EDITOR'S NOTE: A more detailed report on realignment will appear in the Friday edition of the Times.

The current 15-team Northern 4-A League would be reduced to 10 teams under a proposal recommended by a Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association realignment committee during the NIAA Board of Control meeting Thursday, the Web site, nevprep.com has reported.

The nine-member committee, consisting of two representatives from each of the state's four classifications and one from the state's private schools, submitted its proposal during the Board of Control's fall meeting in Reno.

The only other proposal among the seven submitted that the committee recommended for further consideration was to leave the present NIAA structure league and classification structure unchanged.

Under the proposal, which contains many of the elements of the plan submitted by Winnemucca Lowry High School and originally authored by NevadaPrep.com, the Northern 4-A would become a single-division, 10-team league.

In the past, the NIAA has relied almost exclusively on enrollment figures to determine league alignments. However, as advocated by NevadaPrep.com in the Lowry-submitted proposal, the NIAA said in a statement that three factors -- enrollment, geography, and competitive balance -- were given equal consideration by the committee.

All three of the other classifications would be divided into three divisions. The 3-A and 2-A currently are divided into North and South leagues, while the 1-A has four divisions East, Central, Southern and West.

The 3-A, which currently contains only 11 schools for football and 14 for most other sports, would expand to 16 teams.