Big Northern invites Rock Falls: School board to consider issue at Wednesday meeting
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| Tevin Rumley and Matt Lauts of Rock Falls celebrate after Gordo Barron made a three-point buzzer shot against Seneca on Saturday night's game. (Chris Padgett/cpadgett@svnmail.com) |
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Rock Falls High School has been invited to join the Big Northern Conference beginning in the 2011-12 school year.
The invitation, officially approved at a Thursday meeting of Big Northern officials, came as no surprise.
Rock Falls sent a letter of interest to the league late last year. The school, currently a member of the struggling North Central Illinois Conference, will consider the invitation at its board meeting next Wednesday.
“I’m hoping it happens,” Rock Falls athletic director Rich Montgomery said. “We’re hoping to have everything taken care of by Tuesday, and hopefully we can take action at the board meeting.”
The Big Northern started searching for a new member after Hampshire High School informed the league it would leave for the Fox Valley Conference in 2011-12.
Rock Falls and Marian Central Catholic in Woodstock were the two schools that responded to the BNC by its December deadline. Rock Falls was the only one to receive an invitation, according to conference president and North Boone athletic director Dale Purvis.
“Rock Falls fits in with the conference very well,” Purvis said, “as far as the school size and the success they’ve had in their programs.”
Purvis said the only issue some BNC schools had with Rock Falls was its distance from some schools in the league’s East Division, which includes Burlington Central, Harvard, Marengo, North Boone and Richmond-Burton.
The West Division, which Rock Falls would join, includes Byron, Genoa-Kingston, Oregon, Rockford Lutheran, Stillman Valley and Winnebago. Oregon athletic director Kip Crandall said that if Rock Falls joins, Genoa-Kingston probably would move to the East to give each division six schools.
“I definitely voiced my support for them,” Crandall said of Rock Falls. “For us it’s a very good fit. We see them in some stuff anyway, so for us it would be a great addition.”
Montgomery said lessening Rock Falls’ scheduling burden in football would be the biggest advantage of joining the Big Northern. BNC teams are locked into seven games each year (five division games and two crossovers), leaving two nonconference dates to schedule. Next year in the NCIC, Rock Falls could be forced to find as many as five nonconference opponents.
“Unfortunately, football scheduling is the driving force behind every conference,” Montgomery said. “Trying to find that odd Week 8 football game, that’s tough. We really want to be in a situation where it’s not so tough to schedule football games.”
Purvis said the Big Northern would like Rock Falls to add soccer, a sport that all current BNC schools offer. Montgomery said the Rockets’ invitation contained no stipulations, and that the school already complies with all conference bylaws. He also said his school conducts student activity surveys every 2 years, and that there has yet to be enough interest to form a boys or girls soccer team.
Rock Falls has been an NCIC member since 1942. Last summer, the seven largest schools in the NCIC decided to form a new conference, the Northern Illinois Big 12, with five members of the Western Sun.
Current NCIC member Kewanee will leave for the Three Rivers after this school year, to be replaced by St. Bede in all sports but football. If Rock Falls decides to join the Big Northern, that would leave the NCIC with four football schools: Hall, Illinois Valley Central, Mendota and Princeton.
According to a Monday article in the Bureau County Republican, Hall, Mendota and Princeton recently have sent letters of interest to the Interstate 8 Conference, leaving the future of the 80-year-old NCIC in serious jeopardy.
“We may have doomed the NCIC when we went to divisions,” Montgomery said of the creation of the Reagan and Lincoln divisions before the 2006-07 school year. “At the time it looked like the right thing to do, and I think we’ve seen that hasn’t been the case.”
West
• Byron (581 enrollment)
• Oregon (568)
• Rock Falls (693)
• Rockford Lutheran (431)
• Stillman Valley (601)
• Winnebago (575)
East
• Burlington Central (1,013)
• Genoa-Kingston (608)
• Harvard (723)
• Marengo (895)
• North Boone (480)
• Richmond-Burton (796)
