Corn Belt and Okaw Valley combine
http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/hi...cle_1942fb5b-da27-5f17-b08b-cd2eaebd61ee.html
http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/hi...cle_1942fb5b-da27-5f17-b08b-cd2eaebd61ee.html
New Conference-"Corn-Valley"
- Thread starter redmen85
- Start date
Schools that conference hop leave the newly smaller conferences with their fingers up their noses. Then the nose pickers start looking around and you get conference mergers or complete disintegration which happened with the Suburban Catholic/Christian Conference a few years ago. That was a great conference with a storied history, and now it is a thing of the past.
Even before it experiences a single season, people are thinking this new conference won't last long as currently comprised. That's probably true, and it speaks to the sad state of affairs in which we find ourselves in Illinois high school sports.
What cost is there to conference hop? Seriously, beyond switching out the banners in the school gym, what cost is involved to switch from one conference to another? Are there entry or exit fees? If not, should there be?
Maybe it is too easy to conference hop because it doesn't cost much/anything. Maybe if new conference members had to pay an entry fee that stings a little or some sort of deposit held in escrow that starts getting partially returned after x number of years in the conference, schools wouldn't be so quick to conference hop.
The bottom line is that this is getting old, and the district alternative is looking better and better.
I like the Sangamo, but the Okaw schools were good for Maroa-Forsyth. That 1A team was going up against Unity, SJO, etc..., and was extremely ready for the playoffs.