Get ready for your favorite team to have some new neighbors

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhoodA beautiful day for a neighborWould you be my, could you be myWon't you be my neighbor? Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Some of the neighbors, it seems, are getting restless. In the beginning, when schools decided to include athletic competition to the basics of reading, writing and 'rithmatic, it was all about neighborliness. If your high school had a football, basketball, baseball team and the town next to yours had one too, why, it only made sense for them to square off on the gridiron, the hardwood or the ball diamond for some friendly one-on-one-manship. If there were several towns in your area, it followed they would form an alliance, an affiliation, a cooperative grouping. Each school would play the other schools in the conference, and at the end of the season whoever had the best record against the others was crowned champion and given a shiny award. That's why trophy cases were invented. Findlay High School's first allegiance of that sort came about in 1919. It was called the Trolley League because, well, because that's how people could get to many of the games. They would jump on a train, ride the rails to their destination, and return the same way. The other schools in the Trolley League were Bowling Green, Fostoria, Tiffin, Lima Central and Lima South. The league lasted just three seasons, though, disbanding in 1921. Findlay would go on to become a member of a number of later leagues, like the Buckeye League (1935-54), Buckeye Conference (1955-87), Buckeye Central Conference (1988-95) and, at times, the Great Lakes League and the Greater Buckeye Conference. Findlay is currently in the Three Rivers Athletic Conference; has been since the 2011-12 school year. Things are about to change, though, and not just in the heart of Hancock County. When it comes to the configuration of high school leagues and conferences, change is and always has been inevitable. Especially at the small-school level. Historically, consolidation in the 1950s and '60s played a huge role in that process. Where Wharton, Mt. Blanchard and Forest once fielded separate teams, for example, that number dropped to one when those schools consolidated to form Riverdale. Demographics also played a part. While some areas may have experienced considerable growth, (Columbus for example) others lost the kind of population base that can determine whether a school remains athletically competitive or not. That brings us to the here and now. In Northwest Ohio, there are 136 schools with football teams competing in 17 leagues. Nine of those leagues and nearly half – 63 to be exact – of those schools either already have, are in the process of, or will in the near future will be realigning into new, or at least altered, leagues and conferences. This season will be a pivotal one across the Northwest Ohio landscape. With much of the league realignment going into implementation next season, the 2022-23 school year will mark the end of many of the traditional conferences and begin a new era of interscholastic competition. Howdy neighbor. Here's a quick run-down of the shifting tides. TRAC When Toledo's public schools were facing financial shortages and trimming budgets by cutting back athletic programs, 10 schools not in such dire straits – Toledo Central Catholic, Findlay, Fremont Ross, Oregon Clay, Toledo Whitmer, Lima Senior, all-boys schools Toledo St. John's and Toledo St. Francis, and all-girls schools Toledo St. Ursula and Toledo Notre Dame – formed an eight-school league of their own, beginning with the 2011-12 school year. A strong, competitive league, the TRAC gained a considerable reputation as one of the best in the state, continually placing schools high in the polls and far in tournament play. While the public schools represented themselves well, though, the parochial schools dominated when it came to athletics, winning almost 70 percent (135 of 197) of the league championships. Enter the NLL, the Northern Lakes League. Looking to expand, the NLL, a collection of eight, mostly suburban-area schools in the Toledo area, reportedly wanted to become a 16-school, two-division alignment. Their first move was to invite Findlay, Fremont Ross, Whitmer and Oregon Clay from the TRAC, a move that, when all the acceptances were completed by the school boards of those schools, signaled the end of the TRAC after the 2022-23 school year. As with just about every league realignment, dominos continued to fall. With 12 teams, the NLL planned two divisions with the six bigger schools – Findlay, Anthony Wayne, Sylvania Northview, Perrysburg, Springfield and Whitmer – in the upper division and smaller schools Bowling Green, Oregon Clay, Fremont Ross, Napoleon, Sylvania Southview and Maumee in the lower division. Maumee opted to leave the NLL for the Northern Buckeye Conference, taking advantage of an opening created when Elmwood accepted an invitation to the Blanchard Valley Conference. Woodmore also left the NBC for the River Division of the Sandusky Bay Conference, with Oak Harbor leaving the SBC Bay Division to replace Woodmore in the NBC. All moves kick in to effect with the 2023-24 school year. As for the TRAC schools left without a league, the Toledo parochials (St. John's, St. Francis, Central Catholic, St. Ursula and Notre Dame, have realigned with other private schools in the Catholic High School League located around Detroit. Lima Senior, faced with possibly competing as an independent, will join the Toledo City League that includes Start, Rogers, Scott, Bowsher, Woodward and Waite. BVC Since its inception with the 1965-66 school year, the Blanchard Valley Conference seemed about as solid as any collection of small-school, neighboring programs could be. The longest road trip was 20-25 minutes, teams were for the most part competitively balanced, fan following among the schools was strong. It didn't last. Despite a phenomenal run from the mid 1980s through 2005, a stretch that included nine outright or co-BVC championships during one 13-year period, a state runner-up finish in 2002, and a Division VI state championship in 2004, Hardin Northern fell into the quagmire that has hit many small school programs – numbers. Able to field only a junior varsity team in 2013 and with its football future uncertain, HN was left out when on BVC administrators, by a 9-1 vote, refused a guarantee to return to the BVC if the school did reinstate football. Hardin Northern did return to varsity status, but without a league to compete in the school opted to accept an invitation to join the Northwest Central Conference beginning in 2015-16. About that same time, the Midland Athletic Conference was folding and the North Central Conference was reforming many of its former members into the Northern 10 Conference. The final move of that domino sequence was that Hopewell-Loudon and North Baltimore (of the MAC) and Riverdale (of the NCC) accepted invitations to join the BVC. With the BVC reportedly looking to add a 14th school to complete its two-division plan, Hopewell-Loudon instead withdrew from the league in 2017 to join the Sandusky Bay Conference River Division. And the dominos continued to fall. When Holgate left the Green Meadows Conference in 2020, it created an opening for Paulding. So Paulding withdrew from the Northwest Conference, which created an opening for Leipsic, which left the BVC for the NWC. In 2021, North Baltimore first announced that it planned to remain in the BVC, but would play an independent schedule for football. Shortly thereafter, NB announced it would be joining the NWCC in all sports, an announcement Cory-Rawson had also decided to make. Both will be joining for NWCC play 2023-34. Following the announcement that Elmwood would be joining the BVC, beginning with the 2023-24 school year, Liberty-Benton in May of this year announced that it was also leaving the league. As with Hardin Northern, L-B may have been ultimatum-ed or leveraged out of the BVC, considering the school was given essentially a four-year window (until 2025-26) to try to realign with another league or conference. Typically, league bylaws mandate a two-year transition period when schools switch conferences. The four-year time frame suggests L-B's move may have been initiated from without rather that from within, allowing more the school more time to re-locate to another league. While sudden, L-B's move had been feeding the rumor mills for some time due to the tremendous growth of the system, not just in enrollment numbers – L-B will compete in OHSAA tournaments at the Division II level in many sports this year – but in state-of-the-art facilities and state-notoriety results. Complementing its advantage in numbers with solid coaching and productive programs at the lower levels, L-B has become a dominant program in BVC athletics, winning half (60 of 120) of all the league titles handed out over the past 10 years, and 34 of 55 since the 2017-18 school year. Especially strong in girls sports, L-B has won the BVC title in track for 23 consecutive seasons. The Eagles have won five straight league – and two state – titles in volleyball and six straight, eight of nine and 12 of the last 15 championships in girls basketball. L-B's girls soccer teams have also made three Final Four appearances over the last five years, finishing as state runner-up in 2019. Theories continue to spring up and make the rounds about what lies ahead for Liberty-Benton individually and the BVC overall. Even with Liberty-Benton, Cory-Rawson and North Baltimored leaving, the addition of Elmwood continues to create a big school (Elmwood, Van Buren, Riverdale) vs. small school (Arcadia, Arlington, Pandora-Gilboa, McComb, Vanlue) dichotomy that likely cannot last. The consensus is pretty consistent that the dominos, in one way or another will continue to fall. NWCC Just south of the BVC is the Northwest Central Conference, an interesting little league that came into existence with the 2001-2002 school year and has been undergoing considerable transition over the past 20 years. Of the 11 original schools that formed the league, only three – Ridgemont, Waynesfield-Goshen and Lima Temple Christian, which does not have football – remain. Fostoria St. Wendelin was once was a member, at least for a short time. So was Fort Loramie, Fairbanks, Sidney Lehman, Marion Catholic, Riverside, Troy Christian and Yellow Springs. Hardin Northern was admitted into the NWCC in 2014 and Crestline, for football only, just last year. Marion Elgin joined in 2017-18, and Ridgedale in 2021, joining existing NWCC members Lima Perry and Upper Scioto Valley. With Cory-Rawson and North Baltimore making the jump from the BVC to the Northwest Central Conference next year, the NWCC will again be an affiliation of 11 schools spread out over over seven counties, including Wood (North Baltimore) in the north, Auglaize (Waynesfield-Goshen) to the west, Hardin (Hardin Northern, Upper Scioto Valley, Ridgemont) to the south and Crawford (Crestline) to the east. With the addition of Elmwood, a Division V school in football, to the BVC, there has been speculation that the NWCC might become an attractive landing spot for smaller BVC schools (Arcadia, Vanlue Arlington, Pandora-Gilboa) that are located within decent driving range of most of the NWCC schools. Around the Horn NORTHWEST CONFERENCE: Paulding left Leipsic joined and the NWC appears pretty stable … for now. GREEN MEADOWS CONFERENCE: Hilltop left, Paulding joined, and the NWC appears pretty stable … for now. NORTHWEST OHIO ATHLETIC LEAGUE: One of Ohio oldest and longest running conferences prides itself on its history, tradition and cohesive alignment. Patrick Henry, the smallest and southern-most school might seem a better geographical and divisional fit with schools like Leipsic, McComb, Columbus Grove and Pandora-Gilboa, but it's doubtful the Patriots are going anywhere soon. WESTERN BUCKEYE LEAGUE: Like the NWOAL, the WBL is an extremely close-knit group with a long tradition. There is some travel involved, but WBL schools thrive on the competitiveness of their programs. NORTHERN 10 CONFERENCE: Since the North Central Conference disbanded and reformed as the N10 in 2014, the league has been unchanged. It's likely to stay that way, even though there are eight, not 10, schools in the league. NORTHERN BUCKEYE CONFERENCE: The NBC would seem a logistical fit for Liberty-Benton, although L-B's strength in girls sports might dissuade some schools from giving the Eagles access to their trophy cases. With Elmwood and Woodmore being replaced by Maumee and Oak Harbor, the NBC remains an even-numbered alignment. SANDUSKY BAY CONFERENCE: With 22 schools divided into three divisions, there's a good chance there's going to be movement up, down or sideways. It's likely just a matter of time.