There’s been quite a bit of talk over the last few months regarding changes and speculations to our local Lehigh Valley Conference and Colonial League. We greatly appreciated local athletic directors coming on our recent “RCN SportsTalk” show (which you can watch for yourself for free on RCN Video-On-Demand). I have posted a short clip of our recent show below. I try to limit my own opinions on the program as much as I can as I try to focus and devote our time for our guests to give their views; however, there were several points I wanted to address on the show and did not have the opportunity to do so on that particular program.
First, I think the schools are absolutely justified in trying to look at options that would result in the best opportunities for their student athletes. I think the current alignment of teams in both the Lehigh Valley Conference and the Colonial League are overall very fair and make for genuinely good competition in most teams and sports. There are some “size discrepancies” (e.g., Bangor vs. Catasauqua) that sometimes directly affect their team’s abilities to succeed. However, if you look across the board at the different athletic events, a team like the Rough Riders not only defends their honor quite nicely, but in some sports, has held a strong advantage over bigger schools (among them football and softball). Is it perfect system? No . . . nor will it ever be. I think the school administrators must provide due diligence in looking to see if it can better the current alignments.
Secondly, there are some schools that have significant challenges in traveling to away games—especially during the winter sports season. The most obvious examples are Bangor and Northwestern going to Palisades and vice versa, which results in what amounts to a huge expense in travel costs and commuting time for not just the school districts, but also for the parents and family members, who already make sacrifices for their sons and daughters to participate in athletics. Does one trip from one end of the District XI map to the other sabotage one’s budget? Not really…but why make several trips from, say Bangor to Hellertown, Kintersville and Center Valley each season, when you have teams from up north at much closer distances.
Thirdly, I’d like to discuss the “super-conference” that we have discussed on our show and the suggestions proposed by Keith Groller of the Morning Call in a recent column. There are benefits to grouping teams together according to classifications, distances, and program strengths that could involve all the teams currently in the LVC, MVC and Colonial League in one way or another. Several weeks ago on “SportsTalk”, the Express-Times’ Bruce Buratti thought it was possible that a couple schools from the Poconos might want to “go north” and get more involved in teams from District 2, which, of course, would be right to do so if they feel that would be in the best interest of their schools. However, if any more teams leave the MVC— to the Anthracite League, Schuylkill League or wherever—I think you will have to look at assimilating teams from the Poconos into any rebranding of the LVC, even if they themselves have their own section which would limit their long-distance travel to the District’s southern region (most of those schools already schedule Lehigh Valley teams as part of their non-conference schedule).
There are other super-conference rumors that have not been spoken about publicly in recent weeks. As you might imagine, the current athletic directors cannot comment directly on any speculation that a plan could be in the works. That net will not apply for our May 2nd “SportsTalk” show, in which will be talking with former athletic directors from the region that have no obligations (nor a propensity) to limit what they can address.
Here’s some of the recent news and comments about the local leagues’ changes from last week’s show:
What are your thoughts on the changes that have already taken place, and in what direction do you think local administrators should move towards? Feel free to post comments below and email your comments and questions to RCNSportsTalk@rcn.com and we’ll read and respond to you emails on our live May 2nd show at 6pm on RCN-TV.
