The high school postseason has reached deep into classrooms and budgets of Chattanooga’s Division II schools, adversely effecting Baylor, GPS and McCallie.

“The whole year has been very difficult from academic and financial standpoints,” Baylor athletic director Thad Lepcio said.

In trying to include smaller schools in Division II playoffs and also to entice smaller private schools playing in Division I (non-financial-aid) to move to Division II, private school athletic directors from across the state suggested to the TSSAA that it incorporate a second tournament series. The TSSAA added the small-school division but cut large-school state-tournament fields from eight teams to four. That meant cutting out state berths from region tournaments and adding a sectional round requiring more travel.

The East Region teams — Baylor, McCallie, GPS and Knoxville Webb — were combined in an East/Middle region with several Nashville teams, thus forcing the local schools and Webb to make several more trips to the midstate area. Baseball, soccer and softball teams from Chattanooga and Memphis will wind up traveling across the state next weekend for sectional play.

“We have lost the ability to play local teams (in the regular season) because we’re being forced to play more teams in Nashville,” Lepcio said. “It is a strain on our students, a strain on parents who want to watch their kids play, and it has put a strain on coaches who have to get up and teach the next day. I don’t think the Nashville teams appreciate how much travel our schools have done.”

There is also the issue of steeper gas prices.

“Coaches say we have always had tournaments, and I say, ‘Yeah, and gas used to be $1.50 a gallon,’” Lepcio said.

He made it clear he’d rather have his teams playing local schools than schools from Nashville.

“We play Red Bank in basketball and the gym is packed. We play BGA (from Franklin) and it might be half-full,” he said.

The format was put in place at the beginning of this school year. The state tournaments for volleyball, basketball and all spring sports are held in the midstate. The state tournament for girls’ soccer and the traditional wrestling tournament are held in Chattanooga, and wrestling’s state duals tournament is in Clarksville.

“With the girls, (travel) wasn’t that big of an issue because the state tournament is here,” Baylor soccer coach Jimmy Weekley said. “With the boys, though, if we lose (to McCallie), we’re traveling to Memphis. We have at least six guys taking exams. I feel bad for the kids. It’s extra time out of class. Then there is the financial end of it. As coaches we’re trying to stay within a budget, and taking a bus to Memphis is pricey.”

Basketball played a round-robin league schedule, forcing local schools to travel extensively in the East/Middle region.

“Baylor and McCallie made four trips to Nashville, and those Nashville trips made one,” Lepcio said.

However, Baylor and GPS in softball and McCallie and Baylor in baseball are playing games with Nashville teams Saturday to set seeds and hosts for next weekend’s sectional games. Track is different in that the winners and runners-up in each regional advance to the state and the rest of the field will be termed by best regional times and distances.

“Instead of having one big regional tournament and forcing everybody to travel to Nashville, the (seeding) games were a way to cut down on travel and still be able to advance our four best teams,” McCallie athletic director Bill Cherry said. “However, Webb would have had to stay in Nashville all week if they kept winning. That’s the bad thing about Division II — the amount of travel, and it’s going to get worse with gas prices. It isn’t good.”

To accommodate its baseball seniors, McCallie shifted its graduation ceremony from May 17 (Saturday) to May 18 (Sunday) because the team will be playing in the sectional tournament. Baseball coach Chris Richardson appreciated the move but doesn’t like the new playoff format.

“The biggest thing is that we had a system established,” he said. “I understand about the smaller schools, but if you look at it historically, there are about 12 teams that have been to the (Division II) Spring Fling. I don’t like the travel.”

If McCallie has to travel to Memphis, the team will leave after school Thursday.

“They’ll be studying on the bus, and if possible we’d have a study hall Friday morning,” Richardson said. “We could wind up driving to Memphis, then playing two games on Friday and possibly a game on Saturday, come back Saturday night, have graduation on Sunday. The underclassmen will be in exam preparation on Monday and then leave for the Fling on Tuesday. There are some loose ends that need to be tied up. My sense is that coaches don’t like it.”

Beyond spending a minimum of $750 for travel to play DII sectionals, Lepcio has begun to dread calling Baylor’s academic dean about postseason athletic events.

“It’s one thing to sit in a conference room (with other athletic directors) and hash things out,” he said. “Now we’re seeing the strain on kids, coaches and wallets. I think it will force us back into a room to find a solution. I’m comfortable with the model, but what makes it tough in the spring is final exams, weather and proms.

“I shudder every time I call our academic dean and say this team or that team has to leave at a certain time of the day. We’re approaching the last weeks of classes before exams, and we could wind up pulling kids out of class to go to Memphis and then the next week (to Murfreesboro) for Spring Fling.

“At some point, wisdom has to come into it.”