Rib Lake to have JV-only football for 2023 season
Rib Lake will not have a varsity football team for the 2023 season.
Rib Lake athletic director Tom Noennig told members of the Rib Lake School Board at the August 10 meeting that it comes down to safety of the student athletes.
“I am not concerned with the wins and losses of this crew,” Noennig said. He said of the 18 players currently at practice a number are freshman and sophomores. He said putting these students up against the physically larger and stronger junior and senior players typically found on varsity squads would be dangerous.
Noennig expressed concerns that this would open the players up to getting injured and said within a few weeks their roster might be down to just 13 or 14 kids and not be able to field any sort of team.
He recommended the district go with a junior varsity team this season and then make the transition to 8-man football as planned for the 2024 season. Noennig said he had spoken to the coaches in the conference and offered to play 11-man JV games on Friday nights to honor their conference obligations.
He noted that Webster School District has agreed to this for the October 6 homecoming game which is scheduled to be held in Prentice this year.
“They are pretty close to the same boat we are,” Noennig said of Webster’s varsity numbers.
“My biggest fear is to put out a team on a Friday night when they are physically not ready to play,” Noennig said.
Going forward, he said there needed to be a change in the future for football. He said that with this being the last year of 11-man football in Rib Lake, he knew it would be tough, but also noted that there was an all-conference player who had decided to play fall baseball on a club team rather than play football this year.
“This is a baseball town, and everybody loves baseball. There isn’t a reason a baseball town can’t be a football, basketball and baseball town,” Noennig said.
Board members were supportive of having a JV only season this year and looking to rebuild in the future with an 8-man format team. Thums said he felt it was possible to get more excitement among young people.
“It is not like we have been competing for a title. Let’s grow our players,” said board member Karah Grzanna.
Noennig said the seniors on the squad were promised playing time with the JV schedule. “I don’t want to take football away from a group of kids for their last year,” he said.
“What happens if we are not able to support a team in the future? Are we doing something to promote it and to get kids to come out?” asked board member Jackie Mohr.
Noennig said there has to be excitement for football and excitements for youth to be involved. He said the middle school will continue to be co-oped with Prentice. He said with three decades of coaching experience he said if you start too young with tackle football it could hurt the program. He noted that if someone has a bad experience playing baseball they will often come back to playing basketball in the future.
“If you have a bad experience in football, you don’t come back,” he said.
“I think we have good numbers at the middle school level,” said district administrator Travis Grubbs. In the end, board members approved going with a JV only season this year with the transition to 8-man football in 2024.
In other business board members:
Approved a change to the district’s athletic code policy raising the standard for grades of student athletes and making it more uniform across all sports. Noennig noted that it came to his attention that some sports had a higher requirements for their programs than what was set in the district policy and wanted them all to be at the same high level. He said the change is an effort for the district to be more proactive rather than reactive in working with students, coaches and their families to keep grades up. Under the change the student athletes will get weekly grade checks and if they are failing will need to get it up to a passing grade in order to play in the next competition.
Approved the terms of the agreement between the village and the school district for the school resource officer. The agreement covers the time Rib Lake Police Chief Derek Beckstrand works in the school buildings. The only potential change will be for the hourly rate of pay for the coming year which has not been set by the village and will be coordinated between the village and the school district when it is set.
Confirmed that beginning on August 23, the regular school board meetings will be held on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m.
Approved changes in the district’s cyber security insurance policy increasing the coverage to up to a $250,000 payout with significantly high coverage. Grubbs said he felt more comfortable with the higher coverage levels given the increasing amount of electronic transfers of funds that are taking place and the risk that funds may be applied in the wrong place. The total premium amount is $4,950.
Approved the final language in the facilities study survey that will be sent to all district residences to gauge not only the level of support for the district’s proposed building project, but to seek feedback from district residents regarding district operations. The 8-page survey will be mailed out to each residence with additional surveys available from the school district if multiple members of a household wish to fill it out. People will be able to either fill out the paper survey and send it back to school or will have a code to complete it on-line. The surveys will be due back by October 2 with the information presented at the meeting in late October.
Received an update on attempts to purchase a new van for the food service program. The district would like to purchase a Ford 10-passenger vehicle but was informed they are no longer being produced and that the local dealers are not allowed to sell the 15-passenger model to school districts. Grubbs suggested they could have some of the seats removed and therefore make it a 10 passenger vehicle. He said he is continuing to work on locating a vehicle to replace the one currently in use.
