EUREKA — Last weekend, teams across Class B played in district tournaments — except for those in 7B.
Last summer, the athletic directors of District 7B met for their annual meeting and voted to cancel this year’s district tournament for basketball.
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While multiple factors led to this decision, Eureka AD Chad Dunn said the biggest reason was Superior High School moving down to Class C, which left the district with only five teams.
"The Bs are kind of getting smaller. We're losing them. Either the towns are getting smaller, we lost Superior. That's one thing we talked about," Dunn said. "Hopefully, we can get bigger divisions, maybe."
Another key component of the cancellation was the financial challenge the tournament brings every year.
While school budgets do account for the travel expenses of the teams, the tournaments themselves have not made a profit.
“Last year we probably got around $600 back. Each team got that back for a profit, but that doesn't account for the per diem for the team to drive down there, the meals,” Dunn said. “We really actually did lose money on the tournament as a school, and everybody kind of did lose that.”
While some districts have occasionally canceled tournaments, it does throw a wrench into the seasons, leaving postseason fate up to regular-season play.
However, St. Ignatius boys coach and former AD Stuart Grant said it is important to adapt in these scenarios.
“I think both are true. It hurts the momentum for teams. It does hurt the kids,” Grant said. “However, it is a decision that schools make and they're tough decisions.”
Without additional district realignment, the future of this and other district tournaments could be in jeopardy.
While coaches like John Parrish from Eureka would prefer to keep the district tournament format around, he also understands that with the changing landscape of sports in this state it may not look the same as before.
“There’s other things you can do, maybe a smaller version of it where the top four teams maybe play in the district tournament or you just kind of shrink it down, because a lot of it comes down to finances from the school,” Parrish said. “So I think that if people got together and brainstormed it I think they could come up with something that would be similar and probably work.”
While Parrish is willing to adapt, the desire to bring back the district tournament is still there.
“We miss it, I mean, that tournament atmosphere is great, and it gets you kind of prepared for the divisional tournament,” Parrish said. “Just all the hype and all the fans and everybody, there's a part of that that helps you get ready for a divisional tournament, and we miss it, and we wish we had it.”
