Medford cancels boys swimming for 2021-22 season

The Medford Raiders will not have a boys swim team during the 2021-22 winter season due to low participation numbers.

Activities director Ryan Pilgrim said the decision was finalized last week after three boys initially signed up to participate and there were no signs of any more students planning to commit prior to the first practice date of Monday, Nov. 15.

“We only had three kids signed up for it,” Pilgrim said Thursday. “We had a couple of kids that were thinking about it, but I don’t think it was anything that was really serious. It just kinda got to the point here now where date-wise we had to make a decision.

“We’re going to hope that we can get a few more for next year and bring it back. I hated doing that because, yes, if you cancel it it just seems like it will go down from there. But in talking with the person we had lined up to coach it, it just wasn’t logistically feasible to go into the season with three kids.”

The program had been looked at briefly in late 2013 by Medford’s Athletic Improvement Council as a sport that could potentially be cut due to low numbers. But the program survived under the new head coach at the time, Nikki Farmer, and continued to hold on under head coach Shari Bergman for the past six seasons with participation numbers generally around 10-11 boys.

That wasn’t far off the average for most programs in the Great Northern Conference, which includes Rhinelander, Lakeland, Tomahawk, Antigo and Shawano for boys swimming. The Raiders just typically lacked the experience and year-round swimmers other programs tended to have and have finished at the bottom or one spot from it in each of the 10 previous GNC seasons. Antigo did not compete last winter due to low numbers.

The roster dipped to seven last year and with five of those swimmers being seniors and another having since moved out of the district, the writing had been on the wall. Bergman resigned early this fall and the district recently hired Hallie Schumacher, a 2017 MASH graduate and four-year swimmer in her high school years, to fill the coaching position.

“I told her, ‘consider yourself the person for next year,’” Pilgrim said. “Even though we didn’t actually give her a contract, we’re going to operate going forward like she’s the coach.”

Pilgrim said he’s not going to set a magic number yet as to how many swimmers would be needed to bring the program back next winter.

“I hate to put a number on it,” he said. “I’m thinking you need four for a relay so realistically we have to be in that six, seven, eight range, somewhere around there. It doesn’t do any of those other schools any good (to compete with three). They’re just basically competing against themselves.”