Well now you have certainly dated yourself with that question. Brought back a lot of good memories.
HIT (Houston Independent Teams) was started as a way to get around some of the politics in the Houston Metro area at that time. I don't believe that a kid down there was allowed to play on a team out of her county.
While we also had some politics involved as well up here in the DFW area, we were able to utilize something called a borderline release allowing a kid to cross counties to play on a team.