Wawasee Considers, Declines Invite To NSC
SYRACUSE – The rumors were true, but in the end, there’s nothing to be excited about. Wawasee is not moving out of the Northern Lakes Conference.
The formal announcement came Monday morning from Wawasee High School athletic director Steve Wiktorowski, based on research along with a resounding disapproval notion from the coaching staffs within the school. Wawasee had been approached and formally invited to join the hobbled Northern State Conference, which currently has just four members and is looking to rebuild itself. The losses this summer of Culver, Knox, LaVille and Triton left Bremen, Jimtown, John Glenn and New Prairie looking for dance partners.
Wawasee was among a quartet of schools formally asked to join the conference, along with Mishawaka Marian, Rochester and Tippecanoe Valley. While Wawasee officially declined, none of the other three have said yes or no as of Monday morning. Wiktorowski was happy with the overwhelming decision to stay.
“The approach was made to us and maybe six or seven schools in total were among the discussion,” Wiktorowski said Monday from his office at WHS. “They (NSC) talked to us about the benefits, with the real selling point that we would be in a conference with basically all 3A schools. To us specifically, we would have moved in as the biggest school. We had to look at several things, like losing several rivalries, how it affects travel, and several other things we already have in place in the NLC.”
Wiktorowski pointed out two main aspects were worth at least taking a look at in the prospect of joining the NSC.
The first was the competition balance. With Wawasee currently the second-smallest school in the NLC at 950 students, the little fish in the big pond notion often comes up when stacking chips against the likes of Warsaw (2,138), Goshen (1,811), Elkhart Memorial (1,793) and Concord (1,523).
When compared to what would have amounted to a complete transition of the NSC with its proposed partnerships, New Prairie (865), Marian (681) and John Glenn (625) would have been the next three largest schools in attendance, the smallest Bremen at 485.
But part of the problem is the balance of sports. While football and basketball would have presented plenty of competition with the likes of John Glenn, Jimtown and Marian as possible weekend opponents, others are completely void. In sports like swimming, John Glenn doesn’t have a boys or girls program, and in soccer, Jimtown does not have a boys or girls program. In those cases, no favors are done for Wawasee, which then would have to create extra work for itself trying to schedule non-conference matches to make up for the gaps. Wiktorowski also noted the level of overall competition, or lack thereof in moving away from the NLC, would ultimately hurt Wawasee’s athletes and teams.
“The Northern Lakes Conference is proven to be one of the best in the state, and our athletes not only benefit from the competition, but have shown to be right up there as well,” stated Wiktorowski. “Our coaches noted that in our meeting (Sunday) night. They have a passion for the conference. And there are quality programs and schools in the NLC.”
The second factor, and likely the more important of the two, was the distance and its domino effect. While the pride and passion of being an NLC-member school was among the topics of discussion with the coaches, Wiktorowski was surprised how adamant his coaches were about the travel and the academic effect moving to the NSC would present to the student-athletes and also the coaches that teach.
The NLC, while spread out into three counties, isn’t nearly as far as what Wawasee would face joining the NSC. From Wawasee, the furthest school it deals with in the NLC is Plymouth, a 42-mile, one-way drive from Syracuse to Plymouth. Memorial (33 miles) and Northridge (24) also present significant drives given the proximities of the two schools in the northern corners of Elkhart County. While Warsaw is listed at just 20 miles from Wawasee in physical distance, it isn’t a straight shot but the kids would be home from a tennis match by 7:30 p.m. in most cases.
However, if Wawasee made the drive to each of the seven NLC schools there and back in consecutive fashion, the bus would log 336 total miles round trip.
Doing the math for a union with the NSC yields much greater numbers. The shortest drive would be Bremen at 24 miles one way. New Prairie, located in New Carlisle – halfway between South Bend and LaPorte – is a 60-mile drive just there, and the Cougars are on Central Standard Time, which throws in another monkey wrench. If the conference were to adopt Marian, Rochester and Tippecanoe Valley to the mix, the total round-trip to the seven schools would jump to 554 miles. And given most of the drives requires at least an hour one way, the time requirement on the kids was just too much.
“The coach’s main concern was actually what was best for the kids and how the academics would be affected with the long bus rides,” Wiktorowski said. “I thought it showed a lot of character from my coaching staff to point to that as their biggest concern.
“This process ended much more quickly than I had anticipated. There was no need to go any further.”
Wiktorowski stated the athletic directors from the NLC did meet concerning Wawasee’s invitation, and what the potential trickle down would do to NorthWood, currently the smallest school at 853 students. NorthWood athletic director Norm Sellers made it clear in the meeting his school had no plans to jump ship if Wawasee would have left, and Sellers on Monday sent Wiktorowski an email stating he was happy Wawasee decided against a move. The NLC, according to Wiktorowski, currently plans on remaining with eight teams despite whispers of expansion that included schools like Elkhart Central, Fairfield and Mishawaka.
Wiktorowski pointed to the struggles Wawasee has had in the NLC as one reason to at least visit the idea. Not shying away from recent NLC dry spells in basketball, volleyball, baseball and football in what many comprise as the “money sports”, Wawasee has won just four combined All-Sports trophies in the school’s history. Wiktorowski stated his research included the boy’s 45 years of history in the NLC, along with the girl’s 37-year affiliation. He also looked at how Wawasee stacked up in the past 25 years of class sports, as well as how attendance for Wawasee has fluctuated in the past 10 years. In the 2004-05 school year, Wawasee was listed with 1,020 students. In the latest census, WHS has 949 students, one less than what it enrolled a year ago.
Rather than the conference move, Wawasee hopes to aim its focus on the middle schools and the feeder programs in hopes of cultivating from within to keep pace.
“There is a lot of potential for us to grow from within, and I would think an increase in middle school programs and participation would help with that,” Wiktorowski said.