SJEL sports co-op now official

When students from St. John and Endicott suit up for the upcoming sports season, they will be joined by students from LaCrosse. An official sports cooperative was agreed upon between the school districts over the summer months.

“It’s underway, with the exception of volleyball,” said LaCrosse Principal Jeff Pietila.

Pietila said the LaCrosse district approached the St. John and Endicott districts about forming an official cooperative earlier this year.

“We already had football and baseball and some junior high things with them,” he said.

Making it an official cooperative, though, will lead to a slightly different approach. Pietila said the athletic directors in the three districts spent the summer working on the athletic and coaching code and guidebooks.

“Things are uniform. The athletic code is now the same for all three schools,” he said. “It’s all good to go. We’re in good shape.”

Suzanne Schmick, SJE superintendent, said this was an important step.

“We had some meetings during the summer with the athletic directors. When you’ve got three different schools you’re pulling together you want to make sure you’ve crossed all your t’s and dotted all your i’s,” she said.

Part of the early discussions in the cooperative decision was that SJE wanted to make sure LaCrosse was all the way in, meaning all of the sports would be required to combine with SJE. When final agreements were reached, however, the decision was made to give the LWK volleyball team one more run.

“We will still have LWK for one more year, and that’s because there were a lot of seniors and we felt a lot of loyalty to letting them finish out,” said Pietila.

One benefit the cooperative will bring for LaCrosse is the return of home games.

“Last year, all we had at home was volleyball,” said Pietila. “One game in every sport will be here at LaCrosse. That’s a change.”

The home football game in LaCrosse this year is scheduled Oct. 20 when SJEL takes on Sunnyside Christian.

“We’re getting the field ready,” said Pietila. “We’re working on the field lights and bringing out the old goal posts.”

Schmick noted the one home game per sport in LaCrosse will be the biggest change for the SJE cooperative, but that she also wants to look at it as something that is mutually beneficial.

“There aren’t a lot of major changes really,” she said. “This is for the good of the kids and to make sure you field good programs. To me, that’s what the focus should be is the quality of what we’re doing.”

Fall sports participating in the cooperative include high school and junior high football, high school and junior high cross country and junior high girls basketball.

SJE will also field its volleyball team.

The high school mascot will be the Eagles, and the middle school mascot will be the Wildcats, both of those already established mascots at St. John and Endicott

The LaCrosse volleyball team will keep its Tigercat mascot for one more year.

“When we came to them with the proposal, we said we don’t want to change anything. The mascot will remain the same, and the colors will remain the same,” said Pietila. “We just want to give our kids opportunities.”

Other conditions include keeping all practices for the high school teams in St. John, and for middle school teams and high school baseball team in Endicott.

LaCrosse will be providing transportation to athletes to practices in St. John and Endicott.

“We’ve got buses and kids going everywhere,” said Pietila. “It’s fun.”

As part of the cooperative, LaCrosse will contribute up to 35 percent of the financial costs of the SJEL and ESJL programs, depending on how many LaCrosse students are participating in each sport.

Pietila said one of the biggest benefits of the cooperative for LaCrosse, aside from the participation opportunities, is the ability to keep the LaCrosse students together.

“Now knowing that the kids will be in the same place is great,” he said. “It was important to keep them together.”

He added that the upcoming seasons are being looked forward to all around.

“I know the kids are excited, and I’m sure the town is as well,” he said. “We’re looking at this to be positive and to have growth overtime. It’s been a win-win experience.”

Schmick said she appreciated the process for getting the cooperative off the ground.

“This is a great thing for our communities collectively and for our students,” she said. “Right now, there’s a spirit of cooperation happening all around.”