Siegfried: Internal bickering tarnishes North Central Conference
By PAUL SIEGFRIED
ISL Correspondent
Note: Siegfried has covered preps for more than 20 years, most notably for the Huntington Herald Press.
For most of its 87-year existence, the North Central Conference was the premier high school athletic league in Indiana.
The once-dominant conference boasted the world’s largest high school gymnasiums which held banners representing 90 state championship teams and hundreds of individual state champs. The conference has produced a state-best 25 boys basketball state titles and 20 winners of Mr. Basketball, more than any other conference in Indiana.
But over the last decade, the NCC has been through defections, additions and consolidation. Now the league is undergoing more upheaval, and this time it is producing in-fighting and bad blood, especially surrounding the departure of New Castle — one of the league’s charter members — after this upcoming school year. Huntington North, a member of the conference since 2003 and winner of the last four NCC All-Sports Trophies, is also leaving the league at the end of the 2014-15 year.
Both schools cited travel costs as a major concern and a driving force behind the decisions to leave the NCC, especially after the league added three Lafayette-area teams starting in 2014-15, meaning longer and more expensive road trips for conference contests.
There was some initial grumbling from the remaining NCC members. The decision was made to not allow either Huntington North or New Castle to compete for conference team championships, and individual athletes could not be named to all-conference teams. League bylaws called for Huntington North to pay a $1,000 departure fee to each conference school, and for New Castle to pony up $2,000 per school for leaving with just a one-year notice.
Already financially-strapped, New Castle said it could not afford to pay out $14,000 to the conference. As a result, the NCC and New Castle severed all ties immediately. The Trojans will compete as independents this year, and it is still not certain if any contests between New Castle and NCC schools will even be played.
Richmond and Muncie Central have announced they will not play New Castle in any sport except football this season. Huntington North said it will honor all its contests with the Trojans, but other NCC schools have not announced any decisions.
The NCC also changed course and announced that Huntington North would be able to compete for team and conference championships this season.
While their football slate is set, New Castle officials would work to fill any schedule openings that result of NCC schools pulling out of contests.
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The North Central Conference began undergoing change back in 2003 when Lafayette Jeff bolted the NCC for the Hoosier Crossroads Conference. Jeff was replaced by Huntington North, which made the jump from the remains of the crumbling Olympic Athletic Conference.
But the NCC was still in decline. Drop in enrollments in cities like Muncie, Anderson and Muncie hit schools hard, along with slashed budgets. Anderson, which boasted three successful high schools, consolidated to just one school, NCC’s Anderson High School. Muncie is also talking consolidation, with contentious discussion of folding Muncie Southside into the NCC’s Muncie Central.
Last year, the NCC announced an expansion plan, welcoming back Lafayette Jeff, along with fellow Lafayette-are schools Harrison and McCutcheon, which were booted out of the Indianapolis-based Hoosier Crossroads Conference in a budget-saving move. The NCC also extended an invitation to Jay County in Portland.
The addition of three schools in the western part of the state meant a 200-mile round trip for the NCC’s easternmost schools, which would result in higher transportation costs in an era of high gas prices and dwindling athletic revenues.
Jay County was quick to decline the NCC’s offer, opting to join the closer Allen County Athletic Conference. Huntington North then announced it would leave the NCC after the 2014-15 year to join with the remaining schools from the breakup of the Northeast Hoosier Conference, which will be renamed after dropping Homestead and Carroll.
All seemed settled until the NCC was stunned by announcement out of New Castle that the Trojans, as well, would be leaving the league after the 2013-14 season to join the Hoosier Heritage Conference. New Castle had long been held up as one of the NCC’s jewels — a charter member, home to the world’s largest high school gym and site of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
The new-look North Central Conference in 2014-15 will include five holdovers Anderson, Kokomo, Logansport, Marion, Muncie Central and Richmond, along with newcomers Lafayette Jeff, Lafayette Harrison and McCutcheon in the nine-team league.
