In The Locker Room, we've been studying the map of what the Fox Valley Conference Fox Division will look like next year with the league expands to 13 teams and realigns.
There will be 7 teams in the division: 2 in Woodstock, 1 in Johnsburg, 2 in Crystal Lake and 2 in Grayslake.
Question: What do the two Grayslake schools have in common with those five other schools?
Answer: It's a major, major hassle trying to get to any/all of them from beautiful downtown Grayslake on a weekday late afternoon, and it's a hassle for any of the five other teams to get to beautiful downtown Grayslake on a weekday late afternoon.
It's time, people, to push to somehow get into the North Suburban Conference, expanding that league from 14 to 16 teams. All you guys need is to find two other teams willing to join with you. Then, you have 18 teams -- 3 six-team divisions based on enrollment.
It CAN be done. And with the impossible scheduling problems created by a 13-team league, it should be done sooner rather than later.
Grayslake REALLY needs to get into the NSC
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How about Richmond-Burton? They are about half the distance (from Grayslake) as Woodstock...and MUCH closer than Huntley. As a parent who will have students at GCHS for 10 YEARS in a row....I would LOVE to move into a closer conference (not too mention the fun of playing people you have played against throughout the pre-high school years)
Richmond will work. They already play in a league where travel is a bear for them.
Anyway, take Richmond, the two Grayslakes and then you can get Waukegan. That's an 18-team North Suburban.
Three six-team leagues:
Big guys: Waukegan, Stevenson, Warren, Zion-Benton, Libertyville & Lake Zurich
Middle guys: Grayslake North, Grayslake Central, Lake Forest ,Mundelein, Vernon Hills & Grant
Little guys: Richmond, Wauconda, North Chicago, Round Lake, Lakes & Antioch
I like the idea, but would prefer to see Johnsburg with the little guys over Richmond. I don't see it happening though. If it was going to happen it would have happened when the Grayslake schools split.
Why does everyone always want to join a division and then segregate it based on size. IHSA already does that for State. Libertyville, Lake Zurich, Stevenson and Lake Forest are all at risk for not making state playoff - because they play and beat up each other. If you wan to do this for travel convenience and local rivalry - lets go North, Central and South regardless of size.
North - Waukegan, ZB, Richmond, Round Lake, Lakes & Antioch
Central - Grant, GL Central, GL North, North Chicago, Warren, Libertyville
South - Wauconda, Stevenson, LZ, Mundelein, LF & VH
Johnsburg would make all the sense because if they leave along with the two Grayslakes, the Fox Valley would be a 10-team league --- even number.
Take those thee and add Wauekgan, and you've got an 18 team North Suburban Conference with 2 6-team divisions. Perfect.
Grayslake didn't get in last time for a couple of reasons.
No. 1, there were 2 six-team divisions based on size. When Antioch split into Lakes, that added Lakes as a 7th small school and turned Antioch into a small school (No. 8) as well. So, you had 8 small schools and 5 big ones. To solve the problem, the NSC moved Z-B from small to big and added Lake Zurich as a big school, making it 7 and 7.
If the two Grayslakes had joined along with Lake Zurich and Lakes to make it a 16-team league, you'd need two 8-team divisions. Since there would have been only 7 big schoools and 9 small schools (the two Grayslakes are small), which small school would be stupid enough to volunteer to join the division with Warren, Libertyvlle, Stevenson, etc.
It wasn't going to happen. That's why the Grayslake's can't join the NSC by themselves. Because 1 team would have to join the big boys and one would thrive with the little guys. What Graysalek official is going to make that call, putting one school in position to succeed and the other in position to completely fail>
Hence, Grayslake needs to come in as a group of foiur, building the league to 18 teams with 3 six-team divisons. Then, the Grayslakes will fit perfectly into the middle-size division and can renew all the rivalies from grade school that are lost. Money saved on transporting teams alone would be a small fortune.
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Why would Vernon Hills and the Grayslakes fall in with the middle group leaving Antioch and Lakes in the small group? Based on enrollment, Antioch is bigger. If this happened, the upper group would be a battle between the big dogs (Warren, LZ, Stevenson, Libertyville). Lake Forest would run the middle group. After enrollments got sorted out and VH was where they belong based on size, would run the lower...
Good idea but too many schools would not see many wins and therefore would not go for it.
the goal was to keep Lakes/Antioch together in a division and Grayslake/Grayslake together in a division because they certainly wouldn't want to be split apart. Interesting how some schools are bigger than we perceive them to be, like Grant and Round Lake.
So, I wouldn't go strictcly by enrollment because Round Lake can't beat anybody so there's no need to put them anyplace but in the small group.
Anyway, it's all wishful thinking, although I will tell you that the Fox Valley Conference is going to die as a 13-team league. You try schedulign non-conference fb games Weeks 5-9 for teams next year, which is what the Fox Division teams are going to have to do.
I have to question the breakdown in this "Dream Conference"....While most are no-brainers, Mundelein is bigger than Libertyville (2260 v 2076, according to IHSA). This would make the "big" schools: Stevenson, Waukegan, Warren, Zion-Benton, Lake Zurich and Mundelein. The next 6 (strictly by size) would be: Libertyville, Round Lake, Lake Forest, Grant, Antioch and Grayslake North. The small schools would be: Lakes, Vernon Hills, Wauconda, Grayslake Central, N. Chicago and (Johnsburg or Richmond-Burton).
Yes - this would split up the Grayslake schools, and Lakes/Antioch. However, it seems crazy to move Grayslake Central (the 16th team in size) up to the middle division, just to keep them in the same division as Grayslake North. I cannot justify putting Round Lake in the small division just because "they cannot beat anybody" - are you strictly talking football? Beacuse there are a lot of teams involved in the topic that have had difficulty beating anybody. Life is NOT only about football. The goal here should be to give every school the most level starting ground possible.
Hopefully, SOMETHING will change....hopefully before my kids all graduate....
I have to question the breakdown in this "Dream Conference"....While most are no-brainers, Mundelein is bigger than Libertyville (2260 v 2076, according to IHSA). This would make the "big" schools: Stevenson, Waukegan, Warren, Zion-Benton, Lake Zurich and Mundelein. The next 6 (strictly by size) would be: Libertyville, Round Lake, Lake Forest, Grant, Antioch and Grayslake North. The small schools would be: Lakes, Vernon Hills, Wauconda, Grayslake Central, N. Chicago and (Johnsburg or Richmond-Burton).
Yes - this would split up the Grayslake schools, and Lakes/Antioch. However, it seems crazy to move Grayslake Central (the 16th team in size) up to the middle division, just to keep them in the same division as Grayslake North. I cannot justify putting Round Lake in the small division just because "they cannot beat anybody" - are you strictly talking football? Because there are a lot of teams involved in the topic that have had difficulty beating anybody. Life is NOT only about football. The goal here should be to give every school the most level starting ground possible.
Hopefully, SOMETHING will change....hopefully before my kids all graduate....
IF it is necessary to keep Antioch/Lakes together and Grayslake North/Central together, it would make more sense for Antioch & Lakes to be in the middle division. By enrollment, they fall Antioch (1410), Grayslake North (1398), Lakes (1379) and Grayslake Central (1316)...if you are going to basically count the two schools together, Antioch/lakes would need to be in the middle group (combined enrollment would be larger)
Here's why football matters.
It is the ONLY IHSA sport in which a team must be successful (5-4 record or better) in order to qualify for the playoffs. In every other sport, a team gets a chance at the end of the year to succeed regardless of regular-season performance. Grayslake Central, for example, could have a terrible boys basketball season while playing against bigger schools. Yet, when the playoffs start, everybody is 0-0 so to speak, and they could succeed because they drop down to the Class 3A playoffs and don't have to face the big boys like Zion-Benton and Warren and Waukegan. But, in football, losing to the big boys during the regular season could keep you out of the playoffs. That is why football is important. You have to give these teams a chance to win five games. Putting RL in any league right now other than with the smallest schools possible would be dooming them before they ever put the pads on for the first practice.
Jeff:
Can you claify something about the Grayslake schools being allowed into the NSC? I have been told that in order to be allowed in to the conference, there has to be a unanimous vote by the other schools to allow Grayslake Central and North in, and that certain schools are still very angry at Grayslake for bolting the old NWSC, causing it's collapse. These schools have made it clear they will not vote yes.Is that accurate? Has Grayslake tried to get into the NSC before?
You are so very correct sir.
Back in the 1990s, the then-Grayslake High (1 school) completely screwed over Round Lake, Wauconda and Grant by bolting the Northwest Suburban Conference for what looked to be, at the time, the greener pastures of the Fox Valley Conference.
That left the NWSC with just five teams -- not enough for the IHSA to recognize as a football conference -- and made scheduling games impossible. As a result, the NWSC disbanded and Wauconda/RL/Grant were forced to play as independents for a few years while Grayslake got to play in the Fox Valley. Then, when the 8-team North Suburban Conference was forced to expand to 9 schools because Libertyville was splitting off into Vernon Hills High, the NSC took RL/Grant/Wauconda into the NSC along with Vernon Hills, and the league went from 8 teams to 12 and division play began.
When Antioch split into Lakes high, creating an unworkable 13-team league, a 14th team needed to be added and Lake Zurich and Grayslake both applied to be No. 14. Problem was, Grayslake was in the process of splitting into Central & North. Lake Zurich was accepted as team No. 14, and the two Grayslakes were denied because they were both small-division schools. With 14, you had 7 big schools and 7 small ones. With the two Grayslakes, which would have made for a manageable 16-team league, you would have had 7 big schools and 9 small schools. One of the small guys would have had to jump to the big schools and nobody is stupid enough to do that and doom the program. That was one reason why Grayslake was denied. The other ... well, like I said before, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Now, the NSC is a thriving 14-team league with manageable travel and starting next year, the Fox Valley will be a 13-team league which is a mess for football scheduling.Don't know if it will take a unanimous vote to get the Grayslakes into the NSC, but if it does, the outlook would have to be bleak. By the way, I want to praise Stevenson High right now. When the vote came on adding RL/Grant/Wauconda to the NSC, Stevenson, a huge school which probably has absolutely no desire to play those three little schools in anything, was totally supportive of adding the three indedpendents to the league. Ever since that day, I have always had a warm spot in my heart for the Green/Gold. RL/Wauconda/Grant were in a miserable situation in terms of athletics, and the NSC schools stepped up to help their neighbors. Grayslake, back in the day, didn't show that it was a good neighbor and it's now paying the price.
Hopefully, the "powers that be" will let past errors be in the past. Let's think about what is going on today - while it would not hurt any school for the Grayslake schools to join the NSC, it DOES hurt them to remain in the FVC ...the extensive travel is costly not only in terms of time and gas money (for the school ditrict AND parents)but also hurts the team spirit - many kids cannot/will not make the drive to the further schools, reducing the fans to almost none! Being in the FVC also hurts the host programs, since so few "away" fans make the trip - resulting in loss of admission revenue and concession income, as well. And then there is the difficulty of doing homework during bus trips.....
PLEASE - let's get past the mistakes made years ago (how many athletic directors has Grayslake had since then?) and think about what would be best for the students NOW.
you sound awfully smart. Is there a school-board candidacy in your future??????