NCIC between Rock Falls and a hard place
Another dent in the NCIC landscape is expected to take place this week when the Big Northern Conference approves Rock Falls for admittance into its conference at its Thursday meeting.
That move will be the latest in a long line of cracks in the once steady conference which formed in 1929.
The NCIC split into divisional play three years ago for all sports. All members of the large school side, the NCIC Reagan, including newcomer Morris, elected to make a mass exodus to form the new Big Northern Illinois 12 in 2010-11 with members of the fledgling Western Sun.
Kewanee continued to rock the NCIC boat with its decision in November 2008 to depart the NCIC Lincoln in favor of joining the Three Rivers Athletic Conference for the 2010-11 school year.
The NCIC Lincoln picked up St. Bede to replace Kewanee, but the expected departure of Rock Falls for the Big Northern would drop the conference back to five members. There would just be four member schools for football as St. Bede is coming over for all sports but football, opting to remain in the Big Rivers. A full football conference requires six schools.
Princeton athletic director Dave Moore acknowledged the NCIC has to look somewhere.
“Definitely, that’s for sure,” he said.
Mendota Principal Denise Aughenbaugh, the NCIC league president, told the BCR the NCIC is in a “holding pattern,” as situations develop, but will be discussing the anticipated departure of Rock Falls in the conference meeting on Wednesday.
“It’s a domino effect. What happens in one conference affects another,” she said.
Aughenbaugh said the NCIC will continue to explore expansion and is actively seeking new members, but at this time, she said she has not been contacted by any schools expressing an interest.
Prophetstown’s Guy Gradert, league president of the Three Rivers Athletic Conference, told the BCR Monday that Princeton and Hall have expressed interest in joining their conference. However, with Kewanee coming into the Three Rivers next season, Gradert said the TRAC-8 has no interest in further expansion at this point.
“This year we decided not to entertain any formal solicitations for entry into the conference,” Gradert said. “With the addition of Kewanee last year, we were happy with the stability within the conference.”
Facing the possibility of Rock Falls leaving, Hall athletic director Gary Barrera said Hall, which joined in the NCIC in 1941, has to keep all of its options open.
“Obviously the NCIC is the best fit for us, but with Kewanee leaving and the possibility of Rock Falls leaving, it only leaves you with a four-team conference in football, which makes it very difficult, obviously because you need five teams for a conference,” Barrera said.
“We’re still pursuing the fact that we might be getting more people into the NCIC as well; we just have to explore the options in case another school might think they need to leave.”
One of those options might be the Interstate Eight. League president of Doug Evans of Seneca, said Monday the I-8 has received letters of interest from Hall and Mendota, and he believed Princeton as well. He said that topic will be on the agenda for the conference’s next meeting in February.
The I-8 actually consists of 12 schools with two divisions for football— the small division with Wilmington, Plano, Dwight, Seneca, Lisle and Westmont and the large division with Peotone, Coal City, Braidwood Reed-Custer, Herscher, Sandwich and Manteno.
In that scenario, the three NCIC schools could be paired with schools in the small division to form a “west division.” The closest I-8 school in the I-8 to Hall (39 miles) and Princeton (52) is Seneca.
BCR Sportswriter Chris Yucus contributed to this article.
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