001enrollment kind of drives Conference standings and what I mean by Conference standings is we're having trouble competing in the 23 Sports we have across the board with with the schools of the 1455 1430 1353 you know 1 1200 so when Shelbyville decided to leave it really just kind of made us look and just say you know where are we at what what are we looking what's going to happen in the future I think our concern is I think that we're going to probably stay around the number that we're at right now but we're concerned that the penlon the green fields the mountain burners they're going to continue to keep getting bigger and uh you know part of this is like kids need to have a really good experience playing sports and it it really affects
002some of our participation you know really if you start looking at the younger levels that's Optimist and some of these uh Youth Softball and new football once you kind of Hit the Middle School you become like a Newcastle Trojan for for sake and if you're not if you don't have a great experience at the middle school level that's where it really starts driving down to the high school as far as keeping kids to come out and you know I I'll speak for like Kyle yor and and you've kind of lived this because you were on a staff at one time but if if you play new Pals and the pen penlon and these teams at middle school and you're getting beat 50 to nothing a lot of these kids don't want to keep playing football
003because there's not a whole lot to look forward to um so we're just at this point we're really just exploring some options and we we've had some discussions I think can can you go maybe one more Slide the one thing I will say about this is there's there's other schools that are similar to us in demographics kind of have the have the manufacturing have the the automotive industry here that are really seeing kind of the same decline that's out of that Indianapolis Dona area so we're not this is not just the Newcastle problem there's other schools that are also fighting these same issues they're just not in the hooer hair confidence um so you know we're we're really just exploring we we are I mean we're going to make decisions that are based on you
004know what's best for our student athletes trans you know what's best for transportation what's best for competitiveness if you go to schools or our kids you know they're going to have a good experience at the at the opposing school you know one thing about the who your heritage conference when our kids go play there you don't have to worry we typically don't have to worry about having a lot of issues and that's that's important so you know we're really just having some conversations with schools that we feel like would be a good fit and within the 30 40 50 mile radius so um yeah so if you want to maybe scroll the one thing that I we have a meeting Wednesday so the one thing that we're going to ask is looking at making a
005change at least to our football schedule for the 26 27 season and that would really just be eliminating the schools with with quite a bit more enrollment um there's been some talks in the hoer Heritage conference that you know maybe we just don't play football in our conference um believe it or not as much as we don't like playing newow they don't really like playing us either I mean it's week eight they're getting ready for their kind of end of season run you know a lot of times the game kind of snowballs where it's not real competitive and and you know as much as we don't like playing them they don't really like playing us so there are some of just maybe not playing football in the conference the other reason is there is a
006safety concern in football you know it's a numbers thing sometimes they have 300 pound linemen obviously we don't really have those kids walk in the Halls so Wednesday if the board you know approves this we would like to go to our meeting at us your heritage and say Hey you know these four schools we would like to kind of go find games that make more sense to us and we can be competitive um you know one thing I can't change is we can't change like what sectional we're in I mean that that just is what it is but um I think when you play sports there's a couple things right off the bat that you look for and that's as a team and that's conference you know conference championships and then obviously postseason play so
007um I think you know I think I'm probably going to ask you know Josh and maybe Seth to talk a little bit about middle school but I think some of these changes ALS also needs to be driven to the Middle School level as well um so they want a letter correct um and so yeah before before we we put a letter out there this is too big of a decision too big of a um u a departure from what our Norm has been um that we need we need to have a meeting um we we don't want to just you know the three of us really don't want to just speak on behalf of everybody without getting input um and having a meeting and having the board because we can have Open Door allows us
008to have two board members you know but we wanted more of a dynamic situation where every board member hears the exact same thing and every board member hears the response of every board member if we meet you know because typically we'll have one-on ones and that's a good forum for something like this it didn't we didn't feel like it it fit and then this way we can have the public here as well yeah and you know this has never been done in who who your heritage so I think they are wanting a letter and and uh so we have had conversations with them and they do want us in the conference you know so um and that's a that's credit to our coaches and our kids and and what we're about um but this is
009going to be a change these four schools that we would we would uh modify in the football schedule at least and we would we would continue to monitor enrollment the assumption is and you know demographically we had about I think Nan was the only one that was on the board at that time Jerome mckb and said you know with a birth uh death rate and what specifically the birth rate we're going to see a decline in enrollment in this region and it doesn't you know here and just about every other school so but they're not and they're building homes and um I would say one of the things in in Corey Murphy would probably be happy that I'm mentioning this is you know some of the the legislation we've got four um um housing editions
010that are scheduled for Newcastle and that could be up in the air and may not be approved um if if legislation doesn't go our way so that that would not help us either and and one other thing we really don't know how it's going to affect but the change in the onetime transfer if you're not aware of this they made a change where yeah there's really a one-time transfer no questions I asked so if you know if you have a student athlete that all of a sudden now wants to go to a different school they can go and our Our concern I think our concern is like new palestine's really good at football this could really help them even be better because you know they're already kind of doing this so now it's going to
011be open to do so and I I don't mean like they're not doing they're not doing things illegally I'm just saying that yeah right they're legal but they find they find division one linemen from Fort Wayne move in PR regular get like their quarterback Ohio last year so so it's already kind of happening but this really makes it easier for and so the concern would be as good as they are now they could even be better we just don't know because it's happen INE so good point Jacob I'm gonna ask put you on the spot how's the numbers at the middle school been going in football and yeah um this past year we were able to Mr W correct if I'm wrong we were able to feel a seventh grade team you're able to compete
012um relatively well to what the standard has been in Middle School football our eighth grade team we had to actually pull from um some seventh grade students to field a team this year so that was so we had to have a few students play up um eighth grade was not as competitive in that regard um and so that's been kind of a loophole for them for two years and now specifically football is it because we've added more sports with soccer and all that stuff or that's numbers are down or kids aren't going out for any anything that's that's a good question so we have 21 Sports in the middle school right now which is a fair amount uh we added 11 the year 10 the year that we added sixth grade and added sixth grade
013volleyball this past year um we've noticed that I I feel like the eighth grade numbers across the board this year have probably been a covid impact as far as young exposure um we've seen eighth grade basketball as a number that we have had they could not build a team in sixth grade girls girls thank you girls basketball we could not build a team they have had to have support from a previous grade level all the way through 8 grade girls volleyball has had to have some more support going through um softball is a number that we have a seventh and an eighth grade softball team we have had to pull sixth graders up the past two years uh to facilitate that boys numbers I think are all right with the exception of football um I
014don't think that we have lost people to football because of the addition of soccer or tennis we've had maybe a couple that have gone from one to the other but I don't think that has hindered us as far as um being able to because the add I think to um participation a it's a problem Nationwide but particularly in girls Sports and so either three or four times this year we would play a barity girls basketball team say it's K County but we would play a different team JB because just didn't have a JV team so you know it is a problem I think the more kids we can kind of keep playing that helps um the other the other thing is you know the luxury if we would ever find a new conference that doesn't
015mean that we don't play some of these schools we can still play them I mean if you look at our volleyball she knew we were going to be good last year we played like 14 Indi Apple schools that were not I mean not all noncoms obviously but you can kind of go make your schedule how you want as far as you know sport specific sport specific and you know just you know if you think you're going to have a good class you might play a little bit tougher schedule to get you ready for the postseason so I mean you know I'm I I think that there's still some teams that might play some of these Schools Enrollment probably also will be impacting as Mr white has said you know if we only have three students
016go out for basketball in you know in eth grade then we need to pull students up and we've really debated and contemplated having you know an a team and A B team so that we can um get competitive um teams out there um obviously we belong to a conference but they've allowed us to do that and so we'll you know that's the direction it feels like it's the direction we need to go out of necessity most of the time are any of the other uh of our conference members or any of the other schools pulling and shifting Middle School five of the eight are going to have an A and A B for softball instead of seventh and eth just softball just softball and then Shelbyville seventh grade and eighth grade baseball outside that they
017are great specific for the most part that that is kind of a new thing for this spring season there's been conflict in Prior years and and some this year and we said okay we either need to pull someone up or we will not be able to feel the team and that allowed but at the middle school conference ab's meeting there has been keep it grade level keep at grade level so we've tried to do our best to honor that as a member of the conference which football specifically I had asked about because I knew our eighth grade situation and um was basically given as if we had the numbers they would prefer we not at that point in time right right the other thing we're starting to see more of is what the called c
018teams so we're we'll sometimes take a ninth grade team but some of these bigger schools will have like a C team which is really a mixture of it could really be n through Juniors and it really is I mean it's really a disadvantage you know you have a a junior playing our freshman and you know I think that's something that we see a little they starting we're starting to see a lot more of it because they have so many kids they don't want to cut they don't really have a place for them to play so they'll play on a C team which ends up playing our freshman a lot and it we're really out a big Advantage when they do that any other discussion on or uh comments on that High School piece and Conference
019and how it affects you are when you're looking at the high school conference since Conference champions and all that kind of stuff is really big we are looking at all aspects of all sports not just football and basketball tennis and swimming and wrestling we're making sure that we're um adequate with um even facilities so I've told Cory and I have we've been bouncing things off each other and uh there's been ideas of different schools uh different different things that could come up and one of the things that always uh is a hindrance for some smaller schools that want to be a part of things with us is uh they don't offer certain sports or so if they not if they're not offering those Sports we're trying to stay away uh from that because we don't
020want to do something where uh We join a conference and certain sport doesn't have that unless they elect not to have it you know say like football so I mean some like I would say that he's definitely being very mindful of that just based on the conversations that we've had the other thing is you know if this would go if this would work as far as the schools that we don't play in football they probably wouldn't let us like to have all conference players so I did reach out to like lapel who's an independent school they don't have a conference and they recognize players kind of like they call the all pool dogs because they don't have conference they do still have kind of a an award for your um I guess better performing athletes
021okay I that kind of went over my head so if we don't play football in hhc we probably tennis can't have all no football players probably be eligible for like an all hhc patch right I think what we could do you know we could have some discussions but like we could maybe have like an all Trojan award or something something that would be equivalent to an all and I think it would be fair to say we'll keep our options open as we go forward for a new conference you know because we'll look at like demographic uh schools um like sports do they have the same Sports as us in enrollment Trends because you know what we kind of got um into this is you know it's not for able you got one school that goes
022up 400 kids in the last 12 years and you know we've done we've had a decline so so is Delta and so is Shelbyville so distance to dist y y distance is a factor too thank so yeah I wonder what um if our students um anecdotal um what what you have been saying but I wonder what students and parents really feel like if if this kind of thing would would make you've had conversations with them obviously there's more here I had a student athlete come to me with a piece of paper I think it'd be great for him to read it if you don't mind I put on spot here a little hi everybody my name is G me um I'm on the baseball team um I'm a senior Captain I catch and I'm going
023to uh only Central play baseball I just like to give my perspective on it as a student athlete being in probably one of if not the hardest conference in the state of Indiana um my freshman year I realized how tough our conference really was we were led by three people who are now playing division one baseball two of them being in a big big 10 and we went 10 and four in conference that year we placed third and we made it to the final four that was probably that's going to probably be the best team we will ever have in newcast baseball history and the best we could do is third place that's that's an issue in my opinion and my sophomore season we ranked third amongst all classes as and we had the third
024hard schedule amongst all classes and then there's there's definitely upsides to being in our conference like it prepared us really well for sectionals but at the same time we lost 21 games that year that's not fun for anybody and with how much I love baseball and it still made me question if I wanted to come back and like kind of like Cory said the losing is definitely going to affect the numbers like in Middle School we my middle school year in seventh grade we won one game I didn't want to play football the next year the coach y convinced me to and then we just football team continues to lose and it's just not fun that's kind of the reason why I stopped playing but um f football we set off fireworks we were one
025game over 500 and that was a very big deal that we were a game over 500 new power Mal Vernon if you're the coach and you go one game over 500 you're losing your job and I mean that's just like New Pal sent two kids last year to Ohio State to play football and then the year before that they sent a kid to Ohio State this year they could have sent a kid to Tennessee but he chose to stay home and play with his brother at Ball State Mount Vernon football baseball and softball all have a facility they use 247 for anything they want like they have the best facility schools that have the best facilities are going to win and we we can't afford that or we nor do we have them so we
026kind of like fall behind from those bigger schools and that's just the reality of it um our enrollment plays a big part but set of our facilities I mean like if we're not going to have like our baseball team we have to our baseball and softball team we have to share facility with the youth leagues in our town that makes it very difficult to get better before the season starts and it kind of puts us at a very big disadvantage when it comes time to play New Pal M ver Green Field um our football team would benefit a lot from this but I mean it but most of our Sports would I mean actually in all of our Sports would benefit from a confidence change I really the only baseball has not had a winning
027season other than my freshman year and I genuinely do not know how long in conference it's our conference is just insane at every sport we have but we're also the small one of the smaller schools in our conference and it kind of shows when we're last place in every single sport in our conference other than volleyball I mean wrestling yeah forgot about that there we got CLE dogs on there um at some point we have to ask ourselves like our student athletes getting better are we just getting comfortable with freising that's harsh but kind of the reality of it it really is I could imagine what a conference change would have done for myself and my teammates for baseball maybe we wouldn't be going to ni schools division three schools and Junior College maybe we
028could be going to small d1's big big d2s because college coaches are going to come programs that win it's that simple it shows with Mount Vernon Greenfield and newow I mean new or um Greenfield has a kid who's going Yukon for basketball I mean they win you got noticed that simple um in conclusion I think all of our Sports will benefit from a conference change and I think it should definitely happen thank you guys for your time I I'm gotta quit in talking obviously you know what your peers think is this a pretty Universal I mean every one of my friends that I have talked to would would love a conference change it would definitely make Sports a lot more fun to be a part of I mean you're gonna have a way better chance
029to win like no one wants to be a part of a team that loses I've kind of always heard and I'm not trying to be combative I believe me I know about losing we don't need to go into those stories but I I very much do um but I've also heard that the way to get better is to have tough competition I mean yes but like so last year we played a kid who was a seventh round draft pick in the MLB as I feel like I got nothing from that game because he was just that much better than us that it didn't really help us much and like football they when you're going up against a team that's predicted to beat you by 50 points it's probably not going to be that fun or
030you're it's demoralizing to be quite Frank and you're not going to give I mean you might give 100% but it's not really your full 100% I think I think another big piece of it is um fans will come out if teams are winning and I think you will get more people out to games and I also think that you can create rivalries when you have close games and and light games like it's really hard for us have library with new pal when I mean it's it's it's tough that like you go to a football game and you're going to see the parents of the new pile game if we were playing Jay County you're probably going to have a lot of people come out so I think there's I think there's a money side to
031it and I also think that you know just the atmosphere and I just think that playing yeah that that kind of helps with the whole experience I should probably mention um because I know you know but um others may not in order to form a conference you have to have five five uh schools and so um the theory that is you know we could form a a five school conference and we think that there would be other corporations that would um come on board but getting that core five has been more challenging than you would think just to have conversations um so I ask a question um if we get back to the focus of the kids their mental health their emotional health spiritual health whatever you want to whatever Health you want to mention
032um when students are losing whether they are giving their 100% or not um their their engagement their retention as a school corporation goes down um I think when students whether they give 100% or not when they lose their spirit is down their friendships are down and I think as a whole as a school that can affect the emotional and emotional health of our students in our entire buildings um and I think that that then also affects our retention for our students where they do want to transfer out and get that one andone transfer um yes our enrollment is slowly declining um but are we retaining students and Athletics is a big deal with retention for our athletes and our students um so I I wonder if the emotional and mental health of our students can
033can increase and become better our student Buy in can become better our community Buy in can become better and as a whole maybe there is a better buyin for our entire Community um because let's be honest we are all created and designed to to to want relationships and want friendships and and we rally behind Sports in every aspect of our lives and so maybe maybe Athletics is what could spark some rallying for our students health and our community health and our school health I know I can only speak at the high school because I'm there but may you guys can Chim in but it does seem like if I'll use a football game if we went on a Friday night Monday in the hallways just seems to be a fatter atmosphere it's really strange how
034it works but and you guys are there and it just is a better if baseball wins on a Tuesday and Wednesday seems like the rest of the week goes a lot smoother so I do think that our kids are hungry to kind of get some wins and I think our I think our pan base is kind of hungry for that and um you know I I think that that's why we're here and that's why we're you know looking at all options um have we mentioned Delta several times you know being the biggest hit in our conference have you had any conversations with them to get their feel on all of this are they one that's being difficult or are they open would love to come okay I kind of assume that that's not sarcasm we
035had good conversations we've had good convers would be another one they like playing bigger which is interesting because the only thing they win is volleyball they're terrible at everything else the uh kind of the common theme that because I'm obviously very involved with what's going on on the athletic side but another loss of a smaller School in the hhc is probably going to pull other make other movements because nobody wants to be that bottom feeder and it's going to be sooner or later so schools like Yorktown and they'll have to make a decision do I want to go play in something where I can compete or do I want to get my face kicked in every time I I think that's which is what they do why it's a little vulnerable because I do think
036if we left left it would make vhhc would be really hard to kind of sustain kind of keep going or add schools that fit I've done a lot of work Dr sh has made phone calls C has made phone calls it's just not as easy as you think to just say hey you want to get out of your conference and come join us because other schools are considered package package deals so if you go for one they want the other one to come with them and then if if that one comes with them then it changes the the G geography and travel you might have four schools and like yeah we all like each other and you're like what about this oh we P out that happens and we We've ran into that so I
037can tell you that you know this is really the second year I've went pretty hard at it as others are going really hard at it we just haven't found the right to it yet and what we don't want to do is go someplace that puts us in really wor shape I mean not a sh it takes one year notice to to exit to so if we said today we're going to leave it wouldn't take effect for the 26 27 season because they're locked in on contracts 365 days yeah so really the football that's why it's the 2627 because we're gonna have to play next year and that's really if they allow us to be this too and the hhc is obviously I mean it's Premier in every sense of Premiere I mean the only one
038you can make an argument for is basically the belt around indie being being better you know with the Fishers the the westfields zville as far as community and Facilities the hhc uh is is right there if you know I think it's I forget it's the who or something that Fishers plays in that's probably the best and then the next I would say is the hhc across the board so it's no slight on them it's just where we're at know who the HC is looking at to pick up for Shelby though we've had some talks but I think we all feel like there's not a school that would make everybody happy that's why I was curious if they're looking at bigger school I think that probably if you were in the Indie area there's probably some
039schools that make sense but you know for Newcastle that doesn't make sense and the other piece that I think has even added more fuel to it is is and he mentioned it was the transfer the transfer situation uh and if you think about us Newcastle we already deal with that with the surrounding County Schools uh getting athletes and if they're going to go here and continue to get dominated why do that when you could take basically 3A talent and go play at the ply link 1A and have success or the 2A you know yeah my concern is that it doesn't really help us and it really might help some of our I think the other issue and I'm this just I'm just making a statement too but the enrollment numbers are what they are but
040I haven't seen seen the statistics but like if you look at probably median income and like access to individual coaching and lessons and like in the hhc like I mean yeah we can say that but then we're twice as small but also like we're 61% free and reduced like nobody else is that yeah so like I mean exactly I mean somebody asked me you know why zionville dominate little league softball they're the same size as you well like I'm sure that every kid playing softball at zionville is going to lessons every night and we're just we're not like I'm not I'm just it's just just a statement that long term like that's another challenge probably um for us to compete across the board I mean take the football numbers part out of it but like
041the skill set to and resources and what like it's it's you know I know a lot of people said we shouldn't have got out of the NCC and probably proved when you look at Richmond and buy and Anderson today that like people knew where they were going right like we're probably on a similar potential trajectory with newow Greenfield Mount Vernon it's just going to be a challenge I think my fear is in five years they have 2000 and the same income issues and all all that yeah the transfer legislation it's this year's legislation well it hasn't gone all the way through the process yet has it well it doesn't have to no it's I already voted it can't s correct so I'm not hearing opposition on on the direction that we're moving I think I
042think the because if we provide a letter I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page and we're not we're not going in a different direction than what the board and the community wants how do we you know if we do that with football how do we feel about the ability to uh fill a schedule uh because how many Independents are there so like Shelbyville or D and I picked up Eastern Handcock I could have picked up LEL shanon bill was looking for game because they play in a conference that doesn't have a there's some teams that don't have football and B there's some schools that say we're not playing you so yeah we might have to travel a little farther yeah because we're 4 a in football 3A in basketball
043it's not ideal tennis tennis is sing is it single wrestling single swimming is single and I do think you know the one thing I did speak to Lael because he's independent and I knew just want to see his challenges Pros cons and he did say andow shanille said at times you're going to travel farther to play a football game you know you might not be a the nice thing about having 18 conferences seven games are already you know you're GNA play them and so everybody you know you're only looking for two games but yeah I I think we can do it the good thing about football is it's weekend game yeah like we're not asking a girl volleyball team to go two hours on a Tuesday night in play like it's to me that's that's
044a Friday night a definite like more accommodating with that Sport and it's a softer way to set things in motion like hey we are serious we're out and now maybe that brings some schools that we want to the table for the other sports so that we can make the ultimate move football's probably the better option to and try to force that if we have we looked outside the 40 mile radius area reason I bring that up is what's not different or what's different now is you can have like a a double header on a Saturday for the sports that aren't the Friday Saturday things like football basketball if it's a sport we could play two conference matches and on a Saturday or two conference games on a Saturday H further away that used to take
045place years ago when they were in or conf I think we have the some like I don't know every conference I don't know mean I know that we've reached out to a couple conferences about the interest that us join the two that we kind of reached out to at this time but I think what happens is if you have eight we would be the ninth scho that's not ideal or you have 12 now you're the 13th so as I've done this over the last couple years there's a lot I've learned and there's just a lot to it that makes it pretty challenging the other challenge you alluded to that is is that you have an athletic director that could block it you have the superintendent that could block it and you have a board that
046can block it so you know if it's good with two out of the three you still don't have where you need to go I mean some of these conversations never really get about the athletic director because the athletic director says not interested so I I think we're pretty much on the same page that's one of the reasons for this meeting is just to make sure we are on the same page yeah we we had a school that was really interested but it got through the board and I said no right so yeah I I think this is why why we're here and you know no surprises to the community if something does ever kind of fit just we just want to make sure that this is something that we can continue to kind of work
047towards yeah I see other life or Trojans what are your guys's thoughts do you have any I know we got Mr Blackwell back there and Randy Purdue and John Hart the crab trees yeah my concern is if we say 4 a and and football and we go start playing some two-way schools we did that in basketball several years ago we started playing teams that we could beat and I can tell you the fans did not like it and it I want to win more as much as anybody but I don't want to fix our schedule just to make us winners when we're not playing competition you know what I'm saying and that we were there at one time and that wasn't fun I mean you go play hegar's Town not disrespecting them yeah Rand Southern
048I'm like some of those things uh get set in motion you know we enter into contracts and so when you're going through the highs or if you're going through an average spell you're like hey maybe this this is a good addition for us without really knowing that you're getting ready to have uh you may think that we have the next division one athlete uh that often uh doesn't always happen uh it's hard to plan for the Mason Gillis and the and the Luke bumbl because they're generational U as you can see um so it's hard uh sometimes to get some of those teams off the schedule without just breaking the schedule and paying a bunch of money to do it or breaking the contract I think too sometimes we schedu games like we're schedule baseball
049with Fishers Matt Jerry and next Newcastle grab we want to play Newcastle so we did that Randol Southern there was an ex coach that wanted to play Newcastle because he was a coach here at Newcastle the other time the other thing is sometimes you you get a an opponent that that fits your schedule so um you might you might want to play Lawrence North but Lawrence North your games and Lawrence North games don't doesn't work out so I mean it's not as easy as just okay let's go play this team or they might have a full schedule they have every Friday Saturday already covered and there is a little bit more to it than and and I do understand your point I think with football you know like I said some of it's a lot
050of it's a safety concern and football is just such a popular sport that I mean I don't know if it's a 28 I doesn't mean that they're not good at football I think that's getting to be you know that's common with a lot of this I think uh as as a coach of different levels and different roles as a coach and then thinking back on way back on the player days you did want to play good teams but you you wanted to play teams you knew you could compete against uh so you know and competing doesn't always mean winning you know you may lose 42 to 35 you may lose you know 62 to 55 something like that in football or basketball or you may lose four to three uh in in baseball numerous times
051but that's different than going and getting run ruled or getting running I think the The Fan Experience when you're down 50 in football is not real fun so I mean you know I you try to get games that are competitive every year and that's kind of who you want to play everybody likes the home competing sh I love to win and anybody in this room who see me around any Athletics knows that but the comp the competition part is the most important part for our students not just the winning and the losing but the actual uh art of competing and and and facing adversity trying to overcome that digging deep coming up short every now and then even though you don't want to isn't necessarily A Bad Thing from time to time uh but when
052you if you enter games just like you said and you know it's week nine and you're getting ready or week eight and you're getting ready to go play New Pal um uh that's an impossible week uh to keep people locked in well and a lot of times I'll just tell you our last thes M Veron new P Greenfield Central the parents and kids don't want to do their senior night on those games because it's just not a good game at theend you know we're trying to get senior night done on week five so that we don't get the gauntlet get embarassing kind of you know we if we go back to you know his history what a little history it all changed for our society when class Sports came in for all all of a
053sudden instead of because I've going to Newcastle games forever we used to have really good teams good players that you know went on to college and in the conference you know it was tough we might split you know uh but when you went to class basketball you basically that's when we started telling this is my take on it telling people that you're not good enough to bger is better bigger is better and we'll put you you know everybody needs a trophy who believes in that I mean you know it was okay not for Newcastle to go years without winning the regional you know I was very disappointed a lot of you but but the point was they were they were playing good good teams and good games and and competition was great so I I
054don't know why I mentioned that I think that I have faith in our coaches that if we play 20 games they don't want to be 20 and that I do think that our coaches want some some challenges and yeah you know point you do get better by playing better competition so you know I don't think that there'll ever be a case if we got hhc that now we're gonna win every game that we play I think our coaches are signing up for that yeah everything's changed you know it's back I always go back to class basketball because I didn't like it but or Class Sports but you know it's okay it's you got to do what's you know what the culture wants you to do and I understand everything that you know I understand everything
055you're saying but I think it's just important that everybody understands that based on the conversations and things that's been proposed to to me in meetings and we've talked about it it's all been uh schools or communities similar to ours similar to ours and and and I know they're considering all the different sports and it's been you said it's taken him two years to even get to this point to where there thought there needed to be a meeting so there's been a lot of thought put in that um process to get even to this point and I don't think there's any I mean other than the consensus of like it's pretty tough for all of our students to compete currently what's the next best thing as opposed to just hopping into anything which could have easily
056already been done when I was trying to say go you mentioned you mention sh mention mention I went to County school so I know what the mindset is they've been down couple years in football usually a pretty strong football I don't knowel e hand is Lael is a strong football team they talked about mental health of the kids if you go on there start getting two a schools basic how it going to affect your mental health how many your kids home and play football you playing kids two two class low beat I mean and the the mindset I coached second Junior High basketball last two years we played try High last year at Tri I told eth grade boys they their season is made of B Be day and they gave us everything they had
057and the first half they they had that before that's the mindset those schools if they can beat Newcastle that makes their whole season if they don't win another game but if Newcastle loses to them it doesn't make New Castle season it makes those KS pretty I think what I'm hearing is the cycle is not going to go up it's going to continue to be status quo or diminished whether it's a new industry coming in people coming in for the jobs and creation and my wife's real with her so very in tune with that um the facilities that we have to mirror um a Center Grove or a Ben Davis caramel Etc are not going to we don't have the finances for that uh you know and the other facilities for the Youth leags Etc so
058what I'm hearing is the cycle is kind of where we are and going to maintain that necessitates doing something and um you know so I mean I hate it but I understand it you know and the only thing just with being around my friends and all the years um Rushville connorville Newcastle um Anderson Richmond and M Central with my friends would be a nice nucleus old old and new continue to make a new conference think we might have talked to all but one of them I said I think we might have talked to all but one of them yeah I can tell you Corey and the coaches that I've interacted with are they are not afraid to compete they just want to have the ability to I think the biggest thing is you want to
059be able to go into a game and have a chance to win I think there's a lot of a lot of sports come on come watch this young man catch this year too he's El an athlete find I will say Rex I mean I don't want to Seth and I have talked about this a lot but um not speaking for Corey not speaking for Matt but like for us we are very hyper sensitive to not joining a conference where we're going to go beat up on everybody all the time and it's going to be one and two a schools I I don't I don't think that's what we're looking to do like which is why we're having the conversation of hey I mean maybe this is not perfect but we're not just going to go
060do something to do it right now and to find the right fit and be respectful of the history and you know the north central conference and even the hhc like I mean we we it needs to be a balance and I feel like you guys know like I take my daughter and basketball and play anybody I'm I'm good let's go play but globally try to find the right balance I think for for all of our student athletes yeah because we don't want to do anything that's going to cheapen uh the banners that hang in the Fieldhouse or cheaping the all conferences in the Fieldhouse so uh that's the other aspect of it too and I think uh with not speaking I mean we're all Newcastle through and through on this board but you know as
061far as most recent athlet you know you looking at Josh and I as far as board members who have tremendous uh respect for the history of Newcastle and a lot of the things that we do are because of that and because of the love of of those uh experiences so um there couldn't be a more thoughtful process that's been uh gone through to get to to this point um just so everyone's clear on that Cory where do we stand I know when we went to class basketball they went to the four like for basketball four classes well class 3A is exactly the discrepancy that they did not want to happen with us at 800 and them at400 so where are we in terms of as you look forward to see the bigger schools getting bigger
062and US dropping down to 2A or 3A you know taking a mount burden and going up or whatever it it's really tough because anybody 500 down well 500's kind of the 2A it goes to like 1500 for 3A so we're we're CAU as far as as far as the uh nonf football sports right yeah because football has six you know if if they went to five classes that would drop us to three new 3A and a success and yeah so do we want uh we got a few more minutes here I think we still need to move on does Jacob and Logan have anything to discuss further at the middle school level or it's up to you question yeah I think just uh pushing those conversations about doing what we need to do for our
063student athletes because I'm a big uh proponent of uh sixth and seventh and eighth graders if they share the same building they should have access to the sports being offered um is is is where I is where I fall on that um I've I've discussed it uh with other people about you know for a long time we were eighth only seventh only um and the the great thing at that time was is we had a and b teams for the eighth grade We Had A and B Teams of seventh grade uh but that was when we had h400 students and we're obviously not there and we're struggling so it's like if we're going to offer uh Sports and let them be competitive we need to look at blending those teams with the thought of with
064the thought of eighth grade uh oriented a team you know what I mean and if you've got a couple eighth grade that could be a part of things maybe they play on the B team which is going to be consist of your seven your better seventh graders and even sixth graders if you need to but and that doesn't mean you don't have to have sixth grade sports or because you can't you can still have those but still that grade level kind of drive it but not we can't ignore uh talent and and and ability for one for com safety but two competitive I agree I'm like um I I there are things you talk about the challenges like there are things we can't control the things we can't control are trying to get more numbers
065and getting our players to play and if we're talking about three girls playing eighth grade basketball and we're going to say you got to skip six if we have anybody show up that wants to try out like that's not helping us compete at the high school level it's just it's not we have other Chan es with facilities and other things like I think we need to Avil um Not Just Sports like extracurricular it's band it's choir it's everything else like if they're going to go through the middle school experience I just cannot understand asking a kid to take a year off of whatever they're GNA do like that just is really hard for me to ever even understand um so I mean I think we've got to get more serious about get those competitive athletes
066the ability to play and they may not be in the same grade they're going to be playing together when they're nth through 12th graders um and I will say I do want to just say Logan you know I know he's new but and we've been five six Middle School ads in the last five six years Seth and I have lived at personally like he's doing an awesome job like it's been Night and Day this year in basketball and softball but to be fair to him like this is my opinion to say hey like we'll figure out who's going to be able to play softball and basketball a weekend to tryouts if you can have sixth graders like it's just not fair like I mean I think we need to give guidance like how we want
067to build the programs I think Corey Logan Bobby Jeff pick your sport like the coaches like and we need to give guidance to how we build programs and um so I I think we need to seriously consider like some sort of semi-permanent like here's how here's who can do extracurriculars if you're Middle School you know and give you guys the ability to say how do we build the program one one last thing again Josh just to the board's aware what's Driven a lot of it has been exactly confence exactly 100% that gives us a lot more leeway my only concern is if we go to an A and B and we're still in the conference would they disallow us from participation which could cause us to L games and I meant to say that too
068I think as Cory and I have talked like we've never been in a better position to Bar inure because they don't want to lose us right now and so the conversations that you've had about not playing football and a and b like I feel like if we can capitalize on that it's this is the time to do it right the time they're getting to do what's best for them we have to have the ability to do what's best for us exact it I I just it is a possibility that they say you're you know if you win conference you're you're not gonna officially win conference or fine you know but I think that we can still do what we need to do for our kids right but it may be the cost is they they
069have the votes and they say well this is the conference structure and that's outside of what we've at the middle school level there's I don't want you guys to get caught in the jam where you know like of play in games I can see that you know we may not get an opportunity for that or may not get the follow up on weekend in a couple different sports but as long as the board's aware that and we recognize the benefits for that and they arbitrarily do those like they they just they just pick who your play in game is like ours was penlon this year and we lost to them and then we turned around played them Monday and beat them so you know so it's just yeah so it's just one of those things
070where there's it getting to go in that doesn't really it's not based on anything as opposed to like if they did a uh if they played all the conference Games first and then did it like the big 10 and then you say okay now the one and four SE get a go play now you're talking a more meaningful proper thing you could lose out on but there's no in middle school there's no All Conference so I I mean personally I don't care if we play one one of them we'll go get nor Eastern and Easter Hancock who have phenomenal girls programs and boys programs uh and in a lot of their Athletics at the middle school level yeah I don't think anybody's going to remember who was seventh grade won girls basketball but like we
071yeah like we were one and six I mean we were one in six last year as seventh graders and because we played together and we went and played we went six and one this year like because we're building I mean I don't want to I'm worried we're going to lose numbers if we're not thoughtful about who we let participate and I'd rather talk about what we did as Juniors and seniors and one more one more thing before we adjourn is uh we had a we had a player on our team last year that as the season began we didn't know if she was even going to be eligible in anything and she's very good athlete in basketball and softball and we're sitting there going we got to get her eligible well 365 days later she
072is a National Junior Honor Society student and I will say that uh people like my wife uh being involved with her uh and and the support of her of her own mother is is is why she is where she is um for the consistency that she gets and has gotten and the compliments and appreciation we' have gotten from the partnership with parents like her is the piece that also gets missed uh with Athletics and and how it drives academics and uh citizenship so uh if you would have told me a year ago that this would be the situation I would have unfortunately bet against her probably so in summary um as we look at Wednesday and you attending um I don't think it requires a board vote it's not really a board issue but it's
073relevant to know what the board feels on this there's no opposition to providing the letter that says that we're going to opt out the 26 27 school year of four four teams the four large school corporations okay question about that if they come back and say other sports for inance PA Sports would be we present them and say we would provide our own like all Trojan award instead of all conference for football and they were to penalize other Sports we still move along with that and say confence you'll need to just get some kind of a guarantee that they won't penalize I that hasn't been the discussion I think their concern would be other sports I think that's why they do want to get something from related because help planning as well helps with planning
074as well and so so we I would say as as a as a board if that were the situation where they were going to the other sports we want to know ahead of time before moving forward all right thank you this meeting is adjourned