Announcement
5/8/2018 - By ALBERT GRINDLE, The Gazette
After weighing many options, Buckeye has a new athletic home.
The board of education approved the recommendations of Superintendent Kent Morgan, Principal Gabe Tudor and athletic director Tom Harrington on Tuesday to join the Great Lakes Conference, ending a search that took six months after the Patriot Athletic Conference unceremoniously booted the Bucks.
Buckeye will join Bay, Elyria Catholic, Holy Name, Normandy, Parma, Rocky River and Valley Forge as early as the 2019-20 school year, pending a release from the PAC.
“Buckeye is excited about the opportunities that the GLC provides us with balanced competition,” Morgan said. “The schools have various facilities and are close in proximity. They are not as close as the schools in the PAC, but there are still relatively good travel opportunities for our families and students to support us.
“At a time when you’re out of a conference, you wonder what’s out there. We were very fortunate we had a couple options to look at, and this was the best chance for Buckeye to continue building strong competition.” Those options were varied, yet all signs kept pointing toward the GLC. Another contender via contact from the Division II-oriented Ohio Cardinal Conference (Ashland, Lexington, Mansfield Madison, Mansfield, Mount Vernon, West Holmes, Wooster), but long travel distances were a deterrent, as Mount Vernon alone is a 90-minute bus drive from York Township.
Buckeye also had conversations with the Suburban League, which has been looking for a 16th member, but never formally applied. Joining Cloverleaf in the Portage Trail Conference was never seriously considered, either, because of travel.
The Bucks also had conversations about creating their own league, to no avail.
“When the PAC surprised us with their announcement, one of the first things we did — I say we as in Gabe Tudor, our principal, and Tom Harrington, our athletic director — was we talked about what we felt were important attributes to the next conference,” said Morgan, the former athletic director at Cloverleaf (2001-02) and Brunswick (2002-05). “We wanted a progressive conference in terms of competition and making all our sports better.
“When all the dominos started to fall, we were very happy to see that a number of those items on our list were addressed.”
For the first time since York and Liverpool consolidated to create the district in 1953 — York absorbed Litchfield in 1949 — Buckeye will be among the smallest members of a conference after being a member of the Medina County League, Inland Conference, Mohican Area Conference and Patriot Athletic Conference. Parma is first with an OHSAA grades 9-11 enrollment figure of 1,007, followed by Valley Forge (928), Normandy (856), Bay (624), Rocky River (629), Buckeye (613), Holy Name (465) and Elyria Catholic (248).
While the disparities appear vast, the Parma schools have not been strong in many years and Holy Name and Elyria Catholic are smaller private schools. The main concern is long-term viability, as Parma is facing financial difficulty and has discussed a consolidation with Normandy and Valley Forge.
The GLC was formed to begin the 2015-16 school year in response to the breakups of the Northeast Ohio Conference (Parma, Normandy, Valley Forge) and West Shore Conference (Bay, Elyria Catholic, Rocky River). Holy Name left the all-private North Coast League to join the GLC.
The travel distances are even. Elyria Catholic is the closest at 29 minutes, while Rocky River and Bay are 41. The Bucks have played Rocky River in football for three consecutive seasons, and its non-league basketball schedule has featured many Lorain County/Western Cuyahoga County schools.
“Unfortunately every couple of years you see a ripple go through with conferences,” Morgan said, adding he has no qualms with Elyria Catholic and Holy Name because of enrollment differences and OHSAA bylaws. “I don’t know if it’s ever going to stop because everyone wants a chance to win a conference championship.”
Contact Albert Grindle at (330) 721-4043 or agrindle@medina-gazette.com.
