Leland, Earlville adjust to being back on their own

It is sometimes said that change, a fresh start is a good thing.

Earlville and Leland high schools are each hoping that is the case for a number of their athletes as the 2018-19 school year begins in a few weeks.

The two districts, after many discussions and board meetings, were unable to come to an agreement this spring on continuing their athletic cooperative (co-op). The co-op, which has been in place since the 2006-07 school year, will still be in place for boys soccer, girls basketball, track and field, softball and baseball until the end of this school year, but the schools will each be on their own in volleyball, boys basketball, cheerleading, boys golf and girls golf for 2018-19.

Paw Paw High School, which begins a co-op with Indian Creek High School this year, has a contract to play one more year with Earlville and Leland in boys soccer.

"We had to first work with the Little Ten Conference for our own schedule, and Leland likewise, as well as the schedules as a whole," said Earlville superintendent Rich Faivre. "We had to also hire coaches for a couple of those sports and activities as Leland was the host school for both volleyball and boys basketball. Also, with those sports being Leland sports during the co-op, there was the job of finding spots in Thanksgiving and Christmas tournaments because those belonged to them.

"Tonya Scherer, who is a teacher in our school, will be our volleyball coach, and Gerald Fruit, who was the co-op's basketball coach at the end of last year and lives in Earlville, will stay on as our coach."

Faivre says a co-op committee made up of two board members from each school, the principals and athletic directors, will get together three or four times this coming school year to talk about of how the sports that the schools are still together in are going and went during the year.

According to Leland principal Chris Bickel, the transition of athletic programs being on their own was encouraging after summer programs that were put into place.

"I first have to say what a great job our athletics director Jason Zaleski has done throughout this whole process. We have seen some really awesome things through our summer programs, especially in the amount of kids we have had participate," said Bickel. "For example, in boys basketball Jason and I ran about six weeks of camps, but instead of doing the normal one-week camp like a lot of schools run, we worked with a different grade level for an hour or so each day. We were pretty happy with what we saw, both in numbers and learning."

Bickel, who was a senior the first year the schools co-oped sports programs across the board, admits there may be struggles early on, but he feels over time the programs at Leland will find their way.

"We only had three Leland girls in the co-op volleyball program, but we knew with us having our own team this year that that number obviously needed to rise. We didn't want girls showing up to the first practices not knowing what is going on or not knowing what it means to commit to a team.

"Jason and our new coach, Mandy Hawk, put together a really good summer schedule to help get them ready, and the turnout was good," said Bickel, who added Chris Abbott, a six-year assistant with the boys basketball co-op, will be the Panthers head hoops coach. "We may struggle at the varsity level, but we also have a couple girls back with experience. We'll just have to see how they do.

"These next couple of years may be a little tough in all sports, but I'm just so happy to see the kids here at Leland getting involved. I'm very optimistic of where we can go and that this can be a huge positive for us. This is more than just throwing a ball around or wins and losses. It's about building character."

Faivre says the first meeting of the schools in a game will without a doubt be strange to see.

"It will be a lot different," he said. "Those kids have been teammates for a long time now, so it will definitely be a change playing against them rather than with them."