The short-lived Class D

High school sports fans in Georgia know all about reclassification.

Every two years, numbers are crunched and every high school in the state is placed in a division where that reflects these numbers. Certain factors are at stake these days: average daily attendance, with a multiplier that affects out-of-district students who attend.

Some kind of number has been the basis of every classification since the GHSA split athletics into Classes B and C in 1933. Per the GHSA By-Laws, enrollment was the basis of classifications from 1933-1941, with average daily attendance being the hallmark since the 1941-42 school year.

What if we threw a wrench in that knowledge? What if there was a division that technically was not based on attendance, but on another factor? Let's talk about Class D, which crowned state basketball champions from 1937-1941.

Class D was something the other classifications were not. It was not for your traditional high school. Instead, Class D was for something the March 8, 1937 Athens Banner-Herald labeled as a "two-year accredited junior high school." The GHSA called them "two-year high schools." Either way you label them, they ran through ninth grade.

Ladies and gentlemen, education was a more pliable thing at one time. In 1940, nearly every four-year high school in the state went to 11th grade, not 12th. Twelfh grade was rolled out in stages, with no rhyme or reason. Twelfh grade was encouraged, but funding it was another matter. Each board of education had to meet and decide on whether it wanted to offer 12th grade and when it would start. It would take until nearly the 1960s before 12th grade had expanded all over the state.

So what was a two-year high school?

Simply, it stopped at 9th grade. That was good enough education for many individuals back then, especially in Georgia's more rural sections where a teenager's future vocation was probably a farm or a factory or a mill.

Cottondale, one of the best basketball programs of Class D, was a mill school. Tubize-Chatillon, which hailed from the Rome area, was also a mill school.

Georgia accredited high schools and it accredited elementary schools. For a brief period, it also accredited these two-year high schools. Based on available editions of the Georgia Educational Directory, the two-year accreditation is first listed in 1934-35. It disappeared in either 1944 or 1945. (The 1944-45 directory is not available.)

Like other GHSA divisions, Class D was free to play who they wanted. A January 24, 1938, Macon Telegraph article on Cottondale noted it was the only Class D school in its district and, thus, if it wanted to play, it had to schedule Classes B and C, full high schools.

How did Class D become a GHSA division?

Not much detail has popped up yet. The 1935-36 GHSA By-Laws does not mention Class D schools as eligible to join. Class D is mentioned in the By-Laws of 1936-37 as "Group D." For 1937-38 and beyond, it's the more familiar "Class D."

The subject of membership for Group D is a single line: "Group D shall be composed of approved two-year high schools." The By-Laws permitted D schools to compete in state at literary events, golf and swimming. Basketball was not mentioned in the 1936-37 By-Laws, but they obviously did compete that March at the state meet in Athens.

Two-year high schools continued to be recognized by the state after 1941. Why were they dropped for GHSA purposes?

The By-Laws of 1941-42 do not offer specifics. Class D was not included in its membership groups and junior high schools were specifically barred from joining. Another paragraph, Item (8) in the by-laws section, outlaws the playing of schools which are not GHSA or associated organization members. An exception was granted:

"Exception, member schools may schedule and play Junior High School as they so see fit in as much as Class D has been eliminated."

Without knowing specifics, there could have been a number of reasons for the elimination of Class D. The war probably had a massive impact, to both enrollment and to schools' financial abilities. There may not have been enough paying two-year schools to be feasible for a tournament.

Unless something pops up somewhere specifically outlining the reasons behind the formation and closure of the Class D division, any reasoning behind the GHSA's decisions with it will remain speculation.