Virginia High School League
The Virginia High School League is the principal sanctioning organization for interscholastic athletic competition among public high schools in the U.S. state of Virginia. The VHSL first sponsored debate and also continues to sponsor state championships in several academic activities.
Private and religious schools and teams of homeschooled students belong to other sanctioning organizations, the largest of which is the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association. Proposals in the Virginia General Assembly to mandate that the VHSL allow homeschooled students to compete for the public high school they would otherwise attend have failed to pass.
History
The Virginia High School League was founded in 1913 at the University of Virginia, by members of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union. It was initially created as a debating league for boys in Virginia high schools. Within a few years, it expanded to include literary competitions such as oral reading and extemporaneous speaking, and by the late 1910s, it added athletics — including baseball, basketball, and track — prompting its renaming to the Virginia High School Literary and Athletic League.By 1920, over 250 high schools were affiliated with the league. Its rapid growth helped establish uniform rules, structured interscholastic competition, and regular state championships. Following World War II, the VHSL began expanding further into sports such as football, wrestling, and golf, while also implementing more standardized rules and officiating practices.
A major structural change occurred in 1969, when the VHSL merged with the Virginia Interscholastic Association, which had been founded in 1954 to oversee athletics and academic competitions for African American high schools during the era of segregation. The merger represented a key moment in the integration of Virginia's public high school system.
Girls’ sports were formally added to VHSL sanctioned competition in the early 1970s, following broader national shifts prompted by the enactment of Title IX in 1972.
In 1970, the VHSL launched the first statewide football playoffs, establishing a postseason structure that remains a hallmark of Virginia high school athletics.
Organization
The VHSL is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has 308 member schools and conducts championships in 27 different sports. Nearly 200,000 students participate in its activities annually. The VHSL is overseen by an Executive Committee elected from the principals and superintendents of the various Virginia school districts. Day-to-day affairs are handled by the Executive Director and Assistant Directors.Former classifications, basis for regular season competition
From 1970 to 2013, the VHSL's member schools were organized into three group classifications based on enrollment: A, AA, and AAA. Each of the three groups were split into four geographic regions, which usually contained three or four districts. District sizes vary and consist of four to eleven teams. The group of schools with the largest enrollments were in Group AAA, the group with the next largest enrollments were in Group AA, and the schools with the smallest enrollments were in Group A. Regional boundaries were different for all three groups as average school sizes vary substantially in different parts of Virginia.Nearly all Group AAA schools were located in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Greater Richmond, with a few outliers in the Roanoke, Lynchburg, and Danville areas. Group A schools were typically found in rural areas, with the largest concentration in Southwest Virginia. Group AA schools were somewhat more widely distributed than the other two, and found in rapidly growing areas like Loudoun County, in and around cities such as Roanoke, Lynchburg, Harrisonburg, and Charlottesville, and in some cities and counties which have a single high school. Unlike many state associations, districts and regions were the same for every sport with few exceptions.
Redistricting and regrouping occurred every two years. Group AAA schools typically had enrollments above 1,500 students, Group AA schools typically had from 700 to about 1,500 students, and Group A schools had fewer than 700 students. Schools could request to play up a group. Several schools in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas competed in the Central and Eastern Regions of Group AAA instead of Group AA due to a reluctance to travel long distances in the post-season. In Southwest Virginia, some schools with Group A enrollment levels competed in Group AA due to traditionally being part of that group. Lee High School in Jonesville received a special dispensation from the VHSL to play in Group A despite having Group AA enrollment numbers due to being far away from the nearest schools in Group AA and not having substantially more students than large Group A schools.
In football, each region was further split into two divisions based on school enrollment, so statewide champions were determined in Divisions 1 through 6. Divisions 1 and 2 were for Group A with Division 2 being the one for schools with larger enrollments; 3 and 4, the Group AA schools; and 5 and 6, the Group AAA schools. The division format was first adopted in 1986 for football and was expanded in the late 2000s and early 2010s to some other sports in Groups A and AA.
Since the average enrollments of schools varied by region in each group, some schools in one region had enrollments which would have placed them in the different division of another region. Most districts contained members in both divisions of its group, and a single district had two state championship teams on a few occasions. Because of the number of schools choosing to play up, in some years a state championship team from a lower division had a greater enrollment than a state championship team in a higher division.
2013 classification expansion, basis for post-season competition
In the 2013-2014 school year, the former three group classification system was replaced by a six group classification system with Group 1A schools having the smallest enrollments and Group 6A schools having the largest enrollments. Generally, schools which had competed in Group A have been assigned to the new Groups 1A and 2A; in Group AA, the new Groups 3A and 4A; and in Group AAA, the new Groups 5A and 6A. Unlike the former system, the VHSL intends that the group classifications will remain approximately the same size, and schools will not be allowed to compete for a state championship in a group classification above or below the one determined by their enrollment. Regrouping will occur every two years.Many schools which had competed at the former Group AAA level, particularly in the Central and Eastern Regions, have been assigned to Groups 4A or 3A. To a lesser extent, some smaller schools from the former Group AA have been assigned to Group 2A, a few larger school from the former Group A to Group 3A, and some larger schools from the former Group AA, particularly in Loudoun County, to Group 5A.
The district system largely based on the prior group classifications has been retained for regular season competition and districts may now include schools from different group classifications to maintain local rivalries and minimize travel during the regular season. Some Group AAA and AA districts with few schools and which were geographically isolated from other districts in the same group were dissolved and their member schools assigned to districts of nearby schools with smaller enrollments.
Schools are not required to play a district rival which is at least three group classifications higher. For example, a school in Group 3A is not required to play against a school in Group 6A but is required to play against schools in Groups 5A and 4A. In some cases, no district championship is awarded when there is not a full round robin schedule of all district teams.
Schools have also been assigned to a conference of schools from the same group classification for the first round of post-season competition. There are a total of 48 conferences, designated by numbers in reverse order of the group classification numbers. Conferences are not uniform in the number of the member schools and almost always include schools in other districts. Only two conferences are composed solely of the members of one district. There are no uniform rules for the seeding of schools in conference competition based on regular season results.
The six groups are not divided into four regions as before. Instead, each group classification is divided into two regions of four conferences each. The two regions are designated North/South in Groups 6A, 5A, and 4A and East/West in Groups 3A, 2A, and 1A. In most team sports, the top two teams from conference playoffs advance to compete in regional playoffs. The top two teams from regional playoffs advance to a final four state playoff competition to determine the state champion.
The conferences are not used for football playoffs in ten of the twelve regions. Instead, the sixteen schools with the most VHSL points from each region compete in the regional playoffs. The exception is that the first three rounds of the playoffs in the South regions in Groups 6A and 5A are split into two sections of two conferences each with eight schools qualifying for the playoffs in each section. The two sectional champions meet for the regional championship in the fourth round.
In Groups 6A, 5A, and 4A, the two regional champions play for the state championship. In Groups 3A, 2A, and 1A, the final four teams are cross-bracketed in the state semi-finals with the higher remaining seed in one region hosting the lower remaining seed in the other region. This format could allow two teams from the same region to play for the state championship.