including football) finalized on Thursday.
Unfortunately, more glitches have pushed that back to May.
Now, athletic directors and coaches are supposed to find out their schedules on May 3.
Word is several conflicts arose between locations and dates. There were also doubling-up on opponents, meaning a …

Several coaches weighed in – pro and vociferously con – about the new football schedules that are released and scheduling process in general.
Several of their responses didn’t make it to print, but were no less interesting or enlightening, so we’ll print them here:
Rich Milligan (Apache Junction): “The two thoughts I have are:  How was this process easier/better then the previous method used, and how did using computer scheduling reduce travel?  I mean are the Flagstaff schools now closer to the Valley?  Does no one need to travel …

Mesa coach Shane Burcar had ample time to cool off following a 96-82 loss to Brophy in the 5A-I boys basketball state tournament semifinals on Thursday night, but he couldn’t.
After giving credit to Brophy’s offense and rebounding and noting his Jackrabbits played their worst game of the year defensively, Burcar launched into a heated criticism of the officiating and the Arizona Interscholastic Association for assigning those officials to this game.
“I think the officiating was personal from the get-go,” he said. “The official tells me the first time I talk to …

In one of the strangest finishes this ink-stained wretch has ever seen, you can make a plausible case that Hamilton should have beaten Mountain View (or, at least, had extra opportunities to tie the game and force overtime). Instead, a bizarre non-seen, non-call put the Toros girls basketball team into next week’s 5A Division I state semifinals against Chandler.
First a disclaimer:  Exhale, and realize that one play doesn’t win or lose a game;  Not even trying to make a game-winning shot while playing 6-on-5 for the final six seconds.
Hamilton couldn’t …