Recently, frustrations have been shared regarding the cancellations of certain ball games or contests due to low participant numbers in certain programs at some of our conference schools. Middle school, freshman and even JV games have taken a hit in recent years. Here at Creston Community, and Creston O-M in some activities, we have also experienced low numbers from time to time in certain programs resulting in our own cancellations. One solution presented to address the scheduling challenges has been to change our activity conference.
Scott Vicker recently wrote an excellent article in the Creston News Advertiser (CNA) related to this issue that included a great map that clearly illustrated distances between schools. As many realize, Creston was one of the original schools in the Hawkeye 8 Conference before it grew to be the Hawkeye 10 (now 11 schools in the conference). Those schools are Creston Community (and Creston O-M), Clarinda, Harlan Community, Shenandoah, Atlantic, Glenwood, Denison-Schleswig, Red Oak, Carroll Kuemper Catholic, Council Bluffs Saint Albert and Council Bluffs Lewis Central. Some community members have shared their interest in looking at a neighboring conference, the Raccoon River Conference, for athletics and other school activity programs.
Moving a school to another conference is no small matter. A current conference must be willing to add a given school and to align their schedules. Many factors are involved in these decisions. These include driving distances, relative sizes of schools, competitive levels of programs, facilities, gate receipts depending on a school’s fan following and good old-fashioned politics between and among the individuals and schools involved. One school may welcome a new school candidate, while another may oppose the same school.
Schools also have agreements with their current conferences that will only allow a school to depart after a certain amount of time has passed. This allows time for a replacement school to be recruited and considered, and for schedules to be adjusted. If we reach a point in the Hawkeye 10 where schools decide to move to another conference, any potential moves simply can’t happen overnight. It takes time.
In my opinion, over the next few years I believe we will see several conferences in Iowa realign due to the recent, rapid growth of some school districts and the decline in size of others. I also believe completely new conferences will be established. The unique size and location of our Creston Community School District certainly presents some challenges in terms of distance from other schools our size.
Here are current stats, some of which CNA shared earlier:
We will continue to watch for potential opportunities for improved scheduling and conference affiliation. Until we discover realistic possibilities that appear to benefit our programs and our Panthers, we will continue to be proud members of the Hawkeye 10 Conference and to compete as hard and as smart as we possibly can! While this issue is very important to the overall development of many students, academics and learning in our classrooms and beyond will remain our top priority.
We’re all in this together!