The Northern Lakes League is looking to expand.
The current eight-member league announced its intention to grow into two eight-team divisions in a press release issued by the NLL on Friday.
“Recently, there has been a lot of discussion and speculation of schools in northwest Ohio considering league realignments,” the release stated. “The NLL is currently having these types of discussions to preserve our rich history and continue our league’s success well into the future.”
The NLL's current members are Anthony Wayne, Bowling Green, Maumee, Napoleon, Northview, Perrysburg, Southview, and Springfield.
The press release added that the new divisions would be based on overall (boys and girls) enrollment over a four-year period. This would be calculated including the high school enrollments of the current school year, and a projection of the next three years based on current enrollments in grades 6-8 at the feeder schools in each district.
No schools from other conferences have officially committed to joining the NLL, but that fact has not prevented speculation from extending to several other area leagues.
BALANCING ACT
For any high school athletic director, principal, or superintendent in this portion of northwest Ohio — beyond their primary current battle with the coronavirus pandemic — another major topic in recent weeks has been this potential realignment talk.
A decade ago, a major shift in league membership took place.
Ten years later, the question is, are area leagues on the brink of another significant shift in membership?
The numbers seem to say yes.
With changes in population always occurring, school enrollment sizes have grown in some school districts while shrinking in others.
Such is the case in the Northern Lakes League, where enrollment disparity between the bigger and smaller schools has grown.
This simultaneous growth and shrinkage has the top three most populous NLL schools — Perrysburg, Anthony Wayne, and Northview — now substantially bigger than Napoleon, Maumee and Bowling Green, the least populous.
“This is something that we've discussed as an entire league for a few months now,” NLL commissioner Richard Browne said. “The reason we've discussed it is the disparity between our top schools and our bottom schools is not going to get any closer over the next few years. It's only going to widen.
“The competitive imbalance that we're starting to see now is not going to go away. That would lead you to believe that some of those smaller schools would look to go elsewhere.”
Using the Ohio High School Athletic Association data on total boys and girls currently enrolled in grades 10-12 at all state member schools, Perrysburg has a combined 1,252 boys and girls, Anthony Wayne 1,082, and Northview 1,014.
The NLL's smallest enrollment is at Napoleon, which as 506 boys and girls in grades 10-12. Maumee has 567, and Bowling Green 714.
Minus some exceptions, where certain sports programs at the smaller schools have managed to beat the competitive odds – such as the Napoleon girls basketball team last season (27-0 overall, 14-0 NLL) — the disparity in enrollment numbers has created a clear overall imbalance in competition.
It is that gap, and a desire to keep its current membership together, that led to the NLL's push to both expand and retain all current members.
TALK ELSEWHERE
Preceding the the NLL press release, in an effort to clear up rumors of changes in his league, Northwest Ohio Athletic League commissioner Ken Baumgartner issued a statement on Wednesday.
That statement read: “The member schools of the Northwest Ohio Athletic League are aware of potential movements within other area conferences. To address the numerous media requests regarding the NWOAL, no changes to the structure of the current membership have been made.”
Other commissioners provided updates on their leagues on Friday.
Three Rivers Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Richards: “I have not seen any notices from our conference schools as far as what their intentions are. That's how our constitution reads, that they have give something in writing to me. I've heard the same [realignment] rumors and, if the dominoes fall any one way, that could have an impact [the TRAC]. But, right now, those dominoes haven't fallen. The NLL has given a vision, and I think we all have a vision on what might happen. There's nothing wrong with that. But what is needed for that to occur hasn't happened yet.”
Toledo Area Athletic Conference commissioner Rick Kaifas: “We are good as we are, and we are not looking beyond 2020-21. But, we are always looking to expand. We always want to get complete, comprehensive schools to join our league. We don't like having byes in our football schedules for our teams, because that makes it very difficult to schedule.”
Northern Buckeye Conference commissioner Dave Bringman: “We attempted to go to a 12-team league in the fall, and that has fallen through. The official statement from the principals is, we're staying with an eight-team league. There were some invitations sent out to some smaller schools, and it just fell through. So, there are no changes at this time.”
The City League, which has six schools all under the same Toledo Public Schools district umbrella, has not been part of the realignment talk.
NLL VISION
So, what does the NLL believe it has to offer potential new members?
“We've got well-established history of being a league that has a lot of high-integrity things going on inside our league,” Browne said. “We want to continue those, and continue to develop those kinds of things.
“We think that can be done with relationships outside of our league's current eight teams. If some leagues start to change, we want to present an opportunity that we think is both beneficial to us, and creates an opportunity for somebody else.
“How do you do that? You don't do it with back-room meetings. You have to be open and honest.”
Browne said the NLL press release was issued in part to provide some transparency.
“Look at the talk that this has brought about in the last week,” Browne said. “This is a very passionate topic for a lot of people. The unfortunate thing about it is, there's a lot of people out there that are trying to connect dots.
“I can honestly tell you that decisions about what teams are coming in, and what teams are committed, are completely exaggerated at this point. We haven't gotten to that point.”
So, where is the NLL in the process?
“We want to understand what the level of interest is by presenting our vision,” Browne said. “If there are people out there that want to talk about that, we want to share those visionary items with what we see moving forward to try to create a more stable league. Not only in the short term, but also the long term.”
What types of schools would the NLL be interested in?
“We're in the very beginning stages of looking at this,” Browne said. “Those parameters haven't been clearly defined. But, we're looking for schools that offer similar sports to what we have, and have similar student populations.
“We understand that there's going to be some disparity. No matter what you create, there's always going to be a big school and a small school. But travel considerations are also going to be a big part of this, as well. As our costs continue to go up, transportation is going to be a huge issue in every league.”
Browne attempted to dispel one rumor that the NLL — an all public-school league since its beginnings in the 1950s — would not consider the Catholic-school members of the TRAC.
“The public opinion has created those kinds of ideas,” he said. “We're open to looking at expansion, and we want to understand who might want to partner with the NLL. We're not excluding anyone. It's egregious to say that [about the Catholic schools]. We have not made any decisions like that.”
Browne provided further focus on the NLL's expansion vision.
“We're not out to be the biggest and best league,” he said. “We're out to be the best league for our student-athletes. Those things are going to develop as we go through this process.
“Our guiding light is to try and figure out how we can maintain the history and integrity of the Northern Lakes League and move forward with a very stable league. That's what our goal is.”
First Published January 15, 2021, 5:53 p.m.
