The landscape of college sports has been shaken within the past decade.  The Big Ten now has 14 teams, the Big 12 is down to 10 teams, and various other conferences have re-shuffled their their traditional line-ups.  These changes have been driven primarily by money and security.  Conferences add universities to expand their television markets (see Big Ten adding Rutgers and Maryland).  Colleges look to secure a better seat for themselves, ideally in one of the big-time conferences that provides big-time pay-outs and long-term stability (see Utah joining the PAC-12 as well as Pitt and Syracuse abandoning the weakened Big East for a stronger ACC) . 

High school athletics is not immune to the epidemic of conference re-shuffling.  Like college, every school wants the security of a league with long-term stability.  Money also plays a big role, but for different reasons.  Schools want fellow members that minimize travel costs while bringing strong crowds that maximize ticket sales.  But currently, probably the biggest factor is competitiveness.  Schools want to be a part of a conference where they have a good chance to win and develop consistent, competitive programs.  Losing is not much fun.  Losing a lot is MISERABLE!  And schools with smaller enrollments are at a competitive disadvantage to bigger schools, especially in the sport that generates most of the revenues:  football.

2015 has been a year where area leagues have been put through the blender.  The Inter-Valley Conference has about as rock-solid of a foundation as just about any league in the state.  Five schools are 1967 founding members–Garaway, Hiland, Malvern, Newcomerstown, and Ridgewood—while Strasburg (1970) and Tuscarawas Central Catholic (1971) joined soon after.  The league has had various additions and subtractions in its 48-year history, with its current line-up including Sandy Valley (added in 2001) and East Canton (2013).

The IVC announced in recent months that it would be undergoing  the biggest make-over it its 46-year history by adding five teams:  former members Connotton Valley, Tusky Valley, and Indian Valley (formerly North and South in their IVC heyday) as well as Claymont and Buckeye Trail.  These schools will begin IVC play for the 2016-17 school year.

Some have questioned the decision to shake up what appears to be a very stable league.  But my guess is the IVC is being very proactive in maintaining competitive balance.    The enrollment gap was becoming a growing issue, especially with TCC, Strasburg, and Malvern being well less than half the size of Ridgewood, Garaway, and Sandy Valley.   The additions give the IVC the flexibility to better balance the discrepancy in enrollments among its members by splitting the 14 schools into two divisions as needed.  As mentioned in Times Reporter article written by Roger Metzger.   the conference will split into these two 6-team divisions for football (along with the OHSAA 2015-17 enrollment figures based on  males grades 9-11 from last year):

*note that  Hiland (135 boys) does not have a football team, and Conotton Valley (50 boys) will not participate in the IVC for football.

The positioning of Sandy Valley and Newcomerstown are puzzling, but overall, this set-up should give schools a better chance to be successful in football on a constistent basis.

This division set-up will not necessarily be used for all sports.  As stated by IVC commissioner Chuck Rest in Roger Metzger’s article mentioned above, some sports may have no divisions, while others may be split by size or geography.  School athletic directors will decide this in a sport-by-sport basis.

Let’s take a brief look at the pros and cons of the new IVC set-up:

PROS:

1.  As previously stated, the two-division set-up allows for school to be grouped for competitive balance enrollment-wise.

2.  The two-division set-up also allows for the possibility of schools being grouped by the performance of individual programs.  For example, the more successful volleyball programs would be placed in an upper division, while more struggling schools would be put in the lower division.  This flexibility can be extremely useful for a small-school conference like the IVC.  The success of sports programs in smaller schools may widely fluctuate due to the limited number of students to draw from.

3.  Having 14 schools gives the IVC the flexibility to evolve if any schools decide to leave the conference in the future.

4.  The three largest schools (Claymont, Indian Valley, and Tusky Valley) are all new additions.  For many sports, the competition from these schools will help raise the bar for current IVC schools and better prepare them for post-season tournaments and playoffs.

CONS:

1. The ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.  The IVC has been very successful conference for almost five decades.  Will going to two divisions weaken that stability?

2.  Two-division conferences by size sometimes create a ‘big brother-little brother’ mentality where smaller schools are made to feel that their success is somehow inferior to their big-school division counterparts.

3.  Adding Buckeye Trail in Guernsey County off of Interstate 70 greatly stretches travel times for schools heading south.  According to the website, Mapquest,  Buckeye Trail High School is 28 miles (and 29 minutes driving) from the I-77/Route 36 interchange near Newcomerstown (the furthest school south right now).  For Sandy Valley High School, it would be a 62-minute drive.  It is 69 minutes from Hiland H.S., 72 minutes from East Canton H.S., and 79 minutes from Malvern H.S.  Fans of those schools might want to read my recent Road Trip Rewind blog before heading out the door.

4.  The three largest schools (Claymont, Indian Valley, and Tusky Valley) are all new additions. That will be a challenge for current members to against stiffer competition.  As I said earlier, no one likes to lose.

The best news for the IVC is that is has a fine leader in commissioner Chuck Rest, and that it is filled will many quality coaches, athletic directors, principals, and communities.  With all of those positives, it is easy to bet on a great future for the IVC.

The expansion of the IVC, though, put other leagues into scramble mode.  The Principals’ Athletic Conference (PAC-7) not only lost Tusky Valley and Indian Valley, but also saw Timken disappear when it was absorbed by Canton McKinley.   Being down to four teams appeared to be a possible death blow for the PAC.  But several area schools were looking for a better fit for their location and enrollment, and the PAC provided a great landing strip.  In May, Orrville, Northwest, and Loudonville (football only) all agreed to join the league by 2017.  Here is the male enrollment breakdown of what appears to be a very competitive league:

The other local league that felt the butterfly effect of the IVC metamorphosis was the East Central Ohio League.  The ECOL has had a big (Scarlet) and small (Gray) division of five schools since 2010.  The loss of Claymont from the Gray division put the league status in jeopardy.  The enormous gap in school enrollments made a merger of the two divisions into a nine-team league appear unlikely possibility:

The solution that the league initially chose this past spring was to move Cambridge into the small school division and invite Vincent Warren into the big school division.

Adding  Vincent Warren didn’t exactly have Dover and New Philadelphia fans jumping  for the joy.  According to Mapquest, the drive would be 99 minutes from Dover High School and 100 minutes for the Quakers (must be some heavy traffic in downtown New Philadelphia).  And something tells me that riding in a school bus would bump those drive times up some.

Unfortunately, it appears those ECOL scenic excursions will not come to fruition.  Last week, The Jackson County Times Journal reported that the Warren board of education voted not to join the ECOL.

So where does that leave future for Dover, New Philadelphia, and the ECOL?  Stayed tuned for my ideas in my upcoming PART 2.

<script type=”text/javascript” charset=”utf-8″ src=”http://static.polldaddy.com/p/8988610.js”></script>
<noscript><a href=”http://polldaddy.com/poll/8988610/”>The new Inter-Valley Conference 14-team set-up:</a></noscript>

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