Rib Lake to go to 8-man in fall 2024

Move ends long-time co-op with Prentice

EMILY GOJMERAC

REPORTER

After the Aug. 9 meeting in Prentice the football co-op that has been established since the late 1980s is coming to a close starting fall 2024.

Each district had a lot to consider when it came down to either continuing the co-op or ending it all together.

On Aug 11, the Rib Lake School Board met for the month and Rib Lake’s head coach Jonah Campbell gave his point of view on what was discussed during the Aug. 9 meeting.

The decision of remaining a co-op or not relies heavily on three components: participation of athletes, finances, and the future of the football program at Rib Lake.

While the co-op won’t be ending until 2024, the paperwork must be submitted by the beginning of October to be sure that the WIAA can get them into an 8-man conference by the fall of 2024. If they continue with the co-op with Prentice and they enter into an 8-man division, they would have an estimated 35 athletes. With that many athletes, the Hawks would be able to have a C-team, a JV team and a varsity team. The problem with that is that no other school would have three 8-man teams other than a larger district.

If Rib Lake was no longer co-oped with Prentice, they would have a lot more valuable playing time for the younger players, so the freshmen and sophomores who necessarily shouldn’t be on the varsity field unless they are ready and able, would be able to get the quality fulltime playing time at the JV level against similar aged players, who are similarly built like they are.

Campbell said “Right now we usually have one sophomore starting on the varsity team [with most of the players on the varsity team being juniors and seniors], or getting significant playing time. Depending on that student, they may not be ready for that level and are thrown in whenever needed. If we were at the 8-man level, if we have 15-20 kids, we will have more athletes ready to step up and play because the game is a lot safer with less bigger bodies on the field.”

Looking at the players that are coming up from the lower grades in the next few years, there are several boys in each grade that are available to play football. That would give the district enough athletes for a middle school team, a JV high school team and varsity high school team.

Campbell added, “I would like evidence of how the team plays at 8-man for a couple years as their own team, before we would revisit future co-op plans.”

The players on both teams were in favor of ending the co-op because it would mean that they would become their own teams once again. They would enjoy the chance to make the playoffs and be competitive on their own not just for a conference championship. Athletic Director Tom Noennig said “I am an 11- man guy by heart, but when you look at what is best for our kids, I think that dissolving the co-op would be the best solution. We have kids who would be home earlier and they wouldn’t have to travel to Prentice every other week for practice. If they are in Prentice and their practice doesn’t end until 5 p.m., usually they wouldn’t get home until 7 p.m. They also wouldn’t have to travel three hours for a game. There would be more home games throughout the season, having two home games as a varsity player (even though the Prentice games count as home games too), that’s not enough games.”

District Administrator Travis Grubbs said “Financially it is a horse apiece, because we have been meaning to purchase new jerseys for the players, and we have been putting it off for this reason. We will save a lot of money on transportation alone, even with having to pay officials for a home game, we would still be getting money coming in for entry fees, concession stands, and things like that. If worse comes to worst, we also have the Athletic Booster Club support.”

Todd Henderson added “Working with the kids in the past, I don’t think that there would be any hard feelings towards each other and I think that they would be excited to play against each other.”

Prentice was in favor of keeping the co-op because looking down the road at the future of their football program, it doesn’t look as strong as Rib Lake’s. They have looked into the possibility of co-oping with Winter and they may be eligible for playoffs because they would still be under the 200 athlete mark.

In other business:

•Chief of Police Derek Beckstrand will start giving a quarterly report on school safety and activity.

•Contact tracing to control the COVID-19 spread will come to an end. According to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) it is no longer required.

•If there are positive cases of COVID in the school, the “5 and 5 rule” [five days out of school, then 5 days in school with a mask on] would be followed.

•Forward Financial will be the school’s depository when they are up and running in the next few months.

Jonah Campbell