High schools across the country are trying to figure out a way to stop what seems to be a steady decline in athletic participation — and unfortunately some school districts have been forced to make tough decisions.
I decided to bring up this topic because of something I saw in the two newspapers that cover my hometown in Pennsylvania. I worked for one of those papers — the Morning Times — for a majority of my career and covered the Sayre High School wrestling program throughout that time.
The Sayre Area School District announced on Monday that they would be suspending the school’s wrestling program for at least the next school year. While I’m actually a graduate of Sayre’s biggest rival, Athens High School, I understood the outrage of the many SHS alumni who took to social media to blast the decision.
While it was sad to see a program that I covered for so many years have to shut down, it wasn’t a complete shock — and there was certainly a better option.
Schools in Pennsylvania should look to Maine for guidance when it comes to making sure athletes from every school have a chance to compete.
Maine has made it easier in recent years for school districts to work together to form a team when both schools are struggling to fill a roster. In 2017, the Maine Principals’ Association revised its’ co-op policy to not only allow the arrangement in all sports, but to make sure the schools wouldn’t be forced to compete in a larger division when only a handful of students from the other school were playing for the new combined team.
For example, if a wrestling program has 20 athletes and 18 come from the “host school” and two from a second school, then the MPA will only count 10 percent of the second school’s enrollment toward the team’s classification number.
One more thing the MPA has done right is make sure two big schools can’t form a “super team.” Maine has a rule where the combined enrollment of the co-op team can’t be larger than the enrollment of the state’s biggest school.
Maine allows co-op teams, but they also let school districts form agreements where an individual athlete in sports like cross country, golf, swimming, track and wrestling can practice and compete with another school while representing their own school. These athletes’ points at a state wrestling tournament, for example, will not count toward the host school’s team points.
I believe having the options for both an individual to compete with another school and for a co-op team is a great move by the MPA and gives school districts two strong alternatives to simply shutting down a program.
I’ve seen the same arguments against going to co-op teams brought up for years.
“Our kids won’t get a fair shot to play at that other school.”
“We don’t want to be a part of that school … we are rivals.”
I can certainly understand people wanting to maintain any history between rival schools, but unfortunately that can’t be the only factor in the decision-making process for administrators.
History is an important part of all communities, but nostalgia alone will not help our current student-athletes.
The argument I really disagree with is people thinking the coaches would not play an athlete based on where they attend school.
I would guess that 99 percent of coaches will simply play the athletes who have worked hard, will help the team win and simply deserve the playing time.
I’m sure some parents from the school district in Sayre would have objected to the idea of combining with rival Athens in years past. But I also guarantee those same parents would want their kids to have a chance to wrestle at Athens rather than having them be forced to sit home next winter.
Forming a co-op team is certainly not the ideal option for any school district, but sometimes the alternative is much, much worse.
Would you rather have student-athletes compete in a different uniform or not have a chance to compete at all?
I think the answer is simple — and other states should follow Maine’s example when it comes to co-op agreements.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.