RISD AD astonished by UIL rezoning

Perry Graves received his first Jack-in-the-Box surprise, a few weeks after being designated as Riviera Independent School District’s athletic director, when the University Interscholastic League released its statewide redistricting of athletic zones this past Monday.

Class 2A was split into two separate divisions as a way of leveling the playing field.

“That was done because the amount of enrollment at particular schools,” Graves said. “They wanted to give small schools a better chance to compete along with the big schools.”

Before Monday’s realignment, Kaufer inhabited District 32-2A with football roommates Bishop, Hebbronville, Premont, San Diego and Santa Rosa. Afterwards, the Seahawks became residents of District 16-2A in Division II with Freer, Banquete, Hebbronville, Refugio, Premont, Skidmore- Tynan and Santa Gertrudis Kingsville Academy; with Bishop now a tenant of District 16-2A in Division I along with Falfurrias, Odem, San Diego, Santa Rosa and Taft.

“I was surprised by it because they told us that only two teams would be going to the playoffs,” Graves said. “They took a playoff spot away and then added two extra teams to our district so that kind of threw me off because we went from a six team district to eight.

Graves anticipated two particular schools to end up north instead of in the same conference as Kaufer.

“The one that surprised me was Refugio because I figured they would end up north around the Victoria area,” Graves said. “I also thought Skidmore would go back up toward the San Antonio area.”

Still, Graves has seen plenty of changes throughout his more than 30 years as a coach and knows his new district will present plenty of challenges next year.

“I knew that no matter what, the district was going to be a tough challenge because teams like Banquete, Skidmore and Freer along with everyone else play a good brand of football,” Graves said. “A team like Refugio, well they speak for themselves but I was in total shock. But we are not going to sit around and cry about it; we are just going to roll up our sleeves, get to work and see what we can do.”

Another issue RISD will have to deal with is the cost of travel when it comes to away games for basketball. The Seahawks are still in District 32-2A but have a totally different gallery of opponents to contend with for 2010-2011; Santa Gertrudis Kingsville Academy, Brownsville Frontier College Preparatory, Edinburg Quest College Preparatory, Falfurrias, Hebbronville, Premont and Santa Rosa.

“Traveling will increase some for football but basketball is going to be killer,” Graves said. “We usually go down to the valley once a year, but now we are traveling down there several times. On an away game during a Tuesday school night you’re going to get home way after midnight.”