Will AHSAA public-private separation water down state volleyball titles?

It was hard for McGill-Toolen volleyball coach Kate Wood to hide her disappointment when the AHSAA’s Central Board voted to separate public and private schools for championship play in January.“I want to be careful with what I say but, as a competitor, I was disappointed,” she said. “It was hard. I just didn’t want to see things get watered down.”Wood’s Dirty Dozen won the last four Class 7A state volleyball titles. The school has 25 state titles overall, trailing only Bayside Academy.This fall, McGill will compete in the 17-team, Double-A Private School Division.“I gave myself to lunch that day to get over it and then I was just like, ‘You know what? These kids didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for this, but what I can do is schedule the best schedule I can possibly throw out there and we are going to have a fantastic season,’” Wood said. “That was my message very quickly to our parents. Nothing changes. We still want to be the best.”As such, McGill will start the season Aug. 20 at Thompson – the team the Dirty Dozen defeated for the 7A state title in 2025 in four sets. They will then compete in the prestigious Juanita Boddie Tournament at Hoover that weekend along with most of the other top teams in Alabama.McGill, which lost just two matches last fall, enters the season on a 40-match win streak. The Dirty Dozen will easily start the season as the top team in Double-A, but how can they measure if they are the best overall team in the state?“I asked about a super state championship at the end,” Wood said. “I was denied. We are going to schedule as many of the top teams as we can and as many as we can see in tournaments. That is also our goal. We will have a chance to beat them. Unfortunately, it may not be at the end of the season, but I think we will be able to judge where we are based on results. I think we will have a crack at all the best teams.”Most of the coaches attending a Coastal Alabama Media Event at McGill-Toolen earlier this week were not fans of the public and private separation. That includes legendary Bayside Academy head coach Ann Schilling. Her team – with a state-leading 31 titles – will compete in Single-A Private in 2026.“Of course, I wish they could have kept everyone together,” she said. “I do think that, with competitive balance, that system was broken. I wish everyone could be together, and I think they could have done it, but we are just going to embrace where we are and embrace Single-A. We have our work cut out for us regardless. It will be a little different than in the past, but we are just going to embrace it and try to win a state championship in Single-A. That’s always the goal.”The AHSAA approved the competitive balance system for private schools in 2017. The system elevated successful private school sports teams up a classification if they met a certain threshold of success. Bayside volleyball, which at one point one 21 straight state titles, played in Class 7A in 2025, while the Admiral football team competed in Class 3A.With the separation, competitive balance has been removed. “I haven’t looked at the postseason much,” Schilling said. “I’ve kind of glanced at it. We are just going to focus on each opponent one by one. We’ve been in all seven divisions now. Competition the last few years has been really, really good. A lot of people seem to think, ‘Oh well, you’re in Single-A,’ but there are a lot of good teams in Single-A. We didn’t play a lot of them, so I don’t know a ton about them, but I think it will be extremely competitive.”One of the 44 other Single-A teams Bayside will have to deal with is two-time defending 3A state champ Mobile Christian. Leopards coach Mallory Boyington said she can see both sides of the public/private debate.“I can see the benefit to a certain degree, but if you are getting to state and wanting to win and say you are the best in the state for this classification, how can you say you are the best if you are only playing a certain percentage of teams in the state?” she said. “I can see they have a reasoning as to why they (the Central Board) split it, but a true competitor is going to want to say, ‘I played everyone. I played the best and we still won.’ I don’t want to say that is going to take away from the trophy because every team would have worked hard to get to that trophy, but I do feel like it will have an impact on what that trophy will mean for everyone who gets it this year.”Daphne head coach Breanna Williams discusses the upcoming season during Coastal Ala. HS Volleyball Media Day on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at McGill-Toolen in Mobile, Ala. (Mike Kittrell | preps@al.com) Mike Kittrell | preps@al.comFirst-year Daphne High head coach Breanna Williams had a different view on the separation as her team looks to make a splash in Class 6A.“It gives a lot of teams opportunities to be successful,” she said. “You have the monopolies in the sport. You have the giants. They are phenomenal teams, but sometimes public schools don’t always get the same opportunities. For our area specifically, I think this opens a lot of opportunity for Daphne to be successful. Parents ask me where I see us going. I see us playing deep into the playoffs.”In 2025, only two private schools (McGill and Mobile Christian) won state titles. The other champions were Spanish Fort (6A), Guntersville (5A), Cherokee County (4A), Pleasant Grove (2A) and Addison (1A).In 2024, four private schools (McGill, UMS-Wright, Prattville Christian and Mobile Christian) were champions.St. Luke’s was the 3A runner-up to Mobile Christian a year ago. Wildcats’ coach Meredith Donald is also not a fan of the split.“I don’t like it,” she said. “You truly don’t have a state champion. To win a championship, you should beat every school the same size as you. I think this waters it down. If you win a state championship, you should beat everyone not just private schools.”One of the biggest concerns when the separation was announced was that public schools would not play successful private schools during the regular season. In the volleyball world at least, coaches say that hasn’t been a problem.“The day it was released I probably had five or six text messages from friends around the state and they were like, ‘We will play. Let’s play,’” Wood said. “That’s the cool thing about the volleyball community. We are super supportive of each other, and people want to play the best. That’s always the way I’ve been. If you are really good, I want to see you on the floor.”Volleyball teams can officially open the season on Aug. 20. The Super Regionals are set for Oct. 21-23 with the state tournament set for Oct. 27-29 at the Birmingham CrossPlex and Harris Arena.Top state volleyball players: See the best in AHSAA Class 4ATop state volleyball players: See the best in AHSAA Class 3AAHSAA North-South All-Stars: Volleyball closes out competition with a nail-biter Top state volleyball players: See the best in AHSAA Class 2ATop state volleyball players: See the best in AHSAA Class 1A, AISA classes