Midlands charter school is building a sports powerhouse. Is the playing field unbalanced?

The moment was nearly nine years in the making.

A large crowd was on hand in January to see the Gray Collegiate Academy War Eagles basketball teams play in the school’s new on-campus gymnasium in West Columbia. No more bus rides downtown to Allen University, where Gray played most of its home games since opening in 2014.

“It brings everything that we have been working toward for nine years, full force,” Gray Collegiate athletic director and football coach Adam Holmes said. “There is nothing that we don’t have and can’t work toward to get.

“Our academics is second to none. Now, we have a turf football and soccer stadium, state-of-the-art gym, baseball, softball fields on campus. Hopefully, this will elevate us even more.”

Less than two months later, Gray’s boys and girls basketball teams won state championships. In the past 12 months, Gray also won state titles in softball and competitive cheer, and it won the 2021 football state title.

What once was a dream for Gray Collegiate was now reality. But for many of the high school teams that have had to play the War Eagles, the milestone of Gray adding new on-campus facilities might sound like more of a nightmare.

In their eyes, here is a burgeoning Goliath in athletics, a public charter school with advantages in attendance guidelines and whispers of recruiting tactics that result in all-star rosters that can dominate opponents.

Gray and other charter schools — along with several private schools that compete in the public school league — are increasingly dominating small school athletics in South Carolina. In the current school year, 13 of the 16 S.C. High School League fall and winter sports team championships in Class A and Class 2A were won by charter or private schools.

Administrators at traditional schools are starting to push back. One, the superintendent of Fairfield County schools, said he would not force teams in his district to play games against Gray if they didn’t want to.

The tension is pushing high school sports in South Carolina to a tipping point that could reshape not only their structure and oversight but force a fundamental reckoning on how the state deals with core issues such as fairness, sportsmanship and the boundaries of competition.

A school choice

Public charter schools like Gray, located on Leaphart Road near Sunset Boulevard and Interstate 20, are not limited to drawing students from a particular attendance zone or school district. Rather, they are open to students from anywhere in South Carolina as an alternative to the traditional public school system.

The only limitation is Gray’s admissions cap. The school currently enrolls 800 students from seventh through 12th grade, about half of whom are student-athletes. Around 600 of those are in high school. Gray’s application to open a charter school says its mission is to provide “an outstanding academic and athletic program,” according to 2013 documents submitted to the state.

“Too many of South Carolina’s high school graduates who have the athletic ability to compete at the college level are not academically prepared for admission,” the application reads. So Gray Collegiate intends to provide student-athletes “with a premier athletic program that will help interested students be eligible when they graduate from high school,” offering some classes with dual enrollment in college credit programs.

Gray and the state’s other charter schools are similar to traditional public schools in some ways. They are publicly funded and tuition-free. Gray received $6.7 million in state funding for the 2022-23 school year, plus about $250,000 through student fees and fundraisers.

But unlike traditional public schools, charters have more autonomy over curriculum, instruction and more. They can be opened by anyone but must first obtain approval from a sponsor that holds the schools accountable both academically and financially. Gray is one of two-dozen charter schools sponsored by the Charter Institute at Erskine, an offshoot of Erskine College.

Gray’s day-to-day operations are run — for now — by Pinnacle Charter School Management Group, a Florida-based private for-profit company.

Pinnacle’s management of the school became a point of contention with the Charter Institute at Erskine. A 2020 lawsuit was filed by the management group after allegations were raised of Pinnacle inappropriately awarding subcontracts, paying for duplicative services, unnecessarily hiring lobbyists and “potential financial irregularities.” Pinnacle denied those allegations and called them defamatory.

Gray will end its relationship with Pinnacle after this school year, school Principal Brian Newsome said.

Gray is spending $4.3 million to build an athletic complex funded through a bond issue, and spent $72,000 on a new athletic bus with a wrap-around facade.

The War Eagles have had sustained athletic success while playing most of their “home” games at off-campus facilities. Besides the gymnasium, the new athletic complex will include a football/soccer stadium and softball and baseball fields. The school also is building a 9,000-square-foot academic wing with six classrooms, all paid for by a $14.2 million bond. The soccer field was ready to play on in the spring, while the baseball and softball teams continued to play off-campus for another year.

Holmes says charter schools provide parents with different opportunities that bigger schools might not have.

“We are different. In the Columbia area, there aren’t a lot of small-sized schools like us. People might want a smaller school. They might not want to go to a school with 1,500 to 2,000 kids,” he said. “What we offer academically with the dual enrollment, the flex schedules where we can get the academics done, get on the field and get home at a decent hour.”

A typical school day for a Gray student has elements of a traditional high school day blended with the feel of a college schedule. While school starts at 7:45 a.m. and ends at 3:20 p.m., students don’t have wall-to-wall classes that fill the day. Some classes are also offered online. Sports teams can opt to practice during those hours as well, as compared with a traditional school where teams typically only practice after school.

Gray, in its promotional materials, touts its “unique four hour day, which leaves time to pursue extracurricular and athletic opportunities.”

Newsome, in a video posted to the school’s website, said Gray offers morning and afternoon sessions for classes.

“Our morning session’s primary focus is with our athletes,” Newsome says in the video, “so they finish classes by noon, start practice after lunch and they’re home in time for dinner with their families.”

There’s also no school for Gray students on Fridays, though they can go in for makeup work.

“It is all about fit. Gray is great for some kids but not great for others,” Holmes said. “That is the great thing about having a school of choice. These parents get to come here, see Gray and see if they want their kids in this type of environment. I think at the end of the day, any parent should have the option where they should send their kids to school regardless of where they live.”

‘Marketing our kids’

That openness has caused heartburn for some traditional school districts — and fueled perceptions that charters recruit student-athletes away from the traditional schools.

Those perceptions surfaced in the Lexington 1 school district during an email exchange that started on Feb. 16, 2022. The State obtained the emails through an open records request. River Bluff High School’s athletic director wrote to other Lexington 1 school district officials that, in the middle of the school year, two football players were leaving local Lexington 1 schools to play JV baseball and football at Gray Collegiate Academy. This followed a similar move to Gray by a student-athlete the year before, according to athletic director Blair Hardin. The emails didn’t say specify which grade the students were in.

Hardin was concerned that Holmes, the Gray athletic director, “is marketing our kids and they are transferring to his school,” the email says. “Gray has access to our kids and (students) are not moving (to the new attendance zone), which is in violation of SCHSL eligibility rules.”

There are no eligibility restrictions or residency rules for charter school student-athletes as long as they enroll there ahead of ninth grade. After students’ ninth grade year begins — if they want immediate varsity sports eligibility — they’re required to move and live within the attendance zone where the charter school is located. For Gray, that zone is Lexington 2. While a ninth- or 10th-grader can transfer to Gray without physically moving, they’re ineligible for varsity athletics for one year but can play JV sports right away.

District athletic director David Bennett replied in the Lexington 1 email chain that White Knoll football coach Nick Pelham had “similar situations.”

“He is going to get statements from kids, who tried to recruit them and what was said,” Bennett wrote back. “We need to compile this information and submit to our HS league.”

River Bluff Principal Jacob Smith emailed and asked for a meeting ”to pull our thoughts and evidence together and see if we need to take next steps?”

District secondary schools director Luke Clamp then replied and offered his support. “Would also be wise to get written statements from anyone connected.”

Gray Collegiate is located about a mile from the Lexington 1 attendance zone and about two miles from River Bluff High School.

The conversation among district officials did not result in written statements about Gray recruiting the district’s student-athletes, Lexington 1 said in response to an additional records request from The State. But the discussion highlights suspicions many in South Carolina high school sports have toward charter school athletics.

“We lose some players to those schools because their format is sports. Their academic day is built around sports,” Anne Marie Green, chairwoman of the Lexington 1 school board, said of charter schools. “We have an obligation as schools that academics come first.”

Clamp later told The State he sees benefits to switching to Gray if student-athletes think they have a better opportunity to play there. But he’s also told parents that the eligibility rules for traditional public schools can be different, and a student might be ineligible to play for an entire year if they decide to transfer back.

“I’ve always had open lines of communications with Gray,” Clamp said, regularly speaking with Newsome, the school’s principal, and athletic director Holmes on student transfers and other issues. “We’ve talked on many occasions on transfers and I appreciate that. What I always wonder was how fair it is to kids who can’t transfer, who don’t have their own transportation (to get to school). ... Maybe I do want to go to Gray, and a public charter option could benefit me, but I don’t have my own transportation.”

A promotional form letter sent by Gray Collegiate to Richland County households in 2020 raised concern from Keith Price, then the assistant superintendent in Richland 2. That concern, revealed in an open records request, was seen in an email on March 26, 2020, from Price to the S.C. High School League that asked if the Gray communication to Richland County families was equivalent to recruiting.

The letter said “our student population is comprised of scholars from 14 Midlands school districts,” promoted other Gray qualities and invited families to one of the school’s “Lunch and Learn” sessions. The SCHSL ruled the letter, which was generic in nature, didn’t violate any recruiting rules.

“I think biggest thing about our school is that people think we are all about sports,” Newsome said. “Ninety-two percent of our kids are in dual enrollment, and the last four years we have been rated excellent for academics among high schools. People think we are sports school, and we do well in sports. But the classroom matters more than the playing surface. Let’s not forget that. We are doing excellent in the classroom and academically.”

Tension about Gray surfaced during a 2020 football playoff game between the War Eagles and Abbeville High School.

Benjy Greeson, owner of radio station WZLA in Abbeville, was doing on-air commentary for the game, which was played at Fairfield Central High School, alongside long-time Panthers radio play-by-play man Wayne Stevenson.

“It was the fourth quarter, Gray’s winning,” Greeson said, “and I think they bring a backup quarterback into the game. And I mention that the player went to Chapman his freshman year, in Spartanburg (County).”

Apparently there were some Gray fans listening to the broadcast, because while the pair were still on the air calling the game, a man Greeson has never been able to identify burst into their studio area and “just goes off, talking about us downgrading their players.”

“Wayne moved a chair in between us and he just went on a rant for a little while,” Greeson said. “Wayne tried to go to commercial, but I was like, ‘No, let it run.’ We tried to get him to put on a headset.”

The man eventually left, but the situation remained so tense that at the end of the night a police officer escorted the broadcasters from the press box and out of the stadium, Greeson said. In the two years since, Greeson said a week has not gone by where somebody hasn’t asked him about that famous broadcast.

Gray did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.

“Wayne Stevenson has been the voice of the Panthers since the early ’90s, and he’s in his 70s, and he had never had anything close to that happen to him before,” Greeson said. “It put a sour taste in everybody’s mouth. The broadcast should not overshadow what happens on the field.”

A move to forfeit games

What J.R. Green saw on the softball and soccer fields was so bad, he never wanted to see it happen again.

Green, the Fairfield County schools superintendent, attended a Fairfield Central High School junior varsity softball game against Gray on March 14. After just three innings, Fairfield Central trailed 15-0, a score so lopsided the game was halted under the “mercy rule.” The Fairfield varsity team then lost 18-1 in three innings.

Those losses, plus similar one-sided defeats to the War Eagles in boys soccer (21-0) and girls soccer (10-0), led Green to issue a new directive to the school’s athletic coaches: Fairfield Central’s teams no longer have to play games against Gray, and coaches can forfeit any scheduled match-ups with the War Eagles. All three sports opted to do just that for games against Gray days later.

This was the first year that Fairfield Central competed in the same athletics region as Gray.

“I saw exactly what I needed to see to support the decision,” Green told The State. “We already know the competitive advantage they have. It was demoralizing, so I talked with our principal and softball coach. I told the principal I supported the decision not to play them. I would be fine with any coach making that decision.”

Two other schools in Region 3-2A, Eau Claire (girls soccer) and Keenan (boys and girls soccer), also forfeited games against the War Eagles in the days after Fairfield’s decision.

“I have heard from countless superintendents, some principals and people affiliated with high school athletics who would acknowledge that is an ongoing issue that needs to be resolved and applaud the decision that we made,” Green said. “I stand by my decision. We will see what happens going into the next fall sports season.”

Fairfield’s move sparked a lot of debate. It also highlighted a major criticism about charter and private schools.

For decades, the S.C. High School League has addressed competitive balance by grouping schools in classifications based on total enrollment. That includes the belief that smaller schools produce fewer top-notch athletes. Grouping by size allows smaller schools with fewer athletes to compete with each other for region and state championships.

There are 219 member schools split into five classifications in the S.C. High School League. Of those, 15 are charter schools and four are private schools. Four more charters have been approved for league membership.

Gray’s region and classification — along with those of other charter and private schools — is determined solely by enrollment. With 600 or so high school students, that means Gray competes in Class 2A, the second smallest. Critics say that’s unfair because Gray, with its emphasis on athletics, attracts top-caliber athletes.

Gray and sister school Oceanside Collegiate in Mount Pleasant win a lot. In March, Gray won the Class 2A boys and girls basketball state championships. Gray and Oceanside faced off in the boys finals, with the Gray girls winning over private school Bishop England. Gray has won five 2A boys basketball state titles in the last six years. Meanwhile, the Gray and Oceanside boys soccer teams will meet this weekend in the 2A state title game. And the girls 2A soccer championship features Oceanside against a private school.

The War Eagles won their first football state championship in 2021 and their first softball title a year ago. The competitive cheer team won its first championship in the fall, and the baseball team played for a state title last year.

Gray’s boys soccer team played for the Class 2A state championship last year and has reached the semifinals four times in the past five postseasons. The War Eagles’ girls soccer program advanced to the Class 2A semifinals in 2018 and 2019.

Oceanside won the Class 3A baseball championship last year and, now competing in 2A, is a favorite to win a title there. The Landsharks have a lineup with six Division I signees or commitments and have wins this year over such non-region opponents as defending 5A champion Berkeley, Summerville and 4A power A.C. Flora.

This school year, 13 of the 16 team fall and winter state championships in Class A and 2A were won by charter or private schools. The only championships won by traditional high schools were Abbeville in football, Chesnee in girls golf and Liberty in wrestling. Oceanside has won two of the 2023 spring sports championships.

“They attract students that are sports-focused, the better athletes, but then they compete against 1A and 2A, so they win championships every year,” said Anne Marie Green, the Lexington 1 school board chair. “It’s not fair to student-athletes who live in small towns, who attend schools because of where they live.”

Gray in the past has denied recruiting athletes, saying the school attracts students based on its small size and attractive class schedule that includes taking college courses through a dual-enrollment option.

Khalil Robinson attended Gray all four years of high school and was part of the school’s first two boys basketball championship teams in 2018 and 2019. The 6-foot guard averaged 13.3 points, 4.4 assists and 3.6 rebounds as a senior and earned all-state honors.

“Going to Gray helped me prepare as a player and a student by teaching me how to manage my time on and off the court wisely and be prepared for college courses,” Robinson said. “The thing that brought me to Gray was the academics and chance to take dual-enrollment classes.”

Robinson signed a scholarship to play at Howard University, which is known for its academics. The Bison made it to the NCAA Tournament this year for the first time since 1992. Robinson played in 27 games this season, including Howard’s March Madness game against Kansas.

Finding opponents to play can also be a challenge, Holmes said. Some districts such as Lexington 1 have unwritten rules about not scheduling games against schools like Gray.

“We win one state championship in football and the world falls out, and Abbeville wins eight out of 11 and they’re just a good program,” Holmes said. “If Keenan would have won in boys and girls basketball (this year), they would have said, ‘They have a dynasty, they do a great job.’ Gray Collegiate does it (and people say), ‘We have kids from everywhere.’”

Gray’s 2021 football championship team featured contributors who began their high school careers at Brookland-Cayce, Batesburg-Leesville and other schools. This year’s state title boys basketball team added a player mid-year from Charlotte and featured others who transferred in recent years from Fairfield Central, White Knoll and East Clarendon.

What can be done?

The growing dominance of charter and private schools over smaller traditional schools has sparked debate about how to level the playing field. In this legislative session alone, at least five such bills about athletics were introduced in the S.C. House.

Some legislation called for moving charters and private schools to higher classifications, which would force them to compete against schools with larger enrollments. Another idea is to create separate playoffs and state championships — with charter and private schools having their own postseason.

In December, the S.C. School Boards Association approved a resolution calling for “non-traditional, athletics-based public schools” to be reclassified in athletic competitions so that Gray and its sister charters would be in a separate classification level and a separate region based on their enrollment. The school boards association, in an email sent to members in late April, lent its support to House bill 4121, “which would direct athletics-based charter schools to be in their own separate classification for the purposes of postseason playoff or championship competitions.”

Those ideas are similar to a bill introduced by S.C. Rep. Craig Gagnon, the Abbeville state representative, in the S.C. Legislature. The intent of Gagnon’s bill is to force the High School League to move schools that accept students from outside the local attendance zone into a higher classification.

“In the last several years, private schools have come to dominate state athletics, because of the fact they, well, they don’t use the word ‘recruit,’ but what it is, is they entice players from all over the state to come, and even from out of state, to come and play sports and assemble better teams,” Gagnon said.

Gray, meanwhile, pitched a plan to make student transfers more seamless. In March, three amendments were proposed by Newsome, the Gray principal, regarding transfers. One called for a one-time transfer that would allow a student to go to any school even without an official change of address. It was similar to the NCAA’s one-time transfer rule for college athletes. The amendments were voted on and turned down during the annual principal and athletics directors meeting in Charleston.

In 2020, the High School League’s competition committee discussed the concept of “multipliers” like the ones used in Georgia, Tennessee and about 20 other states. A multiplier system would be done on a sport-by-sport basis and recalculated every two years.

Under the new Georgia multiplier passed in 2021, a student who comes into a school from outside that school’s district would count as three students and affect the school’s total enrollment figure — and likely make that school “play up” in a higher classification and face tougher competition.

The high school league’s competitive balance committee has also talked about a multiplier that’s based on athletic success. Indiana uses that formula. Points would be assigned to teams for each round of the playoffs they compete in — with the most points given for a state championship appearance. The more success a team has would mean competing in a higher classification than its school’s enrollment calls for.

For example, if Gray Collegiate’s boys basketball team won multiple state championships but the girls team didn’t, the boys might move up to compete in Class 3A while the girls remain in Class 2A. Such a change would affect scheduling, logistics and transportation. Instead of the current setup where boys and girls basketball teams often play the same schools at the same location on the same day, a multiplier effect might mean the boys play one team while the girls play another.

The idea of adding a multiplier system in South Carolina hasn’t been publicly supported by High School League leadership.

“The intentions were there, but it’s hard to determine what that change needed to be. Can’t be based on emotions. It has to be based on facts,” Jerome Singleton, the High School League commissioner, told The State. “Multipliers, say in basketball where you have two games a day and boys might be in one class and girls in other. There are logistical problems you do create, and do the problems outweigh the solutions?”

Holmes said he wouldn’t be opposed to Gray teams moving up in classification or the High School League using multipliers — as long as any rule change applies to everyone and not just charter or private schools.

“I’m tired of talking about it. Let’s do something and see how it works,” Holmes said. “If you want to do a multiplier, do a multiplier for everyone. There are tons of schools that have transfers that don’t live in their district.”

In the scenario where charter and private schools have their own playoffs, those teams could be in regions with traditional schools for the regular season but then have their own postseason. But making such a major change to postseason play has not been discussed by the S.C. High School League, Singleton said. The league, for now, does not have the authority by law to make that happen.

Singleton and the S.C. High School League on May 2 came out in support of removing from state law a condition known as a proviso that “guarantees that private or charter schools are afforded the same rights and privileges that are enjoyed by all other members of the association” and that participation cannot be restricted in “state playoffs or championships based solely on its status as a private school or charter school.”

On Tuesday, members of the S.C. House approved the addition of a new proviso — or a one-year law — in the annual budget that says “the interscholastic athletic association has the authority to make adjustments in the classifications to promote competitive balance.” If that proviso survives the state budgeting process, it could be a precursor to the High School League stepping forward to address the simmering competition concerns.

Any change, big or small, to the league’s constitution must be introduced by January of a given year and then go through a legislative process that culminates in a spring vote by high school league member schools.

The debate around possible next steps or solutions reared its head again April 18 when the S.C. High School League’s executive committee voted 10-4 to deny adding new charter school Atlantic Collegiate Academy as a league member. The move was widely viewed as a way to make a statement about fair-play concerns.

Atlantic, also managed by Pinnacle, was admitted April 26 when the league’s appellate panel overturned the executive committee decision. Atlantic is slated to open this coming school year in Horry County and will begin as an at-large S.C. High School League member.

“The heartburn for me is not the institution itself or the mission or anything,” high school league executive committee president Jason Warren said at the April 18 meeting. “It is the choice of the institution to have a very stated purpose of athletics and elevate athletics to a level in that organization that most educational institutions don’t.”

J.R. Green, the Fairfield superintendent and an executive committee member, said the current system for competition is simply unfair to high school athletes from traditional schools.

“The evidence is very clear there is a competitive imbalance, but we can’t come to an agreement on that,” Green said. “At some point in time, it needs to be addressed. Simply saying we need to address it at another point over and over, we keep kicking the can down the road. … We have been saying it forever and have been doing nothing to address it.”