Change has been a common theme of the last three years and with that, many coaches and athletes have been forced to adapt to keep up with ongoing alterations to their seasons. As part of that, the UIL released its new district realignments in football, volleyball, and basketball for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. 

For the first time, the district’s high schools will be split up into multiple districts for all sports which means more Frisco ISD schools will have a chance at making the playoffs compared to this year’s district, with the exception of football, that feature all Frisco ISD schools.

“We’re excited about how the UIL realignment will benefit our students and athletic programs,” said FISD Athletic Director Grace McDowell said in a Frisco ISD news release. “The added district helps us as we strive to maximize the opportunities for our student-athletes while competing for championships.”

For volleyball and basketball this will mean a shift from a 10 team district (District 9-5A), to a seven team district (District 10-5A).

Competing alongside the Redhawks in District 10-5A will be Centennial, Emerson, Heritage, Independence, Lebanon Trail, and Memorial High Schools.

“With seven teams in there, we will see a few differences,” volleyball head coach Clark Oberle said. “We will definitely have a longer pre-district season, so longer to prepare. One of the hard things for me when I got here was having to adjust to the huge district. We were really only getting a week or two to prepare before district matches. So the way it is now, we will have several more practice matches.”

More practice time is not the only thing volleyball will see come out of the shift.

“We’ll also get to play an additional tournament so we’ll have a lot more game time experience before we start playing district matches where it really counts,” Oberle said. “That’s a big advantage.”

Boys’ head basketball coach Stephen Friar looks at the new districts as a chance at a fresh start.

“I think it’s good because we get a chance to start districts later and usually teams don’t find out about themselves until toward the end of the calendar year, kind of the beginning of the new year,” Friar said. “So it’s a good time for us to kind of play different opponents and find out about ourselves and then you know, when districts start we just gotta hit the ground running.”

While volleyball and basketball will be part of the same district, football is moving up to 5A Division I and will be taking on a new set of teams in Frisco, Centennial, Heritage, Lebanon Trail, Lone Star, Reedy, Wakeland, and Sherman.

Although most of the district opponents will be different come the start of football season, the Redhawks have played all of the schools in recent years. 

“It’s true we will play a few different opponents,” head football coach Matt Swinnea said. “But it’s guys we played two years ago and the district we were in, Division II, was awful tough so it’s gonna be no different this go around.”