Julie Eder said her tipping point on high school sports came last spring.

            Her son, Jake, was a good athlete who wanted to play football for several years, but could not find a team in Anderson because the Christian school he went to didn’t offer the sport and when he switched to a charter school he couldn’t play for public schools even though his school gets local tax dollars and was created by a school district.

            Seeing no changes on the horizon in the way the system was ran, Eder decided to form a new sports league open to middle and high school students who are home schooled or attend charter and Christian schools that don’t offer sports.

            It is the latest salvo in an on-going battle over access to athletic fields in South Carolina.

            Dubbed Regional Athletics, the league starts play this fall with teams in several counties including Anderson, Spartanburg, Greenville, Abbeville, Greenwood, Pickens and Lexington and hopes to expand statewide in a few years, she said.

            It is part of a growing push by parents of students outside the traditional public school structure, who are trying to find ways for their children to compete in local sports.

            While there are private opportunities and leagues readily available for sports such as soccer, baseball and basketball, that is not always the case with sports such as football, cheerleading, golf, and swimming.

For more of this story, pick up a copy of the Greenville, Anderson or Spartanburg Journal or contact John Boyanoski at jboyanoski@communityjournals.com.