University Interscholastic League
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The University Interscholastic League or UIL is an organization which creates rules for and sometimes administers almost all athletic, music, and academic contests for public elementary and secondary schools in the American state of Texas. Activities range from American football to marching band competitions. The UIL does not administer Academic Decathlon competitions, however. The UIL was originally created by the University of Texas at Austin to provide a rule-making body for athletic and academic events. It has since grown to many times its original size and vision, and now strives to create rules for fair play in all inter-school contests. Its mission, according to the UIL, is to foster good sportsmanship and character building among competitors.
The UIL generally governs only public high schools. Activities for non-public schools are governed by completely separate bodies, the largest of which is the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS). However, non-public schools are allowed to join the UIL if they do not qualify for membership in TAPPS; Dallas Jesuit and Houston Strake Jesuit were the first schools (and only thus far) to do so, in 2003.
Groupings
Schools are broken down with a letter classification to separate them from other schools of varying sizes. The purpose is to ensure that schools compete only with others with similar size talent pools and resources. The classifications are A, AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA. They are popularly known as, respectively, 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, and 5A. The largest schools are classified as 5A, and the smallest are known as 1A. A school is permitted to request to be placed in a higher classification than its enrollment would otherwise dictate (but never in a smaller one, unless it believes there is an error in the figures used by UIL). This is done either for geographic reasons (there may not be another school nearby in the same classification) or for competition reasons (a school may be dominant in a particular sport, and thus wishes to compete with the larger schools in that sport). However, the school must then compete in the higher classification in all activities.Within each classification, the UIL separates the schools in regions, and then further separates the regions into districts for various contests. Each type of contest will have different regions and competitors. (In 1A very small schools may choose to play six-man football or play 11-man football. Larger 1A schools, however, are not given this option.) The regions are decided behind closed doors by the UIL (in February of even-numbered years) and are an attempt to keep schools within a certain distance of their home town when attending competitions.
Under the rule allowing Dallas Jesuit and Houston Strake Jesuit to compete, any private school that is eligible to join UIL must compete at a classification one level higher than its enrollment would dictate; the rule (purportedly) is designed to prevent private schools (which are not restricted by geographical enrollment boundaries) from "recruiting" players from other schools.
The state semi-final and championship games for all 5 classes in boys and girls basketball are held at the Frank Erwin Center. The state Track & Field meet is held at the Mike A Myers stadium, while the state swimming championships are held at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center. All the facilities listed above are located on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. The state level academic competitions are also held on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.
Events
Miscellaneous
The UIL State Office has made an official ruling that the online encyclopedia site, Wikipedia, will not be accepted as proper documentation for oral interpretation contests due do its disclaimer: “Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here.”External links
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