Jay invited to ACAC

After looking for a conference for more than a decade, the Patriots have two invitations on the table.
The Allen County Athletic Conference voted Thursday to invite Jay County High School to become the ninth member of its group, which includes teams from Adams, Wells, Allen and DeKalb counties. The vote came after a meeting with several JCHS administrators.
“I think it’s an opportunity, much like the North Central Conference opportunity, that we need to take a hard look at,” said Jay County principal Phil Ford. “To me, it’s a great opportunity for our school in a lot of ways. They are schools that are very much like us even though there are some smaller schools there. … It’s a tight footprint. There’s just an awful lot of positives that I see with that conference.”
The North Central Conference in February invited Jay County, along with Jefferson, McCutcheon and Harrison, in an effort to expand the league to 12 teams. The three Lafayette-area schools have already voted to join the NCC.
The Jay School Board will make the decision on whether JCHS will join a conference, and superintendent Tim Long said he expects the topic to be on the agenda at the board’s next meeting on April 22. A move into either conference would likely take place for the 2014-15 season.
“I think we have to look at (the ACAC) just like we have the other offer, weigh the plusses and minuses,” said Long in a phone interview this morning from Taiwan.
The Allen County Athletic Conference is currently an eight-team group made up of South Adams, Southern Wells, Adams Central, Bluffton, Heritage, Woodlan, Leo and Garrett.
Ford, assistant principal/dean Chad Dodd and Steve Boozier, who will become athletics director/assistant principal in July, met for about an hour Thursday with administrators from ACAC schools.
“We tried to tell them all the good things we could about Jay County High School academically and athletically — what we had to offer to their conference,” said Ford. “We talked about the tremendous fan support we have across all sports.”
The ACAC administrators then discussed the possibility of inviting the Patriots for about 40 minutes before voting on the proposal. Changes to the conference must be approved by at least 75 percent of its membership, and the schools voted 6-2 to invite JCHS.
“I think it had to do a lot with community, a lot with support. One of the things we kept coming back to was how well the community does support their teams,” said South Adams athletics director Jason Arnold while also complimenting Jay County’s facilities. “That was a big factor.”
“A lot of the teams (in the ACAC) already play Jay County in some aspect, whether it was just football or schools like us and Adams Central who play them in a lot of different sports.”
Jay County administrators have expressed concerns about the travel that would be involved in joining the North Central Conference, which is currently made up of Muncie Central, Anderson, Richmond, New Castle, Marion, Huntington North, Logansport and Kokomo. Each of the Lafayette-area schools are more than 100 miles away from JCHS, and Logansport is an 87-mile drive.
The furthest school from JCHS in the Allen County Athletic Conference is Garrett, which is located in southern DeKalb County, at 75 miles.
Both the NCC and ACAC could be facing more changes to their conference rosters.
New Castle is considering an invitation to join the Hoosier Heritage Conference, which includes Delta and Yorktown. Leo has been frequently discussed as a school that could join the Northeast Hoosier Conference, which includes Norwell and Bellmont.
Also, Southern Wells pulled out of the ACAC for football following the 2009 season while being allowed to stay in the group in other sports for a probationary term. The conference is expected vote May 1 on the Raiders’ future as a league member.
“I think there are some fears that we could be losing one or more schools and wanting to be sure we had a school lined up,” said Arnold. “We wanted to be proactive rather than reactive.”
Jay County, which has an enrollment of 1,113, would be the largest school in the ACAC ahead of Leo (932). It would be the third-smallest in the proposed 12-team NCC ahead of only New Castle and Muncie Central.
The Patriots are in their third season competing as an independent after the Olympic Athletic Conference folded in 2010. They have been looking for a conference solution since the OAC dropped to five teams from 10 when Hamilton Southeastern, Noblesville, Brownsburg, Harrison and McCutcheon announced their departure in 1999.
“It puts us in a position where we have some options,” said Ford. “What I want to do is do what’s best for our student athletes.”[[In-content Ad]]