When a school switches to a different class, it’s a delicate balance of logistics, fairness and tradition. Parents find themselves traveling to unfamiliar towns for games, while kids say goodbye to some of their most respected competitors. Rivalries are lost and new traditions are born.
This year, Bigfork High School is one of six schools in Montana participating in a new class, having made the switch from Class A down to Class B. For those who have been here long enough, they remember the days when Bigfork was a force to be reckoned with in Class B athletics. Whether that’s the case again, after the school’s 11-year stint in Class A, remains to be seen.
In November of last year, the Montana High School Association recommended that Bigfork move down to Class B for athletics and activities because of declining enrollment. The enrollment guidelines for Class A are between 340 and 825 students. Class AA is 826 and above, Class B is 120-339 and Class C is 119 and below. Class C has the most schools, followed by Class B, then A and finally AA.
Last spring, Bigfork had 306 students, making it the second-smallest school in the league behind tiny Butte Central at 118, which is smaller than a number of Class C schools. Central, a private school, has repeatedly petitioned to stay in Class A and generally fares well in athletic competition. By comparison, fellow league members Columbia Falls and Belgrade each have more than 800 students.
Upon the MHSA’s recommendation to drop down a class, schools can petition to remain in their current league, like Butte Central. Bigfork’s school board voted not to petition. But if MHSA asks a school to move up, it’s mandatory. Now Bigfork goes from being one of the smallest in its class to one of the largest. Last year, it would have been the second-biggest program in Class B, behind 346-student Eureka.
Bigfork will compete in the 7-B District with Thompson Falls, Troy, Plains, Eureka and St. Ignatius. Northwestern A now consists of Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Polson, Libby and Ronan.
Before Bigfork moved up from Class B in 1998, the athletic department produced some of the top programs in the state, especially in girls tennis. The girls won eight straight state tennis titles and 11 out of 12, coming up short only in 1989. Since moving up a class, the team hasn’t won a single state title, nor has any team at the school except girls cross country – the girls won three straight Class A championships from 2001-2003.
It’s tough to measure how much of an athletic program’s success is influenced by its league, compared to how much is determined by extenuating circumstances. For one, sports are cyclical, with magical decade-long runs followed by extended droughts.
Also, the quality of competition often has more to do with your geography than the letter of your class. There are plenty of Class B football coaches out in the state’s eastern prairies who would gladly welcome a western A team to their field. Similarly, former Whitefish boys head coach Eric Stang said it’s not rare to find Class C basketball teams who could make playoff pushes in AA.
Stang, who grew up in Plains and has since coached high school and college basketball in more than 10 states, said Montana is a “kind of a different beast” when it comes to parity between classes. There are no inner-city teams, which often play at a near college level. Conversely, some of the best teams – especially in basketball and football – come from tiny rural areas, Stang said.
When C.M. Russell was the dominant Class AA football program in the early 1990s, Stang said many observers felt Class B Cut Bank could have given the Rustlers a run for their money.
“There’s not a lot to do out there but build traditions,” Stang said of rural areas. “They want to get the heck off of the ranch and do something for a couple of hours.”
Since there are “not as many distractions,” Stang said kids are more inclined to go to off-season camps and eagerly put in extra practice hours. In Plains, where movies were only shown on weekends and not much else happened on the other days, Stang said “open gym was kind of the place to go.”
“The gym was the hangout place for us,” Stang said. “The girls were all there too, and the boys. There just wasn’t a lot to do there.”
Because of these dynamics, Stang said there are powerhouse football and basketball programs that could play in a higher league, even if the rest of the teams at the school could not. For this reason, Stang thinks class distinctions in Montana shouldn’t be based solely on enrollment numbers. Instead, he believes, individual sports should be allowed to change classes.
“They need to change it up; they don’t need to have the same classification for every sport,” Stang said.
But Mark Beckman, MHSA’s executive director, said his organization has reviewed various options for school placement and “held very firmly” to the current system. Beckman feels that making decisions based on individual sports creates more problems than it solves. It would complicate scheduling and throw off the makeup of conferences, he said.
“It’s very problematic to have different teams participating in different classes,” Beckman said.
Beckman said declining enrollments statewide are “making the future hard to predict.” Under a system adopted in 2007, MHSA evaluates enrollment every two years and makes recommendations for class changes. But, since Beckman said the goal is “consistency and stability,” it’s best for a school not to bounce around classes too often.
Superior is no stranger to bouncing around. Since 1980, it has changed classes nine times, moving between Class B and C. Dan Lucier has been there for all of those 29 years – five as an assistant football coach and the last 24 as head coach. Last year, the team won its first state championship, claiming the Class C crown. This year, it’s back in Class B.
The league shifting doesn’t bother Lucier or the kids, he said. He’s had nearly equal success in both classes and, contrary to what people might think, he generally does better moving up to Class B. He believes that’s mostly due to the switch from eight-man football to 11-man, which creates new opportunities for his team. Lucier has actually petitioned the MHSA on numerous occasions for a nine-man league. In Montana, there’s currently six-man, eight-man and 11-man football.
“Is it a hardship? I’m going to say no,” Lucier said of moving between classes. “I think the biggest thing is it’s hard to hold a rivalry with somebody.”
Russ Kinzer, superintendent for Bigfork schools, said the school board considered the level of competition when deciding whether to switch leagues. He believes Class B is the appropriate fit, even if the mileage for road games is more.
“Class B is not going to be a pushover,” Kinzer said.