Co/op: Will locals schools participate in cooperative scholarship program?

The members of the Missouri High School Activities Association threw an athletic lifeline of sorts to student-athletes at small schools this past spring by approving cooperative sponsorships.

Now the question is whether any school will actually use it.

"It's a good idea," Scott County Central athletic director David Heeb said. "I just don't think it's very practical."

The arrangement, which became a bylaw in a vote of member schools earlier this year, allows two schools in classes 1, 2 or 3 (of the five classifications used for basketball) to combine athletes to form a coop team. Schools that do not have some athletic programs would be able to work with an adjoining school district to offer an athletic program to its students.

"It's all about participation ability," MSHSAA spokesman Rick Kindhart said.

Schools are expected to receive applications this month for the coop program, which begins in the 2006-07 school year.

While all 19 of the MSHSAA schools in Southeast Missouri -- including the 15 that are eligible to participate in the coop program -- offer baseball and basketball for boys, other sports are not universal. The coop program is designed to give athletes at schools that do not have a certain program the opportunity to participate as teammates with athletes from a school that does.

"It will be positive to see if it helps create more participation," Saxony Lutheran athletic director Larry Cleair said, "and hopefully it will in those marginal sports."

But obstacles such as funding, facilities and enrollment figures have some small school administrators wondering if it's worth it.

One school in the program would be designated as the administrator, with its school name and mascot being used to identify the team. Enrollments for two schools in a coop would be combined, possibly bumping an existing school team into a higher classification.

"There's more negatives to me than there are positives," Chaffee athletic director Terry Glenzy said. "You're talking about one kid from a school of 100 and it will up your enrollment. That could kick you up a class."

Added Cleair: "That's probably the thing that's going to be a hesitant, if the schools combining are a class or two larger than they were."

Sports with fewer classifications would be more likely suited for cooperative sponsorships than sports such as football and basketball, which have six and five classes, respectively.

"It would probably not be a good fit for football," Kindhart said. "It's definitely one of the things where your individual sports will see more opportunities to do this."

Among those sports is track and field, which is virtually nonexistent in the area's smaller schools.

"We've actually explored starting a track team ourselves," said Heeb, in his first year at Scott County Central, "but the coop would probably be a better way to go because we don't have many kids."

Heeb said questions about classification and other factors may keep the school from applying right away.

"The main thing is it's just going to be hard to pull off," he said.

Illinois and Iowa can provide examples of how the system works. Those states both have versions of cooperative sponsorships. In fact, Kindhart said, it was the experience of playing Iowa coop teams that led some northern Missouri schools to push for cooperative sponsorship.

"We hear a lot about it from the schools to the north that play Iowa schools," Kindhart said.

One of the stipulations within the bylaw is that a school must prove a need for the coop by demonstrating a lack of student-athletes, coaches or facilities to field a team of its own.

Also, the two schools must be in adjoining districts or the same public school district, and the schools must join for a minimum of two years that coincide with the MSHSAA district cycles.

Like most rule changes, cooperative sponsorship likely will be accepted gradually throughout the state.

"I don't think people really know a lot of good information how to get it going," Cleair said. "People probably are taking a wait-and-see attitude."

Saxony Lutheran still is expanding its young athletic program, having offered baseball for the first time this past spring and adding girls basketball at the junior varsity level this winter.

"I don't think we're going to do anything with it this year," Cleair said. "That's an option for us in the future, but I think that's going to take a lot of work."

The applications that schools receive this month will be due in December.

"It's something that the first couple of handful of schools that do it will be the guinea pigs for the entire state," Kindhart said.