With its student population declining and some of its sports teams suffering, Westbrook High School has informed the Southwestern Maine Activities Association (SMAA) that it will begin playing a Class B schedule in some sports, including football, starting in the fall of 2011.

News of the move has caused mixed reactions among community members. At a recent Westbrook football game, several fans said they wanted to see the school maintain its longstanding tradition of playing Class A sports. However, other fans, including some athletes and parents of athletes, support the move, saying they feel that Westbrook’s athletes would be better served by playing schools of similar size instead of facing teams from schools that are significantly larger than Westbrook.

While the school said the shift is in the best interest of the student-athletes, it still represents a change in tradition, as the school has fielded Class A teams for decades. The rivalries brought by playing the same Class A teams over the years have become engrained in the culture of the city’s residents, who have been supporting the Blazes for generations.

But, as the population in working-class Westbrook has shifted over the years, the number of students at the high school has gone down as well. Faced with a smaller pool of students to draw from, some of the high school’s teams have suffered, especially since they have to face teams from larger schools, some of which have hundreds more students than Westbrook.

Even if the change is a logical one, it doesn’t come without some pitfalls. First and foremost, it could mean that Westbrook would be forced to leave the SMAA, a league that it has been a member of since its founding in 1977. While the Westbrook’s future in the SMAA is still uncertain, if the school is forced to leave the league, it could create some scheduling headaches as the school would have teams in both Class A and Class B.

In a memo distributed to all SMAA athletic administrators on Aug. 25, Westbrook Athletic Administrator Todd Sampson said that the school intends to move down to Class B in football, indoor track, outdoor track, ice hockey, swimming and tennis. All other sports at the high school would remain as Class A sports under the plan. Sampson said that as schedules are done on two-year cycles, the 2011-2012 school year would be the earliest that a move could be made.

Enrollment levels at the high school are driving the shift. Currently, the school’s population is around 750 students. That number is below the minimum established by the Maine Principals’ Association for Class A participation in the six sports that Westbrook would like to reclassify as Class B. Westbrook’s present enrollment qualifies the school to play Class A baseball, basketball, golf, soccer, softball and tennis, and the school would continue to field Class A teams in those sports.

“Westbrook is the smallest public high school in the SMAA,” wrote Sampson in his Aug. 25 memo. “As required by the league, we have petitioned the (Maine Principals’ Association) to play up in Class A (in several sports). It has become clear that in a few sports, this is not in the best interest, physically, socially and/or emotionally for our student athletes to continue this practice.”

One additional sport, field hockey, is also within the Maine Principals’ Association’s Class B enrollment range, but Sampson said that given the fact that Westbrook has traditionally been competitive in the sport and the school has teams at the varsity, junior varsity and freshmen levels with large numbers of athletes on those teams, the high school would likely petition the Maine Prinicipals’ Association to continue to play Class A field hockey.

“I think it would benefit everyone (involved in the field hockey program) by staying at that level,” Sampson said.

Wins keep players

While Westbrook has had success in some sports, notably baseball and basketball recently, other programs have struggled. The football team was only credited with one win last season, and that came on a forfeit. Bonny Eagle, who beat Westbrook on the field 42-0, was found to have used an ineligible player and was forced to give up the win.

Last Thursday, Westbrook lost its closest football game of the season, a 36-30 defeat at home to Portland, a game that wasn’t decided until the final minutes. The team dropped to 0-3 on the year, and some observers at the game believe the losing seasons play a part in driving away players, making it hard for the team to compete. But others say that Westbrook should continue to schedule the bigger schools as they believe that playing the tougher competition is a good way for Westbrook to get stronger.

For Doug Sawyer, who played for Deering nearly three decades ago, the history of the program is more important than the team’s recent record.

“It’s always been Class A,” said Sawyer, whose son Stephen, a junior, is a lineman on the team. “It’s tradition. I’d rather have them stay in Class A, take their licks and have them improve every year. I think if you ask the players personally, they don’t want to go to Class B.”

But Kim Strondak said she doesn’t believe that is the case. She said her sons Harrison, a senior, and Graham, a sophomore, have said they’d rather move down a class if it meant the team would be more competitive.

Strondak believes that the team’s losses are a direct result of the school’s decreasing enrollment.

“Our whole football team is sometimes the size of the other team’s first string,” she said. “They have the skill and the talent and the passion for football, but I think it gets discouraging for them.”

That is an idea backed up by Brandon Crimmin, a junior at Westbrook High, who said he continued playing football after junior high school, but decided after two years on the high school team not to play this fall.

“It was a pretty hard decision, I’ve been playing most of my life,” said Crimmin, who still attends every game.

Crimmin said he could tell the players who remained on the team worked hard during the summer. “They got bigger, faster, stronger. It definitely shows,” he said.

But still, when it comes to retaining players, it’s going to be wins and losses that keep players on the team. “Every kids wants to win, and when they’re not winning, people quit,” Crimmin added.

Jeff Guerette, Westbrook High School’s football coach, said he “just wants to do whatever is best for our kids. I want them to have the best experience possible.”

Chuck Crouse, the father of a former Westbrook football player and a current cheerleader, said Thursday he was still on the fence about whether it was a good idea to move down. Crouse said he’s seen, every year, how many players don’t continue on with the program after junior high. “You start having a winning season, you get more kids coming out,” he said.

However, Crouse said, though the records over the years don’t show it, he felt Westbrook is still competitive with many of the teams in Class A.

“Right now, I would be for it,” Crouse said about making the switch to Class B. But as he watched Westbrook go touchdown-for-touchdown with Portland, he had a hard time sticking to that school of thought.

“If they win tonight, I’d say no,” he said.

‘A prestige thing’

Scouting both Portland and Westbrook for upcoming games, Gorham head coach Dave Kilborn said, in light of Westbrook’s inconsistency during the past few seasons, he thinks moving to Class B would be good for the morale of the Westbrook players.

“I think you do anything to be competitive,” he said. “That’s the main thing.”

Kilborn and his fellow Gorham coaches said they think Westbrook would be a dominant force in Class B, even against the perennial powerhouses like Cape Elizabeth and Mountain Valley.

“They’re used to playing football against great football teams,” Kilborn said.

Sampson acknowledged that Westbrook has played against some great teams over the past few years. In addition to playing the Cumberland County-based schools, including state champion Bonny Eagle, the Blazes played a crossover game with perennial York County powerhouse Thornton Academy, a school with 1,217 students. Westbrook lost that game, 42-0.

“Last year, we played the toughest football schedule in the state,” he said.

For some fans, seeing the league’s stronger teams is what keeps them coming to the games.

“I think it’s fun watching us play the Class A teams. It’s fun seeing the talent,” said Todd Hood, a senior on the baseball team.

As an athlete, Westbrook basketball player Edwin Grant said he’d rather be competing at that higher level, too, even if it means more losses. “I’d rather lose to good teams than beat bad teams,” he said.

Earl Cutter, a teacher at the high school whose been announcing Westbrook football games for the past 25 years, said he wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people in the community wanted to keep Westbrook in Class A

“I think the majority of fans would be disappointed,” said Cutter, adding he personally supports the move to Class B. “I think they view it as a prestige thing. I think Westbrook thinks of itself as a Class A school.”

What’s best for kids

This move could force Westbrook to leave the conference the school has been a part of since the conference was created. School officials said that Westbrook has a longstanding tradition of SMAA membership and they hoped that affiliation could continue. But for that to happen, some changes would have to be made.

According to the association’s constitution, all members of the conference must play a Class A sports schedule in all sports. Westbrook High School Principal Marc Gousse said this is mainly for ease of scheduling.

“It’s a heck of a lot easier to schedule all the schools in the conference this way than do some cross-pollination (with some schools playing Class B sports),” he said.

For Westbrook to remain as a member of the association, Gousse said, a constitutional change would be necessary, and he hopes that the association would make those changes necessary to allow Westbrook to retain its membership.

“We were one of the founding members of the SMAA,” Gousse said, adding that the other schools that founded the conference are Portland, South Portland, Deering and Cheverus. “We have been with this organization since it’s inception. We don’t want to leave. However, the way the constitution is presently structured, we don’t have any options. “We don’t want to leave the SMAA, we feel we can be very competitive in basketball, baseball and field hockey.”

If the constitution change isn’t made, Gousse said, Westbrook will forge ahead and play both Class A and B sports, and that could create some scheduling issues.

“We have to play within our classification in sports,” he said, adding if the SMAA excludes Westbrook, the school would have to go to the Maine Principals’ Association and ask them to determine a schedule for the Class A teams. While he doesn’t know for sure, Gousse believes the Maine Principals’ Association would go back to the SMAA and tell the conference to include Westbrook’s Class A teams in their schedule.

“We’re not trying to strong-arm anybody,” he said. “But we are going to do what’s best for our kids within the rights of our classification.”

Bill LeRoy, the athletic administrator at Deering High School and the current SMAA president, said the association hasn’t taken a position on the Westbrook issue at the present time.

“It’s in the discussion phase,” he said.

LeRoy said an ad hoc committee has been formed to discuss several issues, including what to do about member schools like Westbrook with declining enrollments, adding that Westbrook is certainly not the only school faced with the problem. Schools such as Kennebunk and even Portland have seen declining student numbers over the years as well.

The committee will be starting its work in the next few weeks, and LeRoy said that allowing some schools to play some Class B sports would be one of the options discussed. He said that in his opinion, it’s hard to ask schools to compete against significantly larger schools.

“It doesn’t make sense to me to have a school with 700-800 kids compete against schools of 1,300- 1,400,” he said.

Thor Nilsen, the Kennebunk High School athletic administrator, will also be a member of the ad hoc committee discussing potential changes. “We’re trying to be proactive with this,” he said. “It’s going to take a group of us to try and figure it out.”

No matter what the resolution, both LeRoy and Nilsen said they believed that there are significant changes coming.

“As things keep changing, the big question is, can the SMAA stay the same?” Nilsen said.

While he was unsure of what the changes would be, LeRoy said he didn’t think the conference would be able to continue with business as usual. “I think the SMAA in the next few years will look radically different than it does now,” he said.

‘It’s been on my radar’

Gousse said moving some sports down a level is not a new idea in Westbrook.

“It’s been on my radar from probably the second year into my principalship,” said Gousse, who has been at the high school for nine years.

According to Gousse, Westbrook has changed over the years, and as the school population has started to drop, it has made it harder for the school to compete in some Class A sports.

“Over time Westbrook is not the school that it was. It’s not the community that it was,” he said. “We’re smaller. We are going up against schools that, in some cases are literally double our size. The question becomes, is that good for kids?”

Gousse and Sampson both said that going to a Class B schedule in some sports wasn’t the first choice for Westbrook. First, the school explored changing the way some sports, like football, are scheduled. Sampson said that he proposed going to tiered schedule in football, where teams are matched up based on past records, leading to a schedule where the historically strong teams face off against each other year-to-year and the teams with lesser records are matched up, leading to a level playing field for all teams.

“In ice hockey, we play a competitive, tiered schedule. In lacrosse, we play a competitive, tiered schedule,” Sampson said. “We went to the football coaches and said, ‘Look, we want a competitive, tiered schedule. If you pick up the newspaper and look at the scores, this is not just a Westbrook issue, and it’s ugly.”

The SMAA’s athletic directors voted down the tiered schedule proposal Sampson said, adding the proposal lost by a 15-1 vote, with only Westbrook voting in favor.

Sampson said he felt the tiered schedule would allow teams to play teams of similar skill levels, making it more competitive. He said it has been successful in other sports. “It has worked in ice hockey, it has worked in boys lacrosse,” he said.

Based on preseason football results, where Westbrook was matched up with York County teams with similar records, Westbrook had some success, and Sampson said he felt that was evidence that a tiered schedule could work in football.

“We beat Noble 20-6,” he said.

“We’re not ordering trophy cases for all our new Gold Balls,” Sampson said. “We don’t think going down to Class B, we’re going to be filling it up.”

He said that it would be a tough road in Class B, especially against such tough teams as Cape Elizabeth, Mountain Valley and York.

“But we’re going to be competing against communities similar (in size) to ours,” said Sampson.

And that equality, said Gousse, is the ultimate goal.

“It isn’t about winning,” said the principal. “That’s not what’s driving this. It’s about making sure that our kids are put into situations where they’re competitive.”

Fans crowd the stands at Westbrook’s football game against Portland last week. Faced with a declining school population and a lack of competitive balance, the school has announced plans to drop some sports, including football, to Class B starting in the fall of 2011. (Photo by Brandon McKenney)