Merging Teams
By Doug La Rocque
Many area schools have been merging the sports program of late, most individually suffering from a lack of participation. It started with the smaller schools, but lately, several larger districts have been going down the same road. The two latest to announce sports mergers are Hoosick Falls and Tamarac High School (Brunswick School District). Both districts border each other along the NYS Route 7 corridor.
The largest sport to be combined will be football. Tamarac has had several off years, although this year the team did make the Section 2 playoffs and won its first contest. Hoosick Falls has had several very good teams in recent years, but fell off a bit this year, struggling to find enough players to fill both offensive and defensive teams. It has been noted that when players have to perform on both sides of the ball, the risk of injury greatly increases (four fold) and of course, creates much more exhaustion.
On Thursday, November 21, the Hoosick Falls School Board announced at its meeting, it was merging its football, track and newly created cross country programs with Tamarac, starting this spring, if the Brittonkill School Board approved. (Brittonkill is the name of Brunswick Central School District, of which Tamarac High School is a part). That board met in special session Tuesday morning, November 26, and indeed gave its approval. In fact, it added two sports to the merger, those being Boys and Girls Lacrosse. The Hoosick Falls School Board has a special meeting planned for early November 27, to also approve those sports.
The urgency here is that in order to merge spring season sports, the official paperwork must be filed with New York State by December 1.
It’s A Good Fit
Hoosick Falls School Superintendent Pat Dailey said this is happening to districts all across the state, and merged teams are becoming more the rule than the exception. The Hoosick Falls football team has 21 players this year and 9 of them will be graduating. Without the merger, HFCS might not have been able to field a football team next year. Dailey said there are many details to be worked out – busing, uniforms, coaching responsibilities, and venues for games and practices. He said practices will probably alternate between the two campuses, and the team will probably have two homecoming games, one at each school. He said the school colors may work out well, as Hoosick Falls colors are blue and white, and Tamarac colors are red and white, so they can do something with red, white and blue uniforms. He said the campuses are about 13 miles apart, about 21 minutes by car, so the distance for traveling back and forth is manageable.
The Berlin and New Lebanon school districts have had a merged swim team for many years, and this current school year, merged the vast majority of their sports, for many of the same reasons Hoosick Falls and Tamarac are now opening that door. Berlin Athletic Director Josh Weaver tells The Eastwick Press “mergers are becoming the norm in high school sports here in New York. As we have seen here with the Berlin-New Lebanon merger, it can open up new opportunities for athletes to succeed at a skill appropriate level and provide other options initially we could not offer.
I fully support Tamarac and Hoosick Falls merger and know it will only make our Cross Country and Track programs more competitive both individually and as a league. Berlin-New Lebanon does not field a football team because of their size.”
Dr. Angelina Maloney, Superintendent of the Brunswick Central School District, released a statement that says in part, “the conversation about merging opportunities began last school year as participation numbers for some sports at both schools have declined. Brunswick has been merged for Hockey for the past two years. For track and field, cross country, and some boys lacrosse levels, Hoosick Falls will be coming to Tamarac to play while girls lacrosse and varsity boys lacrosse will be hosted at Hoosick Falls. Football will be split between both schools, with home games and practices split evenly between both schools. The currently appointed coaching staffs from both schools will remain in place for this round of mergers.
Bob Stuhlmaker, an athletic administration expert from the Capital Area School Development Association, known as CASDA, has been working with the districts throughout this process. Mergers are done on a year-to-year basis and will be evaluated at the end of each season. Students from each school will be held to their school’s code of conduct and rules for eligibility.
The superintendents and athletic directors of both schools said they wish to thank the coaches and Boards of Education for their help making this happen.
As for the combined football teams classification, they will be a C school, and since Section 2 schedules football by classification, it is believed they will face many of the same opponents as each school has in the past.