Chargers, Greyhounds will compete against each other in all sports except football
The UIL made it official Thursday morning when they announced that both Boerne ISD high schools will be classified 5A for the next two years.
What it basically means is that the Greyhounds and Chargers — who have avoided playing each other in most sports since Champion opened in 2008 — will now be in the same district and compete against each other in all sports except football.
Boerne ISD Athletic Director Stan Leech said they’re embracing the UIL’s decision.
“It’s a great day for Boerne ISD, a great day for our kids and a great day for our community,” he said. “It’s time, I like it.”
For the last several years, BHS has been a large 4A and on the verge of being a 5A school but always managed to stay under the threshold — until now.
The UIL does realignments every two years so the Chargers and Greyhounds will compete against each other for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
The exception will be football since the
Football District 13-5A D2 Boerne High Kerrville Tivy Alamo Heights VeteransMemorial Harlandale McCollum Victoria West Football District 13-5A D1 Boerne Champion Pieper Smithson Valley New Braunfels MacArthur Wagner Seguin Victoria East All other sports 26-5A Boerne High Boerne Champion Pieper Smithson Valley Kerrville Tivy New Braunfels Alamo Heights Veterans Memorial Wagner Chargers fall into the 5A DI category and the Greyhounds are a 5A DII school.
Leech said it was only a matter of time and is surprised the two schools were able to stay different classifications for as long as they did.
“At first I thought it would six or eight years but it’s been 15 years,” he said.
While there will be a lot of firsts for the Greyhounds and Chargers starting in the fall, some of the sports do have a history of competing against each other.
The two soccer programs were in the same district for four years before the UIL had a separate 4A classification. Prior to that, any 4A school like Boerne that played soccer had to play at the 5A level.
It’s the same for swimming after the UIL added a 4A classification two years ago, and even though they were different classifications, the Chargers and Greyhounds have run at some of the same cross country and track meets over the years.
Even the tennis teams played against each other in a tournament last year for the first time so it won’t be a totally new experience for everybody.
One thing that Leech is excited about is that Kerrville Tivy and Alamo Heights will be in their non-football district.
The Greyhounds had a long history with the Mules and Antlers but that rivalry shifted to the Chargers. Now both BISD schools will compete against them.
Leech said he expects the Charger-Greyhound games to be well attended and is considering moving certain contests to a neutral site to accompany the potentially large crowds but added that it’s only a thought at this point.
“We’ll have a conversation on what’s best, but that may be difficult for our community and our teams to do,” he said. “That is an option because we don’t want to turn anybody away, so we’ll figure out how best to handle that.”
Some new chapters in Boerne ISD’s athletic history will be written over the next two years and Leech said he’s excited about it.
“We knew this day would come and we’re going to embrace it,” Leech said. “We will love competing, we’ll shake hands before and shake hands after and when it’s over we’re still one Boerne.”
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