Coops, in m view, are of three types. First, there are the expensive "individual" team sports, like swimming & gymnastics, where there is only one class. If every school district in the Kankakee area wants to coop with Bradley-Bourbonnais for gymnastics (BB has the only program in the area), who cares. If McNamara wants to coop, who cares. If the two non-IHSA private schools (Trinity & Grace) want to coop, who cares. The only potential people being hurt are BB students who might get cut, while the team presumably will be better...If the Lincoln Ways coop for gymnastics, so what? If Joliet Central & West coop, so what?
Second, there are the small districts which may eventually consolidate. The slow death of rural public school districts is very painful for the community. Cooping sports is a bridge to the consolidation...Lots of these towns only play one sport a season - football, basketball, track or baseball; volleyball, hoops, track or softball. Cooping football & track probably is the first step...And instead of dropping the teams, they probably get better.
Third, team coops are more difficult. If school one plays football, and school two has never played football, and school two wants to coop for a couple of years to kick off its own program, okay. You can see the purpose of the coop, but team dynastics will be difficult. But what if McNamara is approached by Grace & Trinity to do a football coop? Standing alone, Grace or Trinity will never be able to support the sport. But Mac then is looking at going back to 5A...What about track (Grace & Trinity only play baseball/softball in spring)....A coop would make more sense than interpreting transfer rules...
The other team issue is a school like Beecher...doubled in size in 20 years, now 370 kids give or take. They did some coops for a while, but nobody wants to get pushed up a class - so now the only coop is wrestling with Grant Park. Next likely sport? Football. But they have no facilities (no track or stadium, likely no appropriate locker room). What if the Bobcats cooped with Mac for football, and Mac lost the multiplier (so they would be a solid 4A)?