University Interscholastic League

The University Interscholastic League (UIL) is an organization which creates rules for and administers almost all athletic, music, and academic contests for public elementary and secondary schools in the American state of Texas.

Activities range from American football to marching band competitions; however, the UIL does not administer Academic Decathlon competitions.

The UIL is under the governance of the Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas in Austin. Although the Texas Education Agency governs the activities of schools and school districts in Texas, the UIL does not report to TEA, but is instead a separate entity.

History

The UIL was originally created by UT in 1910 as two different entities, the Debating League of Texas High Schools (to govern debating contests) and the Interscholastic Athletic Association (to govern athletic contests). The two entities merged in 1913 and adopted the UIL name.

At the time, UIL only governed white schools in Texas. From 1940 to 1970, an era of racial segregation in Texas, the Prairie View Interscholastic League (PVIL), headquartered at Prairie View A&M University, served as a separate parallel organization for African-American public high schools in Texas.

In 1965. the UIL agreed to admit PVIL member schools for competition. Black schools began UIL competition beginning in the 1967-68 school year. After the 1969-70 school year, the UIL fully absorbed all PVIL member schools, the majority of which would later be merged with their white counterparts.[1]

Beginning with the 2003-2004 academic school year, two large all-male private schools, Dallas Jesuit and Houston Strake Jesuit were granted UIL membership. This came after extensive court battles and negotiations from both the UIL's lawyers and the schools' joint lawyers. Previously, both schools were members of the now-defunct Texas Christian Interscholastic League (TCIL); after that league's demise and their inability to gain admittance into the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), they decided to further pursue their decade-long battle of gaining membership into the UIL. They are so far the only private schools to be granted UIL membership, although San Antonio Cornerstone, a former TAPPS member who were refused re-entry after excessive recruiting violations, currently has a lawsuit pending to join the UIL.

Organization

The UIL generally governs only public high schools (including charter schools). Activities for most Texas private schools are governed by separate bodies, the largest of which is TAPPS. However, private schools are allowed to join the UIL only if 1) they meet UIL's definition of a high school, 2) they are accredited by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission, and 3) they are ineligible for membership in any league similar to UIL (such as TAPPS or the Southwest Preparatory Conference). Furthermore, private schools must compete at one classification higher than their enrollment would otherwise dictate (charter schools are not subject to this restriction). Children in home school programs are not allowed to participate in UIL events, either individually (Texas does not have a "Tim Tebow" bill, similar to that in Florida) or as a group. (TAPPS allows home school groups to become members.) However, UIL schools are permitted to schedule contests with private schools and/or home school groups.

Schools are arranged by classification to ensure that schools compete on a regular basis with other schools in the geographic area of a similar size. The classifications are A (the smallest), AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA (the largest). The corresponding alphanumeric designations (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A) are used in everyday conversation, but officially UIL only uses the alphabetic designations. Previously, schools were permitted to request to be placed in a higher classification than their enrollment would otherwise dictate, usually to play at a higher level of competition. The "play up" rule was later eliminated for competition reasons, but has been retained for geographic reasons (where playing at the current level would create a travel hardship for the school), and where school districts with eight or more high schools could keep all or most of them in the same classification. However, the school must then participate at the higher classification in all UIL events in which it does participate.

Within each classification, the UIL separates the schools in regions, and then further separates the regions into districts for various contests. The districts are numbered from 1 (in far west Texas or the Panhandle) to 32 (in south Texas). There are always 32 districts in Class AAAAA and Class AAAA, but the smaller classifications may have numbers skipped based on the number of schools in the classification. Each type of contest will have different regions and competitors, as there is no requirement that a school participate in all UIL events (some small rural schools do not participate in football, while some magnet schools do not field athletic teams). In addition, for football purposes only, a school in Class A whose enrollment is at or below 99.5 students may choose to play either six-man football (but will be included in a Class A district for other events) or 11-man football; otherwise, only 11-man football is permitted.

Unlike the college ranks or other states, the regions and districts are not permanently set, but are redrawn biennially by the UIL behind closed doors in an attempt to keep schools within a certain distance of their geographic area when attending competitions, and to adjust for the changing enrollments of schools (moving schools which have increased attendance up in classification and those which have decreased attendance down). The main redrawing of regions and districts takes place on February 1 of even-numbered years (and the final allocation, especially relating to high school football where the sport is elevated to near-religious status in many areas, is the subject of much pre-announcement anticipation and speculation as to which schools will move up or down and the final composition of the districts), but as new schools open or smaller schools close, interim adjustments can be made.

For purposes of the football playoffs, the top four teams from each of the 32 Class AAAAA districts are eligible to be seeded for the playoffs (beginning with the 2008-2009 school year, the top four teams from each of the 32 Class AAAA districts will also be eligible). The two eligible teams with the highest student enrollment for its district are seeded in the Division I playoff bracket, and the remaining two teams (with the lower enrollment) are seeded in the Division II playoff bracket. This method is supposed to prevent matchups between large and small schools within a classification, although in practice this is not always the case [for example, in the 2006 playoffs, Southlake Carroll (the Division I champion) had a lower student enrollment than Cedar Hill (the Division II champion)]. Class AAA, AA, and A each have the top three teams per district eligible for the playoffs, with the largest school going to Division I and the other two going to Division II. Six-man football divides Division I and Division II schools into separate districts prior to the beginning of the season, and separate playoffs are held for each division with the top two teams from each district eligible.

For all other major team sports (volleyball, basketball, baseball, and softball) the top three teams in each district (in all classifications) are eligible for the playoffs, except that in basketball for Class A, similar to the six-man football setup, the schools are divided into Division I and Division II and placed in separate districts.

Events

Athletics

Historically, the football championship games have been held in mutually agreed upon neutral sites, but in 2006 and 2007, both Class 5A championship games were played at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Championship games for the other classifications continuted to be held at neutral sites.

The state semi-final and championship games for all five classes in boys and girls basketball are held at the Frank Erwin Center on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

The state track and field meet and swimming championships are also held on the UT campus, the former at Mike A. Myers Stadium and the latter at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center.

The soccer semi-finals and finals for 4A and 5A are held at Round Rock ISD Stadium, and the state baseball tournament is held at Dell Diamond, both in the Austin suburb of Round Rock.

The state Cross Country meet is held at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock.

The state Wrestling tournament is held at the DELCO Center in Austin.

Academics

Though UIL is best known as the governing body for public school athletic competition, it also hosts numerous academic competitions as well. Between athletics and academics, UIL estimates that one out of every two public high school graduates has competed in at least one UIL-sanctioned event during his/her high school tenure.

The state level academic competitions are held on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

Any student who competes at a state academic meet (at any high school grade) is also eligible to apply for a scholarship from the Texas Interscholastic League Foundation, an affiliate of UIL. The student must attend college in Texas full-time and meet certain grade requirements.

The UIL State Office has made an official ruling that the online encyclopedia site, Wikipedia, will not be accepted as proper documentation for oral interpretation contests due to its disclaimer: "Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here."

External links