Rib Lake continues talks on 8-man football

With the pool of 11-player football teams shrinking in the region, pressure is rising to make a switch to eight-man football in Rib Lake.

“A lot have made the switch, they pulled the pin and said ‘We are doing it,’” said board member Stacey Tlusty at the March 11 school board meeting. She expressed concern that Rib Lake will be left behind and forced to play catch-up to other schools.

Athletic director Paul Yanko reported that Flambeau School District recently switched to eight-man football, reducing the teams in their conference. “I think it will be difficult to fill a hole in our season,” he said.

According to district administrator Rick Cardey, some of the challenges are that Rib Lake is locked into the cooperative with Prentice through 2023. If that agreement was broken, Rib Lake would not be eligible to play in the playoffs until the 2024 season. There would also be loss of playoff eligibility for teams that leave their conferences within the two-year window.

“WIAA is frustrated, the conferences are really starting to fall apart,” Cardey said. He said even within the Marawood, a historically strong football conference, there are teams looking at leaving.

“I feel we are way behind,” Tlusty said, noting the number of other area teams that have made the switch.

Yanko said the district is committed to 11-man football through next season. He laid out a timeline where the district would be working to inventory equipment and talking with coaches and the two schools. He said he spoke to many of the returning juniors who will be seniors next year and they were strongly in support of staying with 11-man, but he said he has not polled underclassmen.

Tlusty noted that right now students are being taught 11-man football in their physical education classes and that people don’t understand the differences between the two. Yanko said the football coach was planning on attending workshops on eight-man football at the annual coach’s conference this summer.

Board member Rollie Thums said that from just a shorter bus ride he favored switching to eight-man. “Eight-man football gets us closer to home,” he said. “How good are you after riding on a school bus for three to four hours.”

Thums said he thinks the pattern is going toward eight-man, but said he didn’t like the idea that the school would get penalized for changing.

“We have to do what is best for the district and best for the kids,” he said. In other business, board members:

_ Approved making technology purchases including the next cycle of student Chromebook replacements. Cardey said that with the release of ESSER 2 federal grant dollars, he was worried there would be a rush on those items as school districts placed orders. “I would try to get ahead of the curve,” said board president Steve Martin.

_ Approved renewing the property insurance with an increase of 7.9% or about $2,300. Cardey said the increase is being driven by claims from the wildfires in California and other disasters in the past year. He warned that large increases will be the norm for the next few years as the insurance industry attempts to recover.

_ Approved the replacement of a pump that circulates hot water for heating at the high school. Cardey said the pump was about 20 years old and cannot be rebuilt. He said when the repairs exceed $5,000 he brings them to the board for their approval. The cost of the pump replacement is $5,350. In related action, Cardey said he is beginning to look ahead at potential big-ticket maintenance items, such as resurfacing the track or redoing the middle school gym floor and seeing if the district could get those projects done. He said he wanted the board to be aware if they had heard about him asking for pricing. “My job is to get those figures, your job is to throw them out,” Cardey said, noting that for their age the facilities are in good shape. Cardey said he hoped to be able to get some of the projects done without tapping into the Fund 46 savings that are set aside for building maintenance.