Activities association votes to change athletic divisions

For next year, the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Realignment Committee voted to eliminate Division I-A.

No, this does not mean that Pahrump Valley High School, who currently plays in this division, will be thrown back into the same league as Bishop Gorman.

The change will be for all divisions in the NIAA, which essentially means a name change.

The NIAA will eliminate the word "division" and go back to the word "class". In addition, the current Divisions I through IV will be changed to where the largest enrollment schools will be class 4 and the smallest enrollment schools will be class I.

So for example, schools with large enrollments like Arbor View and Desert Oasis who are now Division I, starting next fall will be Class 4. Those schools in Division I-A with, the current division that Pahrump Valley High School is a member of, will become Class III. The schools currently in Division III like Lake Mead and White Pine, will be Class II and the smallest schools currently in Division IV like Beatty and Tonopah will be in Class I.

"This is not a significant change," said Assistant Director of the NIAA Donnie Nelson. "The change is basically a name change."

He said historically the NIAA changed to the use of the word "division" in the fall of 2012 to conform with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

"We used the word division and then changed our numbering to conform to their numbering," Nelson said. "Now all we are doing is changing back to what we used to be to conform to our own handbook, which was never changed after 2012. And that was never changed because changing the handbook takes at least two years."

According to Nelson, the NIAA just felt it should go back to its roots. The old class system was used from 1922 until the change in 2012.

-Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @vernheepvt