Most people pass Finley Golf Course Road in Chapel Hill without giving it much thought. Behind it is a structure that, depending on who you ask, either quietly has too much influence over high school athletics in North Carolina or safeguards their integrity. The North Carolina High School Athletic Association is housed in that building, which recently underwent the biggest structural alteration of the modern era after more than a century of influencing athletic competition throughout the state.
The NCHSAA increased its number of classifications from four to eight beginning with the 2025–2026 academic year. Since switching from three to four classes in 1959, the organization has not added any more. This is a huge deal for anyone who follows North Carolina high school athletics closely, including coaches, parents, administrators, and those who truly understand what “average daily membership” means. It’s another matter entirely if this is the right decision.
The NCHSAA has an institutional weight that is difficult to dispute because it has been in existence since 1913. That year, Dr. Louis Round Wilson, a professor at the University of North Carolina, founded the association. For more than thirty years, the University essentially funded and oversaw the entire enterprise. Almost immediately, the first state championships were held: football and track in 1913, baseball the following year, and basketball thereafter. Imagining those early contests—small schools in North Carolina sending students to compete without any of the facilities, media attention, or recruiting drama that characterize high school athletics today—is almost charming.
However, the classification controversy has never been particularly charming. The NCHSAA sorted schools according to enrollment for the majority of its existence in an effort to prevent a small mountain school from competing against a large suburban program in a state championship. For more than 65 years, the four-class system (1A through 4A) was in place. Then, in 2017, the 20-30-30-20 model was introduced, which was heavily criticized for producing bloated middle classes. They had already returned to an even 25-25-25-25 split by 2021. It’s difficult to avoid getting the impression that the organization was looking for something it couldn’t quite put its finger on while watching that back and forth.
A different approach is taken with the new eight-class system. The new 8A tier is made up of the 32 biggest schools based on average daily attendance. Below that, there are about 60 schools in each of the roughly equal classes 1A through 7A. This could provide the competitive balance coaches have been requesting. It’s also possible that eight different championship brackets will cause logistical challenges that no one has yet fully anticipated.
The larger history of the NCHSAA, which is not entirely comfortable, is frequently overlooked in the classification disputes. The association was initially limited to white schools only due to segregation. The North Carolina High School Athletics Conference was a separate competition for Black high schools. It wasn’t until 1967 that the merger started. A year later, schools primarily serving Lumbee students were integrated into the Tri-County Indian High School Athletic Conference. By incorporating their records into its own, the NCHSAA now formally acknowledges those earlier organizations. Even if it is decades late, that recognition is important.
Sports like football, lacrosse, swimming, and indoor track are all sanctioned by the NCHSAA today. With a championship dating back to 1969, golf has a unique history that is worth mentioning. It was the first sport for women to be approved by the NCHSAA. That’s earlier than most people would anticipate, and it provides insight into the association’s convoluted, uneven development over time.
The NCHSAA is still what it has always been: an organization attempting to strike a balance between tradition, fairness, and the straightforward, unyielding desire of teenagers throughout North Carolina to compete, regardless of whether the move to eight classifications proves to be visionary or overly complicated.
