Heritage explores options as Villa Grove ends co-op in several sports

By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com

High school sports face a picture of uncertainty as the fall season draws nearer.

At Heritage High School, the uncertainty extends beyond the short-term and is due to more than the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought an abrupt and premature end to sports last spring.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Heritage has participated in an athletic co-op, for at least some sports. For the past seven years, the district has been united with Villa Grove for many sports in a series of two-year agreements, which will expire after the upcoming 2020-21 school year.

Villa Grove’s school board has already announced that it will end the agreement in boys’ basketball, boys’ basketball cheerleading and baseball when the contract is up for renewal next year.

“I was disappointed, but not surprised at all when Villa Grove opted to drop the boys’ basketball and baseball coop agreement,” Heritage athletic director Lori Archer said. “I honestly expected it would happen during the last renewal process, especially since they had already dropped softball (after the 2017 season).

“At this point, I’m not so sure how we will move forward. Our school board is currently gathering input from our community. Once that information is compiled, we will consider our options and try to make a decision that works best for our students and our school district.”

Villa Grove school board president Jim Clark said its decisions were a matter of responding to feedback from its residents.

“Our community feels we have enough athletes in those sports to field teams,” Clark said.

He believes that is true beyond the immediate future.

“We have looked at the numbers. At the high school, there will be some ebb and flow, but we have strong feeder programs and think we’ll be OK.”

The choices for Heritage are limited to forging forward on its own or forming a coop with another district if the coop completely crumbles.

Some potential coop partners would include St. Joseph-Ogden, Unity and Salt Fork. The distance from Broadlands to Tolono, where Unity High School is based, is about 14.5 miles. The distance to St. Joseph is about 16.7 miles. The distance to Catlin is about 25 miles.

Heritage High School had an enrollment of 134 during the recently completed school year.

Archer expects that number to remain relatively stable for the foreseeable future.

“Looking at projected numbers, I see that number staying approximately the same the next several years,” Archer said.

Enrollment is an issue which can be a sticking point when districts ponder a coop partnership. For example – based on last year’s enrollments – if either SJ-O or Salt Fork joined forces with Heritage, they would be bumped up a class for football, to 4A for SJ-O and to 2A for Salt Fork. Unity was already 4A for football and that would likely not change if it teamed up with Heritage.

On the positive side, the chances for success – especially during the regular season – increase with additional student-athletes from which to pick.

Heritage, for example, has struggled in recent years to field a girls’ basketball team at both the seventh- and eighth-grade levels and have put one combined team on the court at the junior high.

“We’ve averaged eight to nine players, so we’ve been forced to play an eighth-grade season only,” Archer said. “Our coaches do a great job with the numbers given, but the numbers just aren’t there right now.

“As a result, our high school numbers have suffered as well. Our numbers at the junior high may gradually increase over time, but currently we could not field our own girls’ basketball team at the high school level.

“If it comes to that, we will reach out to other schools to see if there would be any interest in a girls’ basketball coop.”

The outlook is less grim for other Heritage sports.

“I have no doubt we can maintain our own boys’ basketball and baseball programs,” Archer said, “but our girls’ basketball numbers have been very low, so I don’t think we could commit to playing a JV and varsity girls’ basketball schedule on our own.”

When Heritage first teamed up with Shiloh in 1997 (a coop which was known as East Central and lasted through 2013), participation was the driving force.

“The most obvious benefit of being a part of a coop is being able to provide athletic opportunities to our student-athletes that we probably could not provide on our own,” Archer said. “The initial reason for our coops was due to lack of numbers in a particular sport.

“We wanted to assure that our students had the opportunity to be part of a ‘team’ and gain all of those experiences that go along with being a member of a high school sports team.”

While the participation goal was achieved, the coop with Shiloh wasn’t a success in all other areas. In football, there was just one winning season, and during the final eight years of the agreement, the varsity football teams totaled eight wins.

That, in turn, led to another issue.

“We hadn’t had much continued success with the football coop, so our numbers on both sides were declining,” Archer said. “We were struggling to put together a full team (JV and varsity).

“It was a mutual agreement (to dissolve).”

Ultimately, there were no hard feelings.

“Both districts (Heritage and Shiloh) looked for other possible solutions,” Archer said. “Shiloh was able to form their co-op with Oakland/Kansas (now called Tri-County) and we were able to co-op with Villa Grove, which at the time, seemed like the perfect fit for everyone.”

By contrast to the limited on-field success during Heritage’s first coop venture, the combined Villa Grove/Heritage teams fared much better. In football, the coop qualified for the playoffs six of the last seven seasons.

Both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams have produced back-to-back 20-win seasons the last two years, the girls’ teams combining for 47 wins in that span and the boys’ teams posting a total of 44 wins.

The VG/H baseball team won 23 games the last year it was able to take the field (2019).

“With all of the successes our programs have had as a coop, and very little negative feedback, we felt like the coop was a good fit/solution for both schools,” Archer said. “I will always be grateful for the opportunities and successes it provided our students.”

Clark said it’s imperative to continually study all options.

“If you’re not constantly evaluating things, you’re not serving your communities’ best interests,” Clark said.

“It has gone well competition-wise. The competition part is one thing.

“There were 39 kids out for (boys) basketball and that’s a lot of kids. We heard from (Villa Grove) kids who don’t play sports because of the numbers. We examined it to see what’s beneficial for our students.”

At this time, the only coop agreements to be dissolved between Villa Grove and Heritage are baseball, boys’ basketball and boys’ basketball cheerleading.

Clark anticipates that the agreements in cross-country, football, football cheerleading, girls’ basketball, golf and track will continue.

“I foresee it going on as it has been,” Clark said. ‘We’re optimistic that will not change.

Clark noted that not everyone shares that opinion.

“In our community, some were in favor of pulling out completely,” he said.

Football and track, in particular, are sports where, “it takes a lot of kids,” Clark said.

Archer said it is unlikely that Heritage could offer football – even the eight-man variety – unless it was as part of a coop.

“As far as Heritage being able to support an 11-man football team on our own, I honestly don’t see that as a viable option,” Archer said. “We would need at least 35 to 40 students to participate/commit for us to ensure we could have a competitive JV and varsity team year in and year out.

“Those numbers just aren’t there for us. I fear the numbers wouldn’t be there for eight-man football either. I have reached out to other area teams who are choosing to play eight-man football. It would be a good fit for us, but again, I’m not certain we could get the amount of players needed.”

Archer envisioned that a minimum of 19 or 20 students would be needed to pursue an eight-man team independently and added, “I just don’t think we have those numbers.”

It would be easier for Heritage to participate in sports which are viewed more as individual sports, such as cross-country, golf and track, but that wouldn’t be a given either without the benefit of the coop.

“We would certainly have to evaluate the numbers and the financial aspects involved before we could move forward on our own,” Archer said.

She said there are pros and cons to participating in an athletic coop.

“I would like to say that the positives outweigh the negatives, but that’s not always true,” Archer said. “Some of the positives include more opportunities for activities. It definitely benefits both districts financially (shared expenses), sharing facilities and the relationships the students build when they come together as one.

“Unfortunately, there are just as many negatives such as transportation issues (including bus drivers, time on the bus, etc.) Much more effective communication is needed for the coop to be effective (which includes coaches, administrators, bus coordinators, secretaries, etc.), varying school calendars to work around, different school handbooks and Code of Conduct, and not having a ‘full’ commitment to the coop.

“If just one or two of the right people don’t support the coop, it can be detrimental and the coop can never be successful.”

Whatever choices Heritage needs to make in the future, Archer said they won’t be made in haste.

“We will certainly consider all input before a decision is made,” she said. “Our students and athletes have been, and always will be, our main priority and we will do what we can to provide them with the opportunities to be successful.”