001we're looking at is I mean we're looking at other school corporations and you know not to be mentioned but um Connorsville they're they're very similar to us in terms of uh their um population they're not growing they're they're decreasing um and give or take sometimes you know larger in increases in that reduction um than we have had but J County is another one that would be similar so we we've had conversations and and If there's anybody within how many miles? I think probably a better a better way not to list schools after I've already 50 mile range. Yeah, I would say 40 to 50 miles. We've had conversations with anybody that's that's close to us in terms of enrollment. I I also think um with Shelbyville leaving the HHC, I think there's, you know, there's
002a little bit of it's a little vulnerable too. Um, obviously we're we're a little concerned and to his point was the Yorktown though obviously uh out outnumbered as well. So I think the HHZ is a little vulnerable right now and u yeah I just didn't mean mention something else but I wasn't going to mention it but I think it probably should from a just a wealth standpoint. Um, Muny Central used to be in a lot of sports a big power. Okay. Muny Central is the worst team out there. They're worse by far. The Knights down. Everybody beats Muny Central. Anderson clobbered Muny Central and we clobbered Anderson. And we're not that good. And you see where I'm headed with this? Um, Delta and your count. Yep. Yep. One on either side. All of the money.
003uh Pendleton and it just gets worse. Let me give you one more perspective on the disparity now versus then. When Jake and I played, uh Jake was on the team and and Nan's son scored the winning goal when we uh went to Loganport and beat the number five team in the state to win the conference. Probably the happiest moment in my life. Something our girls will never be able to share and I regret that. But my point is that they were number five in the state and we were able to go to their home field and beat them. Okay, Mount Vernon, we can't get the ball across the half. We didn't even get a shot against Mount Vernon. Didn't get a shot and he put in three teams because he liked me. He could put
004in his second unit and his third unit. We still couldn't get the ball close enough to get a shot. Now, here's here's the kicker. So Mount Vernon plays in the Noblesville sectional and gets beat by Noblesville 5 to one. That shows you the disparity now. And it's a money thing. Anderson, you know, we could beat Anderson 10. Uh Mount Vernon could beat us 10 if they keep their starters in and Nolesville beat them 5-1. So it it's not anything like an even playing field. and finding out finding teams like Jay County. Put a Central on there to balance out with a you know a team that's going to beat the snot out of us. Let us beat the snot out of somebody, you know. But just try to give us something that gives us a
005chance that if we have a good season, we can have a winning season. We have a bad season, we'll have a losing season. A good season for me this year will be I can't win seven games. I know I can't win them. Okay. I just got to teach the girls how to suck it up and lose. But I got one other team that we can't beat. Franklin County. Okay, that means on a 16 game schedule, the best I can do is go half and half. I can't get a winning season. We got We tied Yorktown. We were one to one going into the last minute and they scored. Anyway, they scored and that was as close as we've been in years because they beat us 80 last year. Now take your couple minor years and
006apply it to the history of Newcastle football and you can begin to finally understand what what people like me went through. Yep. Um you know it was always the players aren't good enough, the coaches are terrible. It's this and never looked at big picture of uh we're playing against guys that are going to division one and NFL. I'm going to play against 10 guys in 2003 to 2005 that are in the NFL or played division one football, you know. So now what we're seeing is it's trickling down into other sports and and causing a bigger issue because it's affecting more people than the small segment. Uh which, you know, highlights it and brings it to the forefront. And when I look at it, I've had so many conversations with Corey and and other people that
007are that especially have been in different roles and different uh youth leagues. It's just completely different now than what it used to be even 10 years ago, 15, 20, and certainly from the 80s when, you know, when things were really rocking in the NCC. So, you know, I'm torn on all this because I want us to belong to a a good conference, but I also don't want to hang around and be the doormat either. You know, the whole kind of thing is is we can we come up with a a phenomenal list uh that would make sense. It would challenge us. We there's years and sports that we would we would win. we'd probably be able to win or somewhere we're going to finish second, third, and maybe even in the bottom half sometimes. It
008just depends. Uh but the biggest problem is is getting those schools to to realize their positions and their conferences so that they want to leave too, which makes even more difficult because then you start have to considering things in in places that don't really align with with what we're doing. and we can go play him anyway without corning ourselves into a into a uh new conference, you know, that we may just end up wanting to leave again in five years, you know, or they will end up leaving if we're throttling them too bad or or vice versa. So, it's been a uh conversation. Obviously, when I coached football with with uh coach York for five years, you know, it was something where years where we knew we were going to compete and we felt you
009could be competitive in game certain games and then we went through years where you knew it was going to be a struggle to to uh not get embarrassed, you know. So, that's not accepting defeat. That's that's looking at and realizing reality. So, you know, for me, I I I see all aspects. What makes me the most nervous is is leaving something and having nothing ever to go back to and then, you know, demeaning the history the history of of, you know, being on the wall. Um, you know, because those people were voted in just like you said. You know, Tori was voted in. you know, I I was on the football team and so I wasn't one of the ones that got voted in, even though I was one of the better ones historically at
010that time to ever come through. So, like it meant something to me to not even be on there. And and the ones who did, it made it even more prestigious. So, I'm very hesitant when it comes to that aspect of just saying calling an all Trojan because then it be kind of comes you want to recognize them, but you also don't want to throw three or four people up there on a on a five and 17 soccer team. They don't deserve to be. Well, Jake and I put about 20 of those pictures on the wall. Yeah. And I don't know about you, Jake, but I'd much rather have at least one girl a year on that wall agree and call her all Newcastle than go five years and when what's his name went to the
011meeting, they didn't even listen to him. I mean, he might as well have been a doormat. They wouldn't even, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. And I'd rather I'd rather sit down with Jake at the end of the year and say, "Well, let's just let's say the board says, "Well, let's just do one." That's fine. One's better than none. That means our outstanding player gets to be honored. And if if she's all Newcastle, then it's put it on the put it on the board. That's that's more of a that that would be something that we would all sit down. Yeah. Whatever. You could do it based on record. You could say if you won eight games, you got this many. If you won 12 games, you got this many. Uh which would be kind
012of reflective of the team's performance. But I I'm just going to say it again. I I would infinitely prefer taking these girls out against teams that we at least have a chance for. At least have a chance for. So like baseball games we I think we talked about that 14 players are going twice. So there's 14 total games. But to his point it doesn't matter if you win 11 or right one your coach nominates and then you can't do it on the person that you nominate the other seven coaches. Right. Right. I mean I know I know what you're saying but I think it's a pretty fair pro I mean it's it's a fair process how they do. I want to give credit to Corey. He's done a great job. He's he's had I'm gonna
013say two or three large meetings with prospective um corporations. Those are always a little bit um hard to go through and you're kind of walking on eggshells and throwing out um you know this is where we see things and and those are the the corporations that we're we're courting um to make a new conference. Um I think I've probably spoken to about eight superintendents and one of the the if you're thinking why is this such a challenge? If you think about it, um, you know, the the who's got to be on board to to to join the conference, it's got to be at the athletic director. As as long as you have that, then you go to the principal. You go to the principal, you go to the superintendent, and you get the board. And
014so any four of those levels can say, "Nah, we're not going to do it." Uh, and so that that makes it a little bit more of a challenge. uh when you're going uh and you're looking and you're courting some of these these locations, there could be level you could have have an athletic director that says, "Okay, yeah, I want to do this, but that it gets shot down at some somewhere in the level." So, but he's done a phenomenal job. It's a lot of work. So, I I don't want people to think that, gosh, we just haven't tried. No, we've tried. And I think you know a lot of these schools that we're talking to have been in conference for many years. So they already have it was like when we went to the AXC
015there was so much history with us being in the NCC. You know a lot of schools are kind of falling under that same uh same scenario. So u some of them too that I mean it's it's a lot of work on an athletic director if you do change you know you have to go get new advertisement you have to go get new signage. You have to I mean really you have to redo your whole schedules. And so there's been I mean yeah it's just it's just been a tough process and one that I know needs to get done but we can't force schools to join us. No the other the other thing that's that's a pressure right now I would say and you know Nan was at the state house today u but um you
016know we're looking at losing somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 and a half% of our operational funds. um you know that was the last um um iteration that we received and so um 10 9.5 9.5 so that that's that equates to about $785,000 and so when you start looking at these you know geographic you know a place like Jay County may be a good match for us and and you know let's say there's a Connor spell in Jay County well that's two that's an hour and a half it's bus wear and tear it's fuel. It's paying the staff. So, um, that's that's a component that we've got to be cognizant of. It doesn't mean that it it totally dominates the conversation, but as we're looking into it, it's it's got to make financial sense as
017well. Like, for example, Shelbyville is kind of a hype for us. And you can't have a Shelby bill and a and a J county, right? So, things have got to match and we got to get them as close together as possible. And I will say that we've we've looked at those options that give us the opportunity to to be kind of the nucleus of of of the the conference. And uh maybe we'll have to look at something else, but we've tried to make it so that it it makes sense to us. And um we're we're kind of in the center of that. I don't think it's unfair to say and could be reported so that the community knows that the new budget will probably affect athletics. There's not much that it won't affect. Um, so
018I wrote his numbers down. Okay. You know, and I think too I I appreciate Dr. writers um voicing about soccer and because originally a lot of this was dealing about football and I know many of you know my girls were swimmers. So I think we need to look across all teams to make sure that everything is you know um fairly represented. So I will I guess I will speak for Tory because that was something that he and I actually talked about when we were uh found some ideas he you know informally really uh ideas about prospective schools like they need to be able to offer you know some of the things that you know because there's years where we put we put some really good products especially you think about swimming, wrestling, um gymnastics things
019like that that are still going. uh there's times where we're able to put athletes individually through golf, you know, the golf team, um things like that. So, I think he's he's um that's easy to kind of forget about sometimes when you're when you're trying to fulfill the uh the what I would call probably the more mainstream, you know, fanatical kind of sports, I guess. But, um they all they all are impacted. So you have to make sure that which makes that lift even tougher because there there might be some schools that can't wait to get into something with us where we can compete with the problem is they offer 16 sports or something like that. So yeah, we need to look like Dr. Shoe or Mr. Hammond. I mean we've looked at like sports like
020academics uh lot of not not a lot of movement amongst administration. Can you work with that administration? I mean the conference ads that are right now have been great and you know they're willing to help. I think we would want to continue to be able to work with with an ad that's in our conference as hard as you can. So, it's been a pretty I mean, we've really kind of looked at all angles and uh I think, you know, I'll kind of hit one of the coaches, you know, had said something like it's hard to build a culture when you lose all the time. And so, you know, I think, you know, and I I'll just use this coach like he's struggling. He's our football struggles. It's hard to get kids to come out. It's
021hard to we have some really talented football players that are even more talented than other sports. How do you keep those kids coming out? So, um the other thing is is I look at a little bit financially. So, like I do play new we're struggling that year and they're really good. It's late in the year. If it's cold, probably won't get a lot of fans to come. I'll just throw some schools out there. But if you were playing like a Shane Villa Center, Middle Eastern, Hancock, you kind have a good tradition and would be a good opponent for us. And I think, you know, there probably going to be some more people in the stands and that helps not just football, but that helps all around athletics. I mean, that's that's the bucket that falls
022under athletic club. So, um, I think there's definitely some more discussion to be had, but I I I agree with a lot of what you say. Well, one thing that uh may solve itself, we had we struggled to get enough players this year. We had eight graduating seniors. I only have two juniors and I don't have eight freshman coming in. So, it's entirely possible that we'll have girls who will be more available for other sports because we may not have a team. And you know, when you lose every conference game by six or seven goals, then what do you expect? I I would like to address, you know, you mentioned Centerville. You know, um we're let's say 750 students eligible for athletics right now. Centerville is somewhere in the 512 by 15 range. So, you
023know, you're talking about um a couple hundred kids difference between us and a class two, but the difference between us and you know, a new pal or a Mount Vernon is up to 700 kids difference. So, you know, because I know that the perception is is that we don't want to go into the the center bill kind of the the 2A classification, but um we're a lot closer in size to them than we are to Pendleton and Central size and demographics. Look at free and reduced lunch. That's true. I looked it up and right before we did reclassification, Cooko was the biggest 4A school like 1,600 students and we were closer to the size of try high than we were a school that's in our our own class and they're 1A in football. You know
024what I mean? So to put in perspective, football's already uh disproportionate uh by how they've set it up. So, I certainly when I say that, I certainly wouldn't want us to to join an entire conference of of 2A. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying for us to consider some of those that are closer to our size than what we currently play. Um, and probably regionally have the same demographics, so they're not going to grow beyond. That's one of the things we've talked about, lapel, they actually are in Hamilton County, and that could they could grow um significantly. I don't know if they will or not, but um and to your point, I'll use like lapel. If you compare lapel to a monthly central who has 1500 kids, lapel's 400, it's not even close.
025So, you really can't just go off the size of school. Yeah, I don't know what my central could beat us at. They beat us in boys basketball this year, but you know, we just played them in softball. We beat them 25 to nothing yesterday or Saturday. Well, and for a sport, they got three total switch off the back. For a sport like soccer, lapel with 400 kids is going to beat Newcastle is going to lose to lapel with 400 is going to beat Central or Anderson with many more students purely because of affluence, the demographic because they're in the middle of Hamilton County and they they got all that leaf blood. This is a ignorant question, so I'll just preface it with that. Um, how how ridiculous is just being independent? Is that even a
026possibility? Absolutely. So that wasn't so bad because it sounds like there's at least for a time being that's that's not it may be a band-aid fix but I yeah it's a real like he like he said it's a real scheduling hurdle to overcome in specific sports. So I talked to Lel and I'm like I want to use some schools because everybody wants to have eight schools in a conference because you have two it's really football driven a conference size is football driven everybody wants eight schools you have seven conference games two non-conference that's your nine leagues and there's a lot of conferences that only have six schools so they're always looking for a couple schools u Eastern Hancock Shannon though they're in a conference but a lot of like walk behind doesn't have a football
027team so they're not eligible to play. So like Lel said, the the challenge sometimes is you can find games that you might play two hours to play. Your game might be down around the Bloomington area. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to find opponent, but it's not going to be 45 minutes for you know and u I guess you know that's everybody needs baseball. Everybody needs softball with the fieldhouse. Everybody wants to come and play basketball. football's you haven't been getting creative and like I know Jay County did this at one time and they they're really close to Ohio so it was easy but they went over to Ohio Ohio and play some games so it can be done it's just going to you know we're going to have to realize that maybe for a year or
028two you might have to go find a game at my play at my you know before playing school yeah well just speaking as a coach that'd be fine with me. My girls, I'd love to take the girls an extra hour and kick somebody's butt that we'd have no business beating than go to a game against New Drive and know we're going to get beat 80 and try to keep from getting shut out, you know, where the games ended early, knowing damn well that that's going to happen when we get there. Yeah. Uh Corey, do you feel like that's kind of the uh consensus of the coaches? I mean, have you had any Oh, you don't have to name names, but are there I mean, you've obviously had this conversation. They're not here tonight, but I
029think so. I mean, I think the schools I mean, I think the coaches are great with Delas and Parents. I mean, to be honest, and even a lot of times spons I think it's trickies out Greenfield Central. Believe it or not, Jville Central when you look at overall standing fall winners, they're actually the best school in our conference. They're really good at everything. And um so yeah, I I do I mean I think if you ask Jeff your softball guys, you said, "Hey, would you want to play or not?" I really was play nine division one softball last year. I mean they were advanced from playing JV. I know. Yeah. So uh I do think that and the other thing that I truly believe is there is a lot of movement with schools. I think
030if we end up choosing to go the end of that well I do think that you know a couple years from now I think there's always some movement. I I don't think that's what you take that and you're stuck there for 10 years. I really don't I don't think so. To Dr. Shoemaker's point maybe you have to drive a cigarette bill. You might have to grab an Eastern Hancock. and you go grab a D name, Yorktown, Hamilton, state county, you can you can you know we can make it work. I would say I applaud you for I think we need to not be hasty to jump in. I think independent is going to create a lot more work for you. But like it if we do this like I think we need to go to
031the right fit like for us and I think we need to be disciplined. Like I think what I hear from the community is that we don't we don't want to be the big dog in the conference with a bunch of 1A and 2A. That's not what Newcastle wants. Like but we also don't want to be like what Greg says. Um, I think like the competitor in me says like I don't want to run from these schools. Um, but I said a lot of the stuff that you said last school board meeting about demographics and that gap I think is going to widen. Like I think it's so easy to go from Lawrence to Mount Vernon. That's what's going to keep happening in the new pal. Um, and you know, I think we still need to
032do a better job, and you've done a great job of this, of getting the right coaches in place and building programs. And we want to compete with New New Mount Vernon. It doesn't mean that we have to take a beating from them every year. Like I say, we don't take them off the schedule. We still play two or three of those games of the 20 and then we That's really non. Exactly. We were really good volleyball. Uh Kirst Pearson knew that. She she made a really tough volleyball schedule. We play we can still play those teams when we want to in certain sports say I want to play. Exactly. Exactly. You know maybe they know that they might get their butt a little bit. That's okay. We we have competitive coaches. Yeah. You know, I
033think 20 years ago, like I mean, the environment I would have said, you know, for our kids that have opportunities to play in college, like we need to be playing those games. I think the reality to Greg's point is like kids go play college sports today from travel. Like that's where the coaches see them. Like they're not coming to watch us play Mount Vernon in softball. There will never be a recruiting visit to watch Mount Burton salt. Like they're watching they're going to watch the top hundred teams in the country that are at one spot on a weekend and they can go see all the kids in three days. Like so I mean I where I would have had hesitancy to say like do we want to do that? Um I think we probably get
034we need depth. I mean you know this I mean we have 25 girls come out for middle school softball in three grades and honestly like a handful of them have never played like and so like we're not we're not going to get the numbers in some of those sports that we need. Um, I think it's a it's it's an issue with coaching and building programs, but it's also, you know, to what Greg said, I mean, he wants Natalie to play soft or play soccer and, you know, it'd be a third sport. I mean, he was begging me in the other room for her to play. And I'm sitting here thinking like, why? Like, he wants to play college softball. Why? Why? Why am I imagine saying I don't want to play? I mean, there's going
035to be a lot of talent coming through. I can't imagine him saying I don't want to play in the schools because really those schools when when you have some talent will get you set up for really postseason play. Yeah. And I I do struggle with that a little bit. I think um if our goal is to win, you know, in the postseason we've got to keep the schedule strong. We've got to play those teams, but it doesn't mean they have to be mandated on the schedule in sports like football. I mean, that's just that's just the winning side. That's not even addressing the educationbased part where we've got more kids wanting to be a part of something that drives better results in classrooms. You've got you've got that I mean that camarader camaraderie throughout the
036school with each other. I mean, and I just think that our coaches, like I've seen it where if they think they have a little talent, they go pick up a couple and then if they're not, they're trying to, you know, so I think I think our coaches have kind of have a good uh balance as far as like, hey, I think we're going to be okay the next couple years. afternoon. As a former coach in softball and basketball, we always look at the schedule of wanting to be a third of your season was team that you know you you really had to play your best ball to beat them. A third of the season was you're going to walk in the floor with them and the middle one you're going to be really competitive with.
037And I think that's where I think it's most coaches, at least me, I want to be able to push my kids. I also want to be able to win some game and then I want to be able to know how to to learn to win in those in that middle how to compete in our exact being able to compete is is a is a life skill. I think we all understand that. You know what I mean? And right now when you go in certain sports they're like I mean he's teach we're teaching them how to take a beating. You know that can be a life skill. That is a that is a true four years was pretty tough. You only learned so much from that. I know. I I just appreciate everybody's help or discussions.
038I mean obviously this is we're talking about something that is going to affect a lot of kids depending on what we do. The the other thing is that uh there's been more movement in central Indiana and the western side that's going and some of those schools that are further this way towards towards us is going to be real appealing to the new house the Mount Vernon's uh green fields. So like there's going to be likelihood of them wanting to have a bigger school even bigger school join is going to be pretty likely. We're talking about us dropping off, but there's a chance that those four could say, "Hey, you know, we found four schools that make sense for us," which would be great. I wish they reality is not going to happen. Of course, one
039of them is hand that doesn't want to change. And if we go independent, what's likely going to happen is is other communities that we want to go be a part with us are going to have to accept or decide, do we want to be the new doormat? Because it'll it'll Cory, what's what's the timeline? Um, when does a decision have to be made? If if we don't do something before June 1st, we're automatically locked with the 26 27 season. And that's kind of why that's really why we kind of put a little bit of a trying to expedite a little bit of what you want us to do because my fear is things get dragged out and then I want my girls to know if they're going to if they're going to sign up for
040eight losses and two two goals in 30 games. Uh, I want them to know in advance because I want to know who still wants to play and then I'm going to decide whether they're going to even be enough players and whether I should uh teach them how to lose again. We'd have we we would have to play the 25 26 season. You have to get 365 days, right? So, we did it. We would play the following season as is and then 26 will be Yeah. That's kind of the way I was understanding it that we we're locked in for one more year. But um be get personal about it. I'm I'm here because of his daughter. Okay. And she's going to be a freshman and I can I can stand so much of her taking
041a beating, but I can't stand uh to know it's going to be indefinite if that's the way it's going to be. I'm gonna tell her and the other kids too what they got to look forward to and then they can make their decision what they want to do. So we have to have five, right? By rule to have a I mean Yeah. Do you think we're better to have five or be independent? If we could get five to start and then maybe add I think that would be ideal if you could get it and then you can then you'd fill out the rest of it. Be a lot easier on you guys. Yeah, for sure. So, can we leave it open? What do we need to do to move? We just need we just need
042to hear input from the community and and u not naming names but how many do we have that we feel like would be committed if we if we left um don't we have three others that would be very strong commitments um and we would need one more. So I mean that that's the gamble is we could we could step out and say we're going independent and and we'll we'll and then build it as we go. But that's that's that's a leap of faith. It means that we may be independent for a year or two. That that's the risk of it. Yeah. But we we do feel like we've got three others that would be good quality um corporations. I mean, truth be told, if we do this, it's going to put pressure on other schools.
043Oh, absolutely. I think we would get one that would join. They just want It's easy to say no when something exists already. Right. Yep. And this would all filter down uh through the middle school. Middle school. Actually, when I was at the ADA, they want to get away from middle school conference period. A lot of it's travel related. Another part of it is and they all there's no reason maybe have a conference tournament on the weekend, but that shouldn't be through the week. Like no one is going to Shelbyville in middle school football drive an hour and 45 minutes when they can go play Central in 15 minutes. I mean I I have no problem with agreeing to play the conference schools. What I don't like is that the conference can dictate to our sixth,
044seventh, and eighth grade what we do to even be able to field a team. Like that makes no sense to me. Like, and it's not just that's not just specific to my daughter's sports, but everybody knows it. We play different sports. Like, I mean, you know, we had three eighth graders try out for girls basketball. Two years ago, we had two sixth graders. Like, how can we live by rules that Yeah. How can we live by rules that you make when you have 1500 students? That's just doesn't make we're not going to develop programs living by rules of the rulers, not by like us, right? We'll play we'll play you, but you've got to give us the ability to do what makes sense for us to build programs. And if we don't have numbers, we've
045got Exactly. We've got to be able to adjust. Like we we just can't live by some arbitrary. that was brought up they were like I don't know why to play conference like it doesn't make much sense maybe have a conference tournament everyone still but we should not be doing conference games for like that be your schedule that's yeah that makes like football was the biggest you go play Shannidoa in middle school football it's a hey it's close to me it's my competitive where Shelbyville's going to Dela or Dela's going to Shelbyville doesn't make any sense so so at this point like we still have a and a general agreement or understanding of the direction that it's being pursued and we'll have more we'll know more tomorrow it sounds like. So y uh we're at that
046at that time where we need to um move into our next items of of discussion for the next meeting. So at this time we will adjourn the special session. So Dr. a letter to superintend. Do you have one? He's got him. I got it. I got it. [Music]