GRAVETTE — Athletic directors of the 4A-1 Conference of which Gravette is a member voted last week to not play Shiloh Christian's junior high team beginning with the 2010 season. All seven public schools supported the vote.

The games for the upcoming 2009 season will not be affected nor will the senior high games this year or in the future.

A vote recently by the Arkansas Activities Association placed restrictions on transfers to private schools in the future that offer financial aid. A measure to drop Shiloh Christian from the A-1 classification, initiated by Berryville, was defeated.

Last year Gravette was the only conference school that scored more than one TD against Shiloh which won 49-14. The Saints' conference record showed they outscored their seven opponents by a total score of 379-32.

Norman Mitchell, GHS athletic director, said the decision to ban Shiloh Junior High was"a very delicate and difficult situation."

He added, "I don't believe Shiloh Christian will try and retaliate. The feelings of schools within the athletic realm are not brotherly right now.

"We're going to have to start moving in that direction. You keep hearing that this is not fair to Shiloh Christian's kids. Well, the reason we did what we did was because we didn't feel like what was going on was fair to our kids."

Mitchell said as a basketball coach at Gentry he once ran up the score on a team, topping 100 points.

"I made the mistake one time and did that," he said. "It physically upset me after the game. We don't get that feeling from them (Shiloh Christian); it doesn't seem to bother them."

News, Pages 5 on 08/19/2009