Starting next school year, Bob Hope School will compete athletically under a different governing body.

Principal and athletic director Rick Frey announced Tuesday that the Port Arthur-based charter school will participate in the Texas Christian Athletic League for all sports beginning in August. Bob Hope’s teams currently compete in Class 3A (4A for soccer) in the University Interscholastic League.

Frey said the school considered many factors in the decision to move, including travel to district games and the ability to compete in district play. His long-range plan for Bob Hope, however, is to move back to the UIL by the start of its 2020-22 realignment cycle.

“We were pretty competitive in soccer and volleyball,” Frey said. “Then, we were looking at some of the other sports and seeing where we were landing and we were looking at the amount of travel we were having. Our district is pretty big.”

Bob Hope’s boys basketball team plays in District 23-3A, which includes Anahuac, Buna, East Chambers, Hardin, Kirbyville, Kountze and Warren. Anahuac (50 miles from Port Arthur, taking the fastest route), Hardin (69), Warren (63) and Kirbyville (62) are the outermost locations from Port Arthur in the district.

Frey expects Bob Hope’s athletic district in TCAL, which could be announced Wednesday, to include Port Arthur’s Tekoa Academy and Beaumont’s Harmony Science Academy with the possibility of at least one Houston-area school. Tekoa is ranked fourth in TCAL 2A boys basketball and seventh 2A girls polls. Beaumont Harmony is ninth in TCAL 2A boys.

“For us, it’s a lot easier,” said Frey, who’s been on the Bob Hope staff since December 2015. “The district will be a lot closer. So, it cuts some travel for us, but it also allows us to be on a level playing field.”

The Eagles have enjoyed some success in multiple sports since Bob Hope began operations in the 2010-11 school year, but they’ve struggled in volleyball and basketball in recent years.

The varsity volleyball team has made the playoffs once, in 2015, the second year for that program to compete in UIL. The varsity boys basketball team is 0-7 in 23-3A going into Wednesday’s game at East Chambers (moved from Tuesday in Port Arthur because of a referee shortage), and the girls basketball team played with only a junior varsity schedule this season in order to work on fundamentals, according to Frey.

Bob Hope competed in Class 2A before the 2016-17 school year due to a rise in enrollment. Frey said the ninth- through 12th-grade enrollment for the school has risen from 250 when he became AD in December 2015 to about 400 today. The total enrollment for the sixth- through 12th-grade building, he said, is currently 665.

Bob Hope has faced stiffer competition as a 3A school than in 2A. East Chambers, Kountze and Buna, for example, are usual basketball powers among Southeast Texas small schools.

“When we were in 2A, we were fairly competitive in our district,” Frey said. “Softball, we could hang in games, and basketball, we posted some district wins.”

Chris May, the Eagles’ leading scorer in boys basketball, said he noticed his team being outmanned by some of their district foes, “but I feel like we can go out there and compete every night.”

The boys and girls soccer teams, making their UIL debuts last year, both qualified for the playoffs in 4A, the UIL’s lowest soccer classification. The boys team, which finished second in District 20-4A, won their bi-district round match.

Carmen Andrade, now a senior, was District 24-2A runner-up and made the 2A Region III tennis tournament in both 2015 and 2016 and was third-place in 23-3A in 2017.

Lance Elizondo, a former Bob Hope tennis, softball and basketball coach who is currently a principal intern at the school, said the competitive spirit has changed since the move to 3A.

“If we had remained in 2A, I don’t think this would have been a question of moving to TCAL,” Elizondo said, sitting in Frey’s office. “When you play a role of the competition and the level of competition we’re facing in 3A, it shows a much bigger discrepancy.”

The soccer teams, however, face shorter travel within 20-4A, which includes Bridge City, Hamshire-Fannett, Little Cypress-Mauriceville and East Chambers.

TCAL is different from the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS, in that charter schools may compete in its organization. Kelly Catholic High School in Beaumont competes in TAPPS.

While the Austin-based UIL is the most popular high school organization in Texas, the San Antonio-based TCAL is known for some of its basketball teams that are highly competitive in non-district play against UIL teams. One example is greater Dallas’ Universal Academy, which won the Young Men’s Business League boys tournament earlier this season and was associated with the UIL in past years.

“We see it as a win-win because the teams that are playing now in our district, the Hardins and Kountzes, Kirbyvilles [etc.], I’ve already been in touch with these schools about scheduling preseason games,” Frey said. “In volleyball, for example, we beat Kirbyville. We can compete against teams like that pre-district, but now [going to TCAL] gives us a little more room because, like for baseball or softball or something like that, we can choose if we want to compete against a TCAL squad in pre-district, another charter our size, or we can play a public [school] our size. It just gives us more options.”

May said he’s looking forward to going to TCAL for his senior year, although he’s not familiar with the association.

“I’m willing to play in it to see how it goes,” May said.

•

I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews