Why enrollment is a big deal – and why it shouldn’t be

When Gregg Isler, Tom Nader and Brittany Dye formed a committee to explore the possibility of reviving the Portage County League this past winter, one of the first things they focused on were reasons why it should exist in the first place.

They came up with a list of seven primary advantages that schools would enjoy in a revised PCL: third-party league commissioner, heightened education-based athletics, immediate financial savings and long-term financial stability, innovative scheduling, media coverage, increased digital presence, and tradition and history.

The committee simultaneously put together a list of 11 schools that could potentially comprise the new PCL: Crestwood, Field, Garfield, Lake Center Christian, Mogadore, Ravenna, Rootstown, Southeast, Springfield, Waterloo and Windham.

Isler, Dye and Nader arrived at that list based on their belief that it found an equal balance between proximity, enrollment size and competitive balance.

And with these two lists in hand, the committee set about contacting the 11 school superintendents and athletic directors about meeting to discuss the possibility of bringing back the PCL.

The big unknown at this point is: What will the schools’ list of advantages for the current league setup look like?

Since it can sometimes be easier to coax secrets from the Kremlin than it is to get information from school districts, we can only guess what items would be on their lists. But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know which item will be at the top:

Enrollment.

Any items after that — if there are any — would be window dressing.

Look at the current situation: The 12 high schools in Portage County are spread across six different leagues. That’s twice as many league affiliations as existed at the time the PCL disbanded after the 2004-05 school year. These six leagues encompass a wide geographical area that covers several counties.

So we know geography won’t make the schools’ list.

When the PCL broke apart in 2005, it was composed of 10 schools: Crestwood, Field, Garfield, Mogadore, Rootstown, Southeast, Streetsboro, Waterloo, Windham and Woodridge. As of today, Mogadore, Rootstown and Southeast are the only former PCL schools left in the Portage Trail Conference, which at one time housed the 10 former PCL members, starting with the 2005-06 school year, before attrition whittled it to its present-day number of six.

Beginning with the 2021-22 school year, Garfield, formerly of the PTC, will join Waterloo in the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference. Field, Streetsboro and Woodridge play in the Metro Athletic Conference, while Crestwood (Chagrin Valley Conference) and Windham (Northeastern Athletic Conference) are in leagues that feature no other Portage County teams.

So shared history, rivalries and tradition won’t make the schools’ list.

And without shared history, rivalries and tradition, consistent fan interest won’t be on the list either. And without consistent fan interest, gate receipts won’t be on the list either. And without gate receipts, financial stability won’t be on the list either — and financial stability was teetering anyway thanks to the long road trips teams are forced to make to cover those large geographical expanses. Long road trips, incidentally, that disinterested fans aren’t likely to take.

So that leaves the 800-pound gorilla that smashed Portage County cohesion to pieces: enrollment.

Schools that share a similar enrollment figure in a league, the logic goes, have a better chance of maintaining competitive balance. When meeting with school officials to discuss the viability of a new PCL, Isler, Nader and Dye are bound to hear that argument within the first three minutes of taking their seats. And they know it.

After all, Isler, a graduate of Windham who later served as the school’s superintendent, said declining enrollment was the primary reason the Bombers left the PTC for the NAC.

So enrollment certainly is an issue. But by and large, the 11 schools on the committee’s list really aren’t that far apart in enrollment — certainly not far enough apart to outweigh the committee’s list of advantages when compared with the above-mentioned disadvantages of not re-forming the PCL.

Enrollment numbers in Portage County for grades 9-12 as of the 2019-20 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, look like this:

1.) Kent Roosevelt, 1,283 2.) Aurora, 972 3.) Streetsboro, 603 4.) Ravenna, 584 5.) Field, 534 6.) Southeast, 435 7.) Crestwood, 419 8.) Garfield, 416 9.) Rootstown, 334 10.) Waterloo, 288 11.) Windham, 133

Of the three non-Portage County schools for a proposed new PCL, Springfield is the largest at 646, followed by Mogadore (246) and Lake Center Christian (193), the latter of which does not have a football program.

Kent Roosevelt and Aurora, the two largest schools in Portage County, clearly are not candidates for a new PCL. Both play in the Suburban League and have no connection with the PCL any time recently; Roosevelt was never a member of the PCL, and Aurora last played in the PCL in 1968.

That would make Ravenna, which also was never a member of the PCL, the largest school of the revived league. But the Ravens, who currently play in the Metro Athletic Conference with Field, Streetsboro and Woodridge, do not have a gargantuan enrollment advantage over the Falcons — just a 50-student difference. So if Ravenna and Field can play in the MAC together, they can play in a new PCL together.

As for the rest of the schools in a proposed PCL, the enrollment figures shape up quite nicely. It might get a little dicey for the three or four schools at the bottom of the enrollment list, but that’s nothing that a big school-small school divisional alignment can’t fix.

So, in reality, enrollment shouldn’t make the schools’ list. Which means competitive balance shouldn’t, either. King Kong can be shown the door.

For Isler, now the Director of Business at Southeast; Dye, a Crestwood alum who is director of volleyball operations and the head women’s volleyball coach at Hiram College; and Nader, a graduate of Rootstown and former sports editor at the Record-Courier, there is also a personal element to this. They are from Portage County. They played sports at Portage County high schools. They have lived their lives in Portage County.

For the committee, it’s about the ties that bind.

And it should be for the schools as well.