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Well, that didn’t take long.
Before the Mifflin County school board even voted to hire a new football coach, someone called our Open Line, asking whether Brent Hartman should be the person hired.
That’s a question that needs to wait until November – of 2017.
I mean, give the guy a chance.
Equally quick was the judgment passed on the school district for trying to create a more level playing field for some of its teams – OK, let’s be honest: for most of the teams.
Can the six teams that combine for 16 wins across three seasons compete in the Mid-Penn’s Commonwealth Division? There are a few out there who seem to believe the school district should wave some magic wand and produce winning teams.
Most folks are grounded enough to at least admit it requires work. But the work will not get done if there are fewer and fewer employees to do it – and that’s what the stay-the-course crowd isn’t seeing. It’s not fun for the kids, and they don’t want to play if they don’t believe they’re at least competitive with the opposition.
Getting outscored tenfold in soccer, once one of the county’s most successful sports, does not equal competitiveness.
I asked superintendent James Estep whether some might see the desire to drop two divisions and play a schedule against smaller schools as throwing in the towel.
I was surprised by his candor: “I don’t really care,” he said, what people think. He cares about the student athletes, and wants to give them the chance to build success – which, he pointed out, could then breed success.
Estep and I share a common trait in this particular area; in the past, he coached, and I covered, football teams outside this area that struggled mightily, building lengthy losing streaks. Both saw their fortunes change when they moved to conferences in which they were more competitive.
East Juniata, where Hartman coached last season, is another example – the Tigers left the Tri-Valley League because they were unable to climb out of a hole there. They found success – and twice qualified for the District 4 tournament – as a member of the All-American Football Conference, but since returning to the TVL have again found it hard to find victory.
Here are some things that are not going to happen: Mifflin County School District is not going to get Urban Meyer as its football coach. The district will not lure Phil Jackson into the basketball job. In fact, the economics of education say that a teacher on staff is almost always the first candidate, unless there’s someone better in town who doesn’t need the salary and has all the time in the world.
There’s also not going to be a new league of larger rural schools stretching from Williamsport to DuBois. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Back in November, I suggested the school district should at least take a look at the nearby Heartland Conference. Of course, the same folks chastising the district for trying to get into a different Mid-Penn division didn’t want to hear that, either.
It’s still well worth looking at – the Huskies could be in the same conference as Central Mountain and Williamsport, and play tough Class AAA schools that they see now as non-conference opponents in a handful of sports.
What everyone seems to overlook is that, while Mifflin County is a Class AAAA school by rule, it is not in a Class AAAA market. In the greater Harrisburg area, concentrated into a small radius, there are nearly a dozen schools that compete in the state’s largest classification in at least one sport.
The next closest to Mifflin County is 30 miles away.
I remember when I went to my first post-merger sporting event, and was impressed to see that, despite opposition to the change, everyone stood behind the Huskies. No red, no blue – just purple.
I also remember how Lewistown’s football team – players and coaches – were the recipients of derision from the community because of a long history of losing.
It’s time for that purple group to stand up again, tell the school and the kids you’ve got their back, and tell the naysayers to go pound sand.
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Jeff Fishbein is sports editor of The Sentinel. Contact him at jfishbein@lewistownsentinel.com.