SC High School League approves single location for basketball semis, championships
The South Carolina High School League is simplifying its state championships by reducing them to a single venue starting in 2023-24.
The SCHSL executive committee on Tuesday voted 11-2 in favor of hosting the Upper State championships, Lower State championships and state championship game at a single location, which is to be determined.
“We discussed at length travel, the number of people who couldn’t attend this year’s upper state basketball championships and the lack of large venues willing to guarantee,” SCHSL executive committee president Jason Warren said. “The majority of athletic directors said let’s go to one site. It wasn’t an easy decision.”
Florence, Rock Hill, Greenville and Charleston are all possible sites with the Florence Center (capacity 9,150) being the most likely, according to SCHSL commissioner Jerome Singleton.
“They have put together a great offer,” Singleton said. “I don’t know if we have a place more centrally located that we can have the size it has. We need somewhere between six and eight thousand (seats).”
The SCHSL executive committee voted Tuesday in favor to give Singleton the authority to make the decision for the venue.
The previous two years, the Upper State championships were held at Bob Jones University in Greenville, the Lower State championships at Florence Center and the state championships at USC Aiken (3,500-4,100 capacity).
The issue with Bob Jones (4,000 seats) and USC Aiken has been capacity, at least with bigger classifications and having ticket allotments being capped per school — and sometimes none being able to be released for sale to the general public.
USC Aiken almost had a conflict this year with its men’s basketball team hosting an NCAA Tournament regional. Since they were under contract with SCHSL, the regional was moved to Augusta, Georgia.
The idea for the postseason change was brought up during the S.C. Athletic Administrators Association annual conference in March. Four of the five classifications would be in favor of making that change with Class 4A being the only one that seemed to be against the idea. The biggest concern: Making sure the venue is centrally located.
Colonial Life Arena, where the championships were held for many years, won’t be an option.
“It’s an eight-day event and the University of South Carolina isn’t in a position to give up eight days,” Singleton said.
The games will be held over an eight-day period starting on a Friday and ending the following Saturday. Each classification will have its own day to play the semifinal contests. For example, the Class A boys and girls Upper and Lower State state games all will be on one day (four total games), Class 2A will get its own day and so on. There will be one ticket to get you into that day’s semifinals.
The state championship games, pitting the Upper and Lower state champions against each other, will be over three days Thursday through Saturday or reduced to two days over Friday and Saturday.
Football, cross country championships
Singleton said South Carolina and South Carolina State (located in Orangeburg) have both shown interest in wanting to host this fall’s state football championships.
“Cost is the biggest factor,” Singleton said of USC’s willingness to host. “They are seeing if they can cut the costs then that becomes an option. I will know this within a couple of weeks.”
All five South Carolina High School League football championships were played at Benedict College for the second straight year last fall. Before then, the championships were played at two sites — USC’s Williams-Brice Stadium and Benedict’s Charlie W. Johnson Stadium — from 2012-19. Before 2012, Williams-Brice Stadium hosted all the games.
Last August, the SCHSL executive committee voted to hear a proposal for USC’s home stadium to host the games next season.
The main reason for moving venues was the cost to hold the games. It costs about 25 percent less to hold games at Benedict instead of Williams-Brice Stadium, officials said. In prior years, the cost of holding the state championships at Williams-Brice approached $100,000, with half of that going toward law enforcement expenses.
Singleton also said this fall’s cross country state championships would likely be held at Newberry College if renovations at Clemson’s Richland County Extension Office (the usual host site) aren’t finished in time.
This story was originally published April 18, 2023 at 3:06 PM.
