Menu
Examining year one of 'new WIC'
Reviews positive with new affiliation
Seven schools formed the original West Central Conference in 1970, as Avon, Cascade, Cloverdale, Edgewood, North Putnam, Owen Valley and South Putnam joined forces for a competitive league.
Monrovia arrived a year later, followed by Tri-West in 1976, Greencastle in 1977, Danville in 1978 and Speedway in 1999.
Avon only lasted four years, departing for the Mid-State Conference in 1974.
The league suffered a crushing blow in 1999 when Edgewood and Owen Valley left for the revival of the Western Indiana Conference and Tri-West and Danville exited to join the Sagamore Conference, leaving seven schools still competing.
Speedway left in 2010 to join the Indiana Crossroads Conference, leaving a still workable number of six schools. Monrovia departed in 2014, however, and the remaining schools -- Cascade and the four Putnam County schools -- were left stranded.
An invitation was made to Greencastle in March of 2014 to join the seven-member Western Indiana Conference to make an even number, but the Tiger Cubs were loyal to their county colleagues.
Greencastle principal Russ Hesler went to bat for Greencastle's fellow Putnam County and WCC schools in this process. With the WIC looking for one just more school to make an eight-team league, Hesler requested more.
"They wanted us to join, but I didn't want to leave the other WCC schools," Hesler told the Banner Graphic, stressing the importance of maintaining county rivalries.
Eventually all five schools were absorbed, and the new 12-team Western Indiana Conference began play last fall.
The four Putnam County athletic directors weighed in on their evaluation of the league after one year, potential changes that could be made and the benefits of playing in the league.
Evaluate year one
Greg Hill (Greencastle): "The move for Greencastle HS to the WIC has been very positive. We are grateful for the opportunity to play a schedule with greater challenges and increased prestige."
Tim Garver (North Putnam): "Anytime you move to a new conference there are always going to be some challenges -- scheduling, getting officials, understanding the rules of the conference and planning for the travel times."
Troy Burgess (South Putnam): "Probably the biggest benefit of the new conference is it allows our athletes to gain recognition outside of Putnam County."
J.J. Wade (Cloverdale): "It gives our athletes a chance to play some newer opponents that we haven't faced in the past."
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes?
Hill: "The 'price of progress is the pain of change' is a quote my father used from time to time. It has not been a simple process of changing contracts, dates and opponents, but it has been a great change for our student-athletes."
Wade: "We will try four-team crossovers in 2017-18 and 2018-19."
Burgess: "I would like to see us do away with the divisions (other than football) and play everyone in the conference. I'm sure one of the drawbacks to this idea might be the added travel time."
The benefits
Garver: "Some of the benefits from an athletic standpoint are you can measure where your athletic teams compare to some bigger schools. With 12 teams in the conference, if an athlete is chosen on one of the "All Conference Teams" that is a pretty big honor compared to the WCC."
Burgess: "We knew what we were getting into when we entered this conference in terms of school sizes. What we are hoping for is that by playing the schedules that we do, we will be better prepared to compete when it comes sectional time."
Wade: "It is great competition to prepare teams for tournament play."
Drawbacks
Garver: "As for drawbacks, travel, and scheduling can sometimes really be frustrating especially since some games don't start until 6 p.m. and athletes sometimes return to school between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m."
Dominance by big schools
Garver: "Just as in any conference there is always going to be a school that stands among the rest. Also I do believe that in certain sports just like in football this year we went to Edgewood and won big. So, for us I want to try and focus and make sure we have the best coaches that know how to motivate kids to play. If we do that, I think we will be fine."
Wade: "We are one of the smallest schools in the WIC, which puts us at a disadvantage numbers wise because the conference is obviously not classed. The end goal is always the sectional and beyond, so playing larger schools will only help us."
The future
Hill: "Our Girls won the All-Sports Trophy for 2015-16 over the 12-team WIC ... naturally we are proud of our athletes and coaches. Our goal is to win the combined All-Sports trophy in 2016-17."
Garver: "Being the first year I think it is too early to tell [about long-term viability]. We just want to stay positive about the conference and do our part to make it better than it is. I think this first year is kind of the trial year. I think after we complete this year the Athletic Directors will meet and evaluate each Conference tournament."
My take
When I first heard of this plan, I was not a big fan.
I was still teaching at Northview at the time, and the benefits of playing more smaller schools seemed to be zero.
Northview needs to find a conference with other Class 4A schools, but changing conferences is not easy and finding suitable takers is also difficult.
The four smallest schools in the WIC in terms of enrollment are Cascade, Cloverdale, North Putnam and South Putnam.
Those four schools also ranked in the bottom half of the overall all-sports standings. Such numbers can be interpreted in many different ways, and it's important to note that schools are heavily penalized numbers-wise for not fielding a team.
For Cloverdale, North Putnam or South Putnam to ever win the all-sports title, any of them would have to win first place in several different sports -- so those numbers by themselves are not a good barometer of viability.
Greencastle ranks sixth in enrollment, but placed third overall in the all-sports standings and is understandably thrilled with the results from year one.
I have heard no talk of blowing up the conference, and it would be foolish to have such a conversation yet with such a small sampling of data.
I am confident the conference leadership will analyze the data as the years go by, and schools will individually decide whether they are too big and need to move up or are too small and need to downsize.
The problem is where to go if you're not happy.
Geography obviously plays a role, and that aspect won't get much better this fall as Indian Creek replaces South Vermillion, which has returned to the Wabash River Conference with schools more of its size.
Indian Creek has 100 more students than South Vermillion, and has an outstanding reputation for athletics.
It's kind of ironic that both Indian Creek and Brown County are in the WIC, which is a travel nightmare for them but given the lack of options it seems to be the best situation.
When I worked in Greensburg in the mid-1980s, those two schools were the two big bullies of the Mid-Hoosier Conference, which had mostly Class A schools such as Milan, North Decatur, South Decatur, Southwestern (Shelby), Hauser and Morristown.
Their depth gave them a huge advantage over the much smaller schools, and now here they are in a conference with schools several counties away.
The "crossover" games were a nightmare this year, as was the running of the conference track meets, but those problems were weather-related and obviously will vary from year to year.
One thing that J.J. Wade commented on earlier was the changing of the crossover games to consist of four teams.
What that means, as simply as possible, is that it will no longer be 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, etc. under that format -- but teams will be grouped in pods of four teams.
The winner of each division will play the runnerup of the other division, and those two winners would then meet for the championship.
This seems a good outcome, since it would allow a second-place team to still have a chance for the league title.
Will Northview, the biggest school by more than 200 students, win the all-sports title every year?
That seems to be an important question. Northview and Edgewood (third biggest school) played for the championship this year in both boys' basketball and girls' basketball.
Time will tell whether that's a regular occurrence or not.
The best test of the conference's value will be in the improvement over time (or not) in post-season competition.
Factoring in the cyclical nature of talent, the conference will be a good thing for all of our Putnam County schools if teams improve their performance by competing against bigger schools.
Here's hoping things work out great, but that schools aren't afraid to explore other options if they don't.