TRAC expansion a win-win for all involved
Newman Athletic Director Mike Papoccia said someone was going to have to take one for the team to make expansion in the Three Rivers Athletic Conference happen. Apparently that someone was Kewanee.
The Boilermakers cast the lone dissenting vote in last week’s 8-1 motion to bring six new schools into the TRAC fold. In effect, the vote for expansion shifted the Boilermakers out of the existing TRAC league to form a new division with newcomers Princeton, Hall, St. Bede, Rockridge, Orion and Sherrard.
I can understand Kewanee’s vantage point because they’re close to being back where they were before and wanted out. It preferred the status quo, playing against the existing eight schools in the conference and enjoying more success than they had in the NCIC.
Then again, Kewanee proved to be the Yoko Ono of the NCIC. It was the Boilermakers’ departure that led to the crumbling of the NCIC with Rock Falls, Mendota and then Hall following behind like a line of dominoes.
As you know, I’ve been promoting the merger of the Three Rivers and the NCIC for the past couple years. What went down last week is pretty close. The only schools missing are Mendota and Rock Falls, who sought greener pastures in the Big Northern.
With its new divisions, the TRAC expansion proved to be a merger of four former/current NCIC schools — Princeton, Hall, St. Bede and Kewanee — with three former Olympic schools — Orion, Rockridge and Sherrard.
While the East-West proposal may have been more practical for travel purposes (it likely would not have passed), the TRAC expansion going North-South should be a win-win for all schools involved. It will provide locals like Hall, Princeton and St. Bede a much needed place to call home, and the conference overall more security.
It will create a strong football conference, one of the strongest of its class in the state, providing each division six conference games and three crossovers.
It sure will be exciting to see the renewal of long lost rivalries in football like Hall vs. St. Bede for the first time in 21 years and the return of longtime rivalries like Princeton vs. Kewanee (114 years and holding), Hall vs. Kewanee and Princeton vs. Hall.
Remember, Hall and Princeton will not play in 2012 with the Red Devils’ early entrance into the Big Rivers next season and the Tigers remaining in the West Central one more year.
Bureau Valley will also get to line up against Princeton and Hall for the first time in football since its first years of existence in the mid-’90s.
The possibilities of some new football rivalries are also exciting with Hall and Princeton drawing the likes of state powers Newman and Morrison down the road.
The logistics of the expanded conference will need to be worked out for scheduling and other issues in the days ahead leading up the 2013-14 school year. I would encourage the TRAC to maintain divisions for football only and play a conference-wide schedule for all other sports, an idea Papoccia said most league ADs support. This will allow for more continuity and a sense of belonging in the conference as a whole and prevent the divisions that developed and eventually helped lead to the break-up of the NCIC.
Traveling to Port Byron, Fulton and Rockridge certainly will be no ride in the park for Princeton and Hall, and vice-versa, but they will be much closer than the schools PHS and Hall met in West Central football last fall. Arrangements can be made to schedule those long-distance trips on weekends.
• College commitments: The past month has been busy for many of our area senior athletes when it comes to future plans. PHS pole vault standout Laura Fredenhagen has just committed to Illinois State to compete for the Redbirds. She will be joined there by BV senior Kimi Sanden. Also recently, BV distance standout Derrick Johnson has verbally committed to run for Eastern Illinois and Princeton senior C.J. Rhodes is heavily leaning to play basketball for IVCC.
• Happy Days: St. Bede almunus J.A. Happ landed his first big payday in the Big Leagues when he reached a one-year, $2.35 million deal for with the Houston Astros this week. Happ, who made $474,000 last year, according to USA Today, was arbitration-eligible for the first time this winter. The 29-year-old lefty looks to bounce back from a tough year in which he went 6-15 with a 5.34 ERA overall, but finished strong after a short return to Triple A.
• I’d like to offer my condolences to the family of Brett Shepard for their loss this week. I coached Brett in Little League Baseball and I remember him always loving the game. Sadly, he is the second athlete I’ve coached that has passed much too soon, including former Princeton Tiger Tim Russell.
Contact BCR Sports Editor Kevin Hieronymus at khieronymus@bcrnews.com.
