Bishops still dominate the competition after moving to Class AAAA

Concerns about Bishop England High School’s athletic demise were greatly exaggerated.

 

The Bishops dominated high school sports for years in the Palmetto State, winning the Carlisle Cup every year from the 1999-2000 academic year to 2021-2022, mostly at the Class AA level. The award is given by the South Carolina Athletic Administrators

 

Association to schools in each of the five classifications with the most athletic success.

 

The school moved to Class AAAA last year after the South Carolina High School League used a multiplier to determine student enrollment for athletics. The league’s formula (counting students outside a school’s attendance zone as three, not one) aimed to even the playing field of competitive balance between public schools and private or charter schools.

 

The result?

 

Bishop England won three state championships and finished as state runners-up in six other sports, and the Bishops were crowned Region 6-AAAA champions in 14 sports.

 

The three championships give the Bishops 173 state titles in the school’s proud 110-year history. An amazing 137 of those championships were won after BE moved its campus to Daniel Island.

 

“A year ago, there was a lot of fear in the community with the jump to 4-A,” Bishop England athletic director Bill Warren said. “However, our coaches and student-athletes never lowered the expectations and accepted the challenge. It was a phenomenal year,

and kudos go out to our coaches and athletes on their ability to compete against larger schools – some with 1,600 students.”

Warren, who had great success as an administrator and AD at Upstate schools, was hired by Bishop England in time for the 2023-2024 academic year. He spent his first year sharing AD duties with Paul Runey.

 

Since then, he’s made some key hires, replacing coaching legends Bryan Grevey, John Cantey, and Jeff Weiner, to name a few. He has also kept the BE sports machine running – and winning.

 

“I could not think of a better place to work,” Warren said. “The Bishop England community continues to strive with high expectations both academically as well as athletically. I have asked a lot out of our coaches the past two years, and they have been very patient with changes that are occurring within the athletic department. Hopefully we can continue the journey we started to become more efficient, improve communication, and continue to constantly evaluate everything we do to make the student-athletes’ experience at BE a memorable one.”

 

Warren oversees an athletic department that offers 23 sports, including both boys’ and girls’ teams. While the Bishops face teams from schools that might have as many as 1,600 students, the Bishops had only 670 students on campus in 2024-2025.

 

But they were student-athletes.

 

The Bishops fielded 34 teams, including varsity and junior varsity, and 521 of the student-athletes participated in at least one sport. Warren said 179 of the student-athletes compete in two or more sports.

 

“We had 11 individual state champions in 4-A, 101 all-region athletes, and 41 all-state athletes,” Warren said. “We had 15 athletes sign scholarships to play at the next level, and at least 10 more earned preferred walk-on status. It was truly a phenomenal year.”

 

Coming next week: PSHS Iron Horse yearly recap.