Loyal parents, coaches express concerns over proposed athletics co-op

By Valorie Brecht Parents of students in the Loyal School District made their voices heard Sunday night when attending an athletic parent meeting aimed at gathering feedback on whether or not they supported Greenwood and Loyal co-oping for all school sports starting next winter. The general consensus was that parents did not support an athletics co-op, with reasons including serious doubts over how much the co-op would benefit Loyal students, if at all; a desire to wait and see how the football co-op went and not rush things; and concerns about the logistics associated with co-oping sports such as transportation and practice spaces, and what the added cost would be.

The Loyal School Board hosted the meeting with a purpose of gauging public opinion, as they were scheduled to vote on whether or not to co-op all athletics at the regular school board meeting Wednesday, Jan. 24. The reason this decision came to the fore is the WIAA has a deadline of Feb. 1 for submitting cooperative athletic program applications for winter sports the following school year. In order for the school districts to co-op in varsity basketball next season (2024-25), they need to submit their application by Feb. 1. The Greenwood board already voted Jan. 10 to co-op all athletics.

The topic came up as a result of the two school boards meeting together over the past few months to talk about ways to work together more as school districts.

Like the joint school board meeting held 10 days prior, Sunday’s parent meeting was highly attended, with at least 80 people in the audience, including coaches, parents, students and concerned community members. In addition, the meeting was live-streamed, with 110 viewers watching online at the peak. The meeting video had also racked up 528 views as of Tuesday morning.

Eleven people signed up and spoke during public comment, with three of them indicating at least some level of support for a co-op and the rest being against co-oping at the present time. One of the members of the public also took an informal poll by asking those who were in support of co-oping all athletics to raise their hand. A quick glance revealed four people raising their hands.

Later on in the meeting, one parent asked Loyal District Administrator Chris Lindner why the schools were looking to

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co-op for sports in the first place.

“So why are we looking at this is, how can we benefit from it, is through numbers, competition, building more relationships — not only our schools but also our kids and our coaches,” said Lindner.

Also, the Loyal coaches of the sports not yet co-oped put together a presentation highlighting their perspective on the issue. Their bottom line, according to their presentation, was that although they were not opposed to a sports co-op, they wanted to be involved in the process of figuring out the logistics, they wanted to make sure the timing was beneficial to the student-athletes, and they wanted an evaluation process to see if the co-op was meeting the needs of the student-athletes.

A summary of the public comments is as follows. Parent Adam Smith said he started out in favor of cooping, but a letter his son wrote for the newspaper changed his mind. He asked, under a co-oped program, how far the C-teams would have to travel for boys basketball or girls basketball to find other C-teams and how much travel would cost.

“This really isn’t a parent meeting. Never before have we had this type of venue. It’s not a back-and-forth dialogue. Football and softball were not like this. It should have never gotten to this point,” said parent and former school board member Kim Bremmer. “As parents, all we wanted was a well-thought out plan… Show us some wins. Show us a successful football co-op or how you have worked out the middle school baseball co-op. If you can’t do a parent meeting in a timely fashion, how can you do a co-op?”

Parent Maria Meyer said she had kids in sports, including Neillsville-Greenwood-Loyal (NGL) wrestling. She said although the NGL co-op took some adjusting to, the involved schools were able to make it work. She said communication and a good plan were critical to making the co-op a success.

“NGL is number one in the Cloverbelt, with 10 teams and 21 schools represented. My experience has been positive, because everyone communicates and works together,” she said.

She also said that even though a co-op would result in higher numbers for basketball, for example, there were other opportunities for students to take part in athletics, such as the cheerleading/dance team for girls and wrestling for boys.

Parent Nikki Rueth said she was concerned about future co-ops because of transportation issues. Her daughter was involved in the middle school softball co-op last year and she said transportation did not go smoothly at all. The girls actually practiced in Willard, and Nikki Rueth said that multiple times, the bus was over half an hour late and she had to call her daughter to ask where they were.

“Practice time is limited because of drive time. It also makes for extra drive time for the coaches also,” she said.

Scott Radue also spoke, telling the board they were elected to represent the Loyal community and Greenwood’s perspective should have no part in their decision.

Parent Mayro Kubista expressed concern about taking away opportunities from kids.

“You need to consider how it affects Loyal athletes. They may get less playing time or some may never even make it onto the varsity team,” she said. “If Loyal and Greenwood are combined for girls basketball, I think it would be very sad if girls that are good athletes now don’t get to play.”

She said her hometown school district consolidated with another district after she graduated high school, and it was sad to see facilities sitting empty and the town lose a piece of its identity.

“I read an article talking about when a town loses its school, it’s the same as a body losing a vital organ. A school and its sports teams are a big part of its identity… If we combine our sports teams prematurely, it pushes us toward consolidation. Loyal passed its referendum and I think the Loyal students and parents deserve to hold on to their independent athletics programs as long as possible.”

She suggested the school district make a concerted effort to strengthen its athletics programs, and if after three or four years numbers were worsening and the board felt the school districts really did need to co-op, at least Loyal would have gotten a fair chance at remaining on its own.

“I fully respect the Greenwood board for voting for what their community wanted. If Loyal says ‘no,’ I hope it isn’t a done deal and closed conversation. Maybe we can have more conversations about specific programs that should combine and which are thriving on their own,” said parent Crystal Rueth. “A question I’ve heard during multiple conversations is, what are the benefits to Loyal students? No one has answers. Moving up a division, much more travel time, less time on the court, costs — there are so many things that need to be discussed before we just say, ‘Yup, let’s rip off the Band-Aid and co-op everything.’” Greenwood Elementary Principal Shane Lilly, who’s also been a coach for many years, said he could see both the parent and coach side of the issue. But, he said, as a coach he was focused on the overall program and building that.

“There will be hiccups along the way, but if you’re willing to work through them, it could be a success,” he said. “There also could be more opportunities for other programs, such as the Greenwood Elementary dance program we just did, which had 20 kids and they loved it.”

Loyal alumnus Jared Loos said the biggest concern he

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heard in talking to people in the community was how much it was going to cost, particularly for transporting kids back and forth for practices and games. He also said the school district should look at what the kids think, as they’re the ones actually playing and traveling back and forth.

Tony Wilke was the last person who signed up to speak during public comment. He graduated from Loyal and has coached for almost 30 years. Currently he is the JV girls basketball coach. He said, for one, the districts should focus their efforts on consolidation and whether they wanted to move forward with that, because if they consolidated, they wouldn’t have to worry about co-ops because they’d be combined anyway. He also questioned whether the numbers for girls basketball truly warranted a co-op.

“Loyal has always had 14-22 girls (for high school basketball), for the 11 years I’ve been part of it. When we won state, we had 15 girls,” he said. “A co-op is not needed, necessarily. I’m a little concerned why this meeting didn’t happen sooner. It feels rushed and unorganized. Would support a well-planned, well-organized co-op if I saw it. But right now, it’s putting the cart before the horse.”

Coaches’ presentation After the public comment time, the head coaches for the sports that have not been co-oped gave a presentation.

Angie Kollmansberger is the assistant varsity girls basketball coach and a health/physical education teacher at Loyal. She said that the coaches looked up the purpose of sports co-ops according to the WIAA, which are: to give students athletic opportunities that might not otherwise exist at their school, to share facilities and resources, and to benefit both schools.

“That’s really the key, being mutually beneficial,” said Kollmansberger. “You have to look at, is it beneficial for all parties? There is a process and steps to a co-op. Nothing should be rushed; it should be all planned. If you look at softball, it was led by the parents, working together with the coaches. Loyal and Greenwood in past years have discussed co-ops and either one has come back and said, ‘No, we don’t want to do so.’ I believe it was four years ago that Greenwood said no to Loyal. And that’s fine. It should only be if it’s mutually beneficial.”

The presentation gave some examples of other school districts that had co-oped for sports, such as Alma-Pepin, which co-oped for football in 2009 and volleyball in 2016. Elmwood-Plum City co-oped for track in 1998, football and cross country in 2012, and softball and volleyball in 2019. Kollmansberger’s point was co-ops should be taken on a sport-by-sport basis.

Each of the coaches talked through some practical concerns with co-oping their specific sport. “There’s a lot of questions and concerns with logistics for bussing,” said Loyal boys basketball coach Brandon DeSmet.

Some of the questions included the number of buses and timing of buses; the timing of practices; what happens on film session nights and team meal nights; the bus situation on holiday breaks, Sundays and morning practices; middle school practice times; youth practice times and bussing;

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Parents and community members, as well as a few students, filled the chairs in the Loyal High School gym Sunday to hear about a proposed fully cooperative athletics program between Loyal and Greenwood, and to voice their opinion on such a program.

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and gym space. The coaches brought up the question of if there would be a host school, such as in wrestling where athletes go to Neillsville.

The estimate for high school girls basketball is 30. For high school boys basketball, it is 40.

“That would be 13 on a team. We can only suit up 15 at a time. So if we wanted to get kids more playing time, we could do two teams on the lowest level. But there are typically 17 C-team games, so would those get split between the two lowest level teams? There’s also going to be a lot of travel time. You’re looking at 1 to 1.5 hours to get to the bigger schools that have C-teams,” said DeSmet.

Loyal girls basketball coach Mike Rueth mentioned a concern about the youth basketball program, because parents have traditionally transported kids to and from practice themselves.

“That’s a huge commitment for the parents at the youth level, if they have to run to Greenwood to pick up their kids all the time. I’m afraid to lose kids because of it,” he said.

DeSmet said he was familiar with the Spencer/Columbus basketball co-op that had happened a few years ago, but he said the scheduling/organizing was a “disaster” and the schools ended up going back to two separate programs.

“You need a set plan. You only get one chance to do it right. With the Spencer/ Columbus football co-op, they had a full year of planning before they did it. They took the time to do it right and that was the difference. They did it a pace that allowed them to do it right,” he said.

The coaches also clarified what the division placement would be. Greenwood and Loyal are currently each in Division 5 for basketball. Co-oping would move the team up a division to Division 4 (enrollment of 196-318 — combined enrollment of Loyal and Greenwood would be 277).

For track, head coach Jim Genteman had concerns with numbers and how to accommodate everyone. The Loyal and Greenwood athletic directors gave a presentation about what a track and field co-op would look like using the number of students registered at that time they put together the presentation, which was 11 for middle school (Loyal only) and 37 for high school for a total of 48 in the program between both schools.

However, for the purposes of his presentation, Genteman used last year’s numbers. He included the middle schoolers because they practice with the high school. There were 55 participants from Loyal last year (middle and high school). For Greenwood, there were 15 in the high school and they didn’t have middle school track last year, but Genteman said he wasn’t sure if middle school track was going to co-op with Greenwood this year. He said he had a meeting with Loyal athletic director Jeff Bell a couple of months ago and at that time there were 20 signed up from Greenwood. So, the 55 Loyal students, plus 15 Greenwood high schoolers, plus 20 Greenwood middle schoolers would equal 90 total.

“If we bring all 90 here, going from 55 to 90 is a big jump,” said Genteman. “At that number it will take away practice reps from other kids.”

The athletic directors’ plan also stated that baseball and softball could use the gyms to practice and track and field could use the halls, but Genteman said track and field needed the gym space and only using the halls would be a “huge step backward.” The throwers, pole vaulters and jumpers all practice in the gym when the weather is not nice enough to practice outside.

“We really use the whole gym — we practice relay handoffs and hurdle drills,” said Genteman.

He also said that co-oping would reduce the opportunities for athletes because “at half our meets, we are limited to two or three athletes per event.”

He said that last year, he had two or three kids who didn’t get to compete in any events because they were not the best person for that event. He anticipated with adding Greenwood, there would be “maybe 10” kids that didn’t get to compete in any events. Also, there are no JV meets for track, unless you were to create a second team and call it JV.

Varsity volleyball coach Jaedyn Pieper also spoke. A volleyball co-op would not take effect until 2025, because the WIAA deadline has already passed. Pieper echoed other coaches’ concerns of taking away playing opportunities from Loyal athletes. Based on high school numbers last year, there would be 51 girls for high school volleyball when combined. Pieper said nine to 10 girls per team is ideal, so 51 girls would equal five teams. The two lowest-level teams would be traveling to different schools, potentially far away, for matches. She anticipated the combined team would be Division 4, up a division from where Greenwood and Loyal would be on their own.

The Loyal baseball coach was not there; however, the other coaches talked briefly about baseball. Based on last year’s numbers, a combined high school baseball program would have 48 student-athletes. There are four divisions in baseball and the combined team would move up to Division 3.

After the coaches spoke, several parents spoke who hadn’t signed up to do so. Concerns brought up included loss of identity for both schools, and finding bus drivers to transport kids for joint practices, as the bus company is struggling to find drivers as it is.

Parents also expressed frustration that this was the forum chosen for them to voice their opinions. They said they would have preferred sport-specific meetings in which parents of students in that sport could talk through details pertaining to that sport, such as how the Loyal-Greenwood softball co-op was handled in 2021, and that those meetings should be held well in advance of the decision being made to co-op. They also were frustrated that there was dialogue back and forth with the board, although board members said they could not legally do that and the purpose of the meeting was solely to listen to what the public had to say.

The meeting ended after about two hours and is available for viewing on the Loyal School District YouTube channel.

The Greenwood and Loyal school boards planned to each meet Wednesday, Jan. 24, at 7 p.m. at their respective schools.