By David Taylor
Managing Editor
Like ebony and ivory on a piano, the Aldine and Spring school districts just go together. For almost a decade, the districts have faced each other in two different leagues — District 14-6A and District 16-6A — to battle for supremacy on the gridiron. The competition has been dominated by Spring ISD who has brought home eight straight district titles, seven for Westfield, and one for Spring since the 2016-2017 school year.
While Aldine has been on the short stick, they have still produced teams achieving the playoffs, but not with the same success as Westfield and Spring in particular.
During that period, Westfield compiled an impressive 90-17 record, five of those losses coming to their cross-town rivals North Shore in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023. Westfield managed two wins in that stretch against North Shore in 2017 and 2021. In 2020, the game was canceled because of the pandemic.
While North Shore and Duncanville have faced each other five times in the last six years for the state title, Westfield has fallen victim to Duncanville deep in the playoffs three times. While they were on the losing end, Westfield can boast they played the state champion in Division 6A the last six years consecutively.
Spring has been runner-up in district for most of those eight years, but in the 2020-2021 season, the Lions won the district title with a perfect 6-0 record and advanced to the regional finals where they fell to DeSoto, 27-21. The following year, the Lions lost to Westfield and finished second again, but advanced to regionals before a 42-7 loss to Duncanville.
Last year, Nimitz finished third in the district with an 8-3 season record, and 5-2 league play mark.
The 16-6A District league will remain the same with Westfield, Spring, Dekaney, Aldine, Benjamin Davis, Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Nimitz included.
The football gods at UIL realign and reclassify teams every two years based on their enrollments, in order to balance fair play between schools. The new enrollment figures this next biennium are 6A numbers beginning at 2,275 students and above, 5A is 1,315- 2,274, while 4A numbers are 545-1,314, 3A enrollments 254-544, 2A from 105-253, and 1A 104.9 and below. Some districts petition to be moved up, some move up or down because of increasing or decreasing enrollments. Others petition the changes based on driving distance or what might seem to make more sense for them. The appeals have been filed and UIL granted some and refused others.
Football schedules are still being finalized. Comprehensive details, including district alignments for football, basketball, and volleyball, as well as conference and division cutoffs, and realignment maps, can now be accessed on the UIL website at http://www.uiltexas.org/alignments.
Alignments for other UIL sports and academic contests will be released later.