Enrollment shifts, competitiveness drive local conference changes

The search for the perfect league has a Holy Grail kind of feel for many area schools. All four schools in the Medina Weekly’s coverage area have been involved in some shuffling of late.

The last couple years have seen Buckeye change leagues, Medina about to, Cloverleaf a couple years away and Highland moving into a different division.

Ebbs and flows in enrollment cause the need to look for different pastures. Competitiveness and closeness also are factors.

“It can certainly be challenging to find the right long-term fit,” Cloverleaf athletic director Craig Walkup said. “Over the years I have tried to stay on top of our situation here at Cloverleaf. The situation is fluid and ever-changing, so you have to keep an eye on it. Those that do not could someday find themselves in a situation that is not in the best interest of their school. Sometimes the long-term league affiliations get in the way of doing what is best for your school so some sit on their hands and wait a bit too long.”

The lack of stability of most leagues is why the Wayne County Athletic League, directly south of Medina County, has been such a marvel. The WCAL still has four of eight charter members from a conference formed in 1924, though Rittman took a few years off before rejoining in 1961. Waynedale, Norwayne and Northwestern all have been part of the league since its inception, though up until 1955, all were known by different names prior to consolidation. The WCAL’s current eight-school group has not changed since Hillsdale joined in 1970.

Locally, Highland has had the most stable league situation, spending half a century in the Suburban League after a couple decades in the Inland Conference. The Hornets this coming year will move from the Suburban League’s American Conference to the National, a small shift but not a league change.

Medina has spent 40 years in the Southwestern Conference before moving to the Pioneer Conference in 1986. The county’s biggest school will join the Suburban League this coming fall, meaning Medina will have been in four conferences in the 40 years since leaving the Southwestern Conference.

Buckeye had a similar tenure in the Inland Conference, staying put for 30 years before the league folded in 1987. The Bucks were independent for five years, then spent 11 in the Mohican Area Conference.

After going it alone for one more year, Buckeye joined the Patriot Athletic Conference, where it stayed for 14 years before essentially getting voted off the island for being too good. The Bucks spent the next six years in the Great Lakes Conference and now are in their first year in the Cleveland West Conference.

Then there’s Cloverleaf. The move to the Patriot Athletic Conference will put the Colts in their sixth conference since 1977, when they joined the newly formed Pioneer Conference. Cloverleaf stayed in the Pioneer Conference for two decades, and in 2028, when it joins the Principals Athletic Conference along with West Holmes, will be in its fifth new league since leaving the Pioneer Conference and sixth conference over the past half-century.

You could say the Colts have come full circle. When they join the Principals Athletic Conference, they will renew league rivalries with Orrville, West Holmes and Triway, all members of the Chippewa Conference when it dissolved more than 50 years earlier.

“It has always been a league I kept on the radar,” Walkup said. “We play those schools in non-league play. When they had their most recent opening, the timing was right to consider the move.”

PAC commissioner Greg Woods found himself in search of two new schools after Fairless and Tuslaw announced they would be leaving the nearly 40-year-old conference.

The PAC is a small-school league. West Holmes and Cloverleaf not too long ago were large schools. Now, they’ll be the biggest in their new conference, but for how long?

“West Holmes has had tremendous drops in enrollment,” Woods said. “Our league superintendents had questions about the distance, but they voted unanimously to have Cloverleaf and West Holmes join.”