High Schools Money, Mileage Might Force West Scranton, Scranton Into Move Scranton Schools Eye Wvc
By JOE PETRUCCI [email protected]
Friday, October 26, 2001 Page: 1B
An expanding athletic budget and travel concerns have forced the Scranton
School District to explore the possibility of its two high schools joining the
Wyoming Valley Conference, according to West Scranton school officials.
The Scranton School Board will meet sometime in November to decide whether
to recommend West Scranton and Scranton high schools apply for membership
through the Wyoming Valley Athletic Council in most sports, according to both
West Scranton Principal Bill King and Athletic Director Tom Smith. The WVAC is
an umbrella organization that covers all the WVC’s different sports leagues.
The two schools are unified in their attempt to secede from the Lackawanna
Interscholastic Athletic Association.
A league switch would effect all sports except football, tennis,
volleyball, field hockey and swimming. Both schools are already involved in
regional football and tennis leagues, and neither school has volleyball or
field hockey teams. Both schools’ swim teams are already in the WVC.
Smith said a move to the WVC could result in thousands of dollars in
transportation savings.
If the School Board approves application to the WVAC, paperwork would have
to be filed by Jan. 1 to WVAC officials. If the WVAC accepts the two schools,
they would begin play against Wyoming Valley schools in the 2002-03 school
year.
Jim Higgins, the WVAC president, said Wyoming Valley schools have had a
good relationship with the Scranton schools, but couldn’t determine whether
allowing the Scranton schools into the WVC is feasible because of the
impending PIAA reclassification of all its member schools. The WVAC won’t have
an idea, until at least the end of January, where its member schools stand.
“Our biggest problem is time,” said Higgins, the athletic director at
Bishop Hoban. “We won’t get back the enrollment figures from the PIAA until
sometime in December. To ask the (WVC) leagues to bring other schools in,
until we get the numbers, we can’t do much.”
Every school has until Jan. 15 to notify the PIAA whether it desires to
play at a class higher than the PIAA assigned it. (A school can’t play lower
than its PIAA-designated classification).
“We just have to be patient,” said Higgins.
Scranton School District officials say they have tried to work within the
framework of the Lackawanna Association, but haven’t had much success making
their travel less of a burden.
“Whenever we feel strongly about something, we end up getting shot down,”
said King. “We don’t have much of a say.”
That includes a Scranton School District proposal to realign LIAA’s
basketball league last year, which was overwhelmingly denied by the league.
Discussion of cutting back on travel began last spring, when the School
Board informed King and Scranton Athletic Director Bob Coleman they needed to
reduce costs in their respective athletic departments.
“When our School Board said to us `reduce costs,’ you have to find some
other ways,” said Smith. “It’s not like we’re playing extra games or making
trips for fun. Because of inflation and an increase in travel, costs were
getting higher.”
Scranton’s and West Scranton’s travel was increased five years ago when
teams from the dissolved District 12 – the old Northeast Athletic Conference
and football’s Suburban Conference – joined the Lackawanna Association in the
Riverside, Bishop Hannan and Dunmore, the two Scranton schools started playing
rural schools farther away like Delaware Valley, Honesdale, Wallenpaupack and
most recently, East Stroudsburg North. Those schools are closer only in
enrollment.
King and Smith also acknowledged that gate receipts from a heavier league
schedule against the rural schools were substantially less than in years past.
“The teams that were added to our schedules were distant, and we don’t
take a lot of fans to them and they don’t take a lot of fans to us,” said
Smith.
Smith and King believe West Scranton and Scranton could forge new and
prosperous rivalries with the bigger schools in the Wyoming Valley, while
saving time and money.
The Scranton School District Athletic Council – comprised of the district’s
superintendent, assistant superintendent, three intermediate school
principals, two high school principals, two athletic directors and a School
Board member – looked into cost-cutting.
Smith and Coleman compiled mileage and cost figures comparing current
opponents and potential Class 3A and 4A opponents from the WVC. They also
talked to some Wyoming Valley athletic directors to learn about different
sports’ league structures.
According to last year’s itinerary, the Scranton School District’s six
basketball programs (two boys, two girls and two junior high teams) logged
Scranton and West Scranton, both Class 4A in basketball, would likely travel
busing savings of approximately $8,000 for both schools’ basketball programs
alone.
Other concerns were the amount of time student-athletes spent on buses and
not in classrooms because of necessary early departure times and the safety of
the student-athletes sitting in buses traveling in bad weather.
The next Scranton School Board meeting will be held within the first three
weeks of November at 7 p.m. in the board room of the administration building
on North Washington Avenue, Scranton.
What a difference a league makes
Here’s a breakdown of the round-trip mileage difference between West
Scranton and Scranton’s current opponents in basketball and projected
opponents in the Wyoming Valley Conference:
Lackawanna League Wyoming Valley Conference
Delaware Valley 130 Berwick 110
East Stroudsburg North 120 Hazleton Area 95
Wallenpaupack 85 Tunkhannock 58
Honesdale 75 Wyoming Valley West 50
Western Wayne 71 Coughlin 44
Valley View 30 Pittston Area 25
Totals: 511 382
