On the Side | Brad Hicks
Competitiveness, travel time, rivalries, gate receipts, and enrollment trends are the main reasons schools start thinking about a move from one activities/athletics conference to another.
Red Oak is currently studying the idea of leaving the Hawkeye 10 Conference and joining the Western Iowa Conference (WIC).
Competitiveness can be done as a measurement – just figure out what place your various teams finish in the standings from year to year and that will reveal itself. Another way to calculate it is how often a school wins conference championships in various sports. One could probably put together a five-year average, 10-year average, 20-year average, etc.
Travel time for students and families/fans is a consideration, too. As currently arranged, Red Oak has seven conference members 50 miles or less from home, with Harlan at 53, Denison at 79, and Kuemper at 92 farther than that. If Red Oak were to join the WIC as currently arranged, there would be four trips of less than 50 miles (Oakland-Riverside, Underwood, Avoca-AHSTW, and Treynor) and four trips of more than 50 miles (Missouri Valley at 74, Audubon at 64, Logan-Magnolia at 74, and IKM-Manning at 71).
As for enrollment, last year in the Hawkeye 10, Red Oak ws the third-smallest public school. It was larger than Clarinda by about 50 students and larger than Shenandoah by about 35 students. Red Oak was larger than St. Albert, a private school that doesn’t have an enrollment listed with the state Department of Education statistical site, and it was smaller than Carroll Kuemper, the other private school in the league. The public school K-12 enrollments in the Hawkeye 10 a year ago were Lewis Central 2,494; Denison-Schleswig 2,338; Glenwood 1,956; Creston 1,456; Harlan 1,399; Atlantic 1,384; Red Oak 1,110; Shenandoah 1,075; and Clarinda 961. The five-year projection by the state, however, shows Red Oak and Clarinda being the smallest of the nine public schools at 1,024 students in 2021-22. In the WIC, Red Oak would be the largest school, both now and by projection. Those projections predict AHSTW 760, Riverside 724, Missouri Valley 715, Treynor 641, Underwood 632, IKM-Manning 611, Tri-Center 583, Logan-Magnolia 527, and Audubon 478.
There are wildcards to consider, too. Would Clarinda and Shenandoah go to the WIC with Red Oak? Those two rivalries not being conference games would be strange, but there is no reason they would not play one another as they have, given history and the gate receipts.
It’s a hot topic, and there is a way for people to construct measurable arguments. Regardless, let’s ask: what’s best for the kids?