ADA — In the past two years, the northwest Ohio high school football landscape has seen significant changes with a number of schools moving to new conferences for a variety of reasons.
Ada was the latest team to make the move after the school’s board of education voted 5-0 to leave the Northwest Conference and join the Blanchard Valley Conference at Wednesday night’s meeting. No timetable has been set for when the move will be finalized.
The decision to leave the NWC brought a wide range of emotions from the Ada community as was expected when there is a break of a long-term relationship that began in 1964.
Ken Jochims, Ada athletic director, said the seeds of the move began back in 2001 when Upper Scioto Valley left the NWC, but it was more of an exploratory effort and no information was extensively collected and the issue was tabled until this past year.
“We weren’t necessarily looking to go anywhere or do anything different,” Jochims said.”We were happy in the Northwest Conference. Obviously, we had some issues with football and we have had the change over in basketball which has been challenging.”
Jochims added that the BVC reached out last year with an invitation but said the school was not ready to take action.
“We were approached again in the fall during football and the board directed us to sit down and talk with them and the process built from there.”
Jochims and his staff were tasked with accumulating the necessary data to give the board the information to make a decision.
“Our school board was really thorough in their process,” Jochims said. “When you take the emotions out and look at some of the raw data, we have historically struggled to be competitive across the board in the last several years. We have been good at different things at different times but we want to have a more sustained approach across the board and excel in all areas of the sports experience so the board requested a lot of information. They really I thought did their homework on what I thought was going to be the best decision for our entire student body.”
Matt Gossman, president of the Ada BOE, said the focus of the board was what it felt was best for the school, students and sports and weighed all options, knowing the decision was not going to be easy and understanding that a sector of the community would not be happy with whatever the outcome.
“We want to give our kids a chance to compete and we don’t just look at sports at Ada,” Gossman said. “We look at all aspects of our students and this is one of the areas where we weren’t giving our kids a chance to compete and the invitation by the BVC opened a door for us that allowed us to look at that.
“There was a lot of initial data that you look at and then once you look at the initial data it is going to bring up more questions of what other data should you be looking at to really help you narrow down this type of decision. There was data and then more data requested and then more data requested and then we said this is what we feel is best for our students.”
Gossman added the NWC is an excellent conference with a proud tradition and adds that the BVC also has a strong tradition with competitive schools.
Competitive toughness
Ada, according to the NWC website, has won 29 team conference titles spread among boys and girls basketball, baseball, football and volleyball since 1964. However, from 1990-2023, Ada has garnered eight titles with the last coming in 2017 with volleyball capping off a three-year run of capturing conference crowns.
• Football has won eight NWC title but none since 2013. Ada has not had a winning season since 2017 in the NWC and has gone 4-27 in the conference since 2018.
• Boys basketball, which last won an NWC title in 2008, has not posted a winning season in the NWC since 2012 and has gone 8-48 in the NWC since 2018. In three of those seasons, the Bulldogs went winless.
• Girls basketball’s last conference crown came in 1982 and has not posted a winning record in the NWC since 2018 and has gone 2-49 since 2017, going winless in five of those years.
• Baseball’s last league title came in 1967 and has gone 4-42 in the NWC since 2017.
• Softball, which has seen a resurgence this year with a 5-1 record as of Friday, was 4-19 in conference play coming into this year since 2018.
• Track and field has seen the boys and girls see individuals excel. The boys have had one top 5 finish in the NWC since 2019 and the girls last top five finish came in 2017.
• Wrestling had Clayton McClain win the 144-pound NWC title this year.
A number of factors play into why the Bulldogs have struggled to compete in the NWC with enrollment numbers being the primary factor.
In a report entitled “Ada Athletic Report” dated Feb. 2, 2023, with statistics obtained by the Ohio Department of Education from 2021, Ada has 102 boys and 86 total girls. The Bulldogs fall in the middle in both instances with Bluffton having the most boys at 146 and Leipsic with the least amount of boys with 91. Bluffton had the most girls with 132 and Leipsic with the least amount with 78.
However, the numbers issue becomes more evident when you begin to compare the sports offered in each school. Ada and Bluffton are the only two schools that compete in all 14 sports.
Lincolnview is the lone school not to offer football and four schools do not play boys soccer.
The BVC consists of Arcadia, Arlington, Elmwood, Liberty-Benton, McComb, Pandora-Gilboa, Riverdale, Van Buren and Vanlue. Liberty-Benton is expected to leave the BVC by 2026. Vanlue will not compete in football in 2023.
“I think this gives us a breath of fresh air,” Jochims said. “We struggled and it really is a numbers game. It is really, really important to our community and school board to offer our kids as many opportunities as we can and at times it makes it challenging with the school of our size and all the different activities we have. The board feels like this gives the majority of our kids the best chance to be successful.”
With the loss of Ada from the conference, Jon Derryberry, NWC commissioner said the conference will have to look at options for the future but is not actively pursuing anyone at this point.
“We were definitely not looking to run them out or replace them,” said Derryberry earlier last month when he learned about the possibility of Ada leaving. “We are not trying to get rid of them and would like to see them stay.”
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
