Abbreviation TSSAA Type Volunteer; NPO Purpose Athletic/Educational | Formation 1925 Legal status Association | |
Headquarters 3333 Lebanon Rd.
Hermitage, TN 37076 | ||
The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA), along with the affiliated Tennessee Middle School Athletic Association (TMSAA), is an organization which administers junior and senior high school sporting events in Tennessee. The TSSAA (commonly pronounced "Tee double-S double-A") is the only high school athletic organization in the United States to have a five-sport, Olympic-style spring sport championship tournament, known as Spring Fling, for baseball, softball, track and field, team and individual tennis, and soccer. Spring Fling began in Chattanooga in 1993, later moving to Memphis, and then establishing itself in Murfreesboro. The TSSAA was one of the first high school athletic organizations to host a central site for football championships, beginning in 1982.
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Description
The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association administers sporting events for an estimated 110,000 participants, 374 schools, 4,000 coaches, 3,000 officials, and 5,500 teams in the state of Tennessee. First organized in 1925, the TSSAA oversees athletic functions of both public and private schools. It includes schools throughout the state of Tennessee, as well as a single private school located in Mississippi.1
In 2001, the association was a party in the United States Supreme Court case Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association. Brentwood Academy had sued the Association after the school was penalized for "undue influence" in recruiting football players, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The court in this case held that a statewide association, incorporated to regulate interscholastic athletic competition among public and private schools, is regarded as engaging in state action when it enforces a rule against a member school.
The fall of 2009 was the first year for the TSSAA to divide into six playoff classifications for football.The new system allowed more teams into the playoffs. The state championship game for football, the BlueCross Bowl, which is held on Wednesday to Friday the first week of December and includes Division I classes 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, and 6A, as well as Div. II A and AA, has been held at Tennessee Tech University's Tucker Stadium in Cookeville since 2009.
Classification
Each school chooses to compete in Division I or Division II. The difference is that in any Division I school that charges tuition, the student's family must pay the entire amount (no financial aid allowed). In Division II, financial aid is allowed provided it is limited to a need-based amount, and that the percentage of athletes receiving aid is no greater than for the school's students as a whole. The two divisions compete separately in all sports except cheerleading and girls' wrestling.
Division I schools are divided into three classes, as equally as possible, based on enrollment. A school's enrollment is multiplied by 1.8 if it is non-public and by 2 if it is single-sex (the only single-sex school in Division I is Chattanooga Girls' Leadership Academy) before ranking the schools.
Note that a school that would be moved up two classes by the 1.8 multiplier will instead be placed one class above where it would be without the multiplier.
Division II schools whose enrollment (not considering the non-public multiplier, but with the single-sex multiplier taken into account) is below the smallest school in Division I Class AA are Class A; larger schools are Class AA.
Finally, any school that wishes to play in a higher class may do so, but must do so for all sports other than football.
A full reclassification is held every four years; at the midpoint, any school that has had a 20% increase or decrease in enrollment will be moved to the class appropriate to its new enrollment (a school that will be moved down may decline).
Football classification
Starting with the 2015 season, a new classification system is being implemented for Division I football, separate from those of other sports. The 31 largest schools in the state, plus Maryville playing up by request, will constitute Class 6A; the remaining football-playing schools are divided as equally as possible into classes 1A through 5A. The option to play up, and the prohibition against moving a school up more than one class due to the 1.8 multiplier, will apply separately to football and to the rest of the sports.
For all other purposes, the 2015-2016 year will vary from 2014-2015 only due to 20%-change adjustments.
Districts and Regions
For each sport, the schools competing are divided into regions, and/or districts depending on the sport.
Division I
Division II
Combined Divisions
Administration
The TSSAA divides Tennessee's 95 counties, and the state's constituent Grand Divisions, into nine "athletic districts":
These districts are unrelated to the competitive districts above (although a few sports do use the grand divisions as regions); their primary purpose is to elect the Board of Control (the administrative authority) and the Legislative Council. Each district elects one member to each for a staggered three-year term; in addition, starting in November 2015, three additional members will be chosen to represent non-public schools, one from each grand division.
Out-of-state teams
The sole out-of-state school that is a member of the TSSAA is Northpoint Christian School in Southaven, Mississippi, a suburb of Memphis. Northpoint votes in the Athletic District 9 elections.
Cities and towns near Tennessee's borders with surrounding states, i.e. Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, or Virginia, such as Bristol, Chattanooga, Clarksville, and Memphis, do have various schools, both public and private, who play nearby out-of-state teams (which are not TSSAA members) on a regular basis, e.g. Heritage High School in Ringgold, Georgia for Chattanooga teams or Virginia High School in Bristol, Virginia for Bristol, TN teams.