I believe the biggest reason school districts avoid consolidation is Friday night. Community members, young and old, enjoy going to school for “the game”. While we wish to win, routing for the home team is most important. It’s a point of pride. When I arrived in Britton not a week went by without someone speaking of the state basketball championships that Britton won back to back in 1963 and 1964. Twenty-eight years had passed since they cut down the first of the two state championship nets, but the pride from those events was still fresh in the heart of the community.
Shortly after arriving in Britton, I was approached by the Deerfield superintendent regarding the idea of fielding a cooperative football team. John was the former principal in Britton, and hoped to use his ties with both communities to help promote the idea. He had a request for me. “The Britton board needs to approach the Deerfield board, because the last request came from Deerfield and Britton turned them down.”
The driving purpose was to provide more opportunities for students in both districts. Both Britton and Deerfield had a single varsity football team. One hundred pound freshmen competed with, and against, two-hundred and fifty pound seniors. Many avoided competing at all because they saw it as a losing cause. Combining programs would allow us to field a junior varsity and varsity team. The change would help level the playing field for the boys.
Randy was my building principal and the district’s athletic director. He had assistants to cover events, but he was ultimately responsible for all activities. I didn’t like the arrangement, but its the one I inherited. I felt the assignment was too large for one person. One of Randy’s greatest attributes was experience. He had been a teacher with the district for several years, served as its football coach, and had a seat on the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s (MHSAA) executive board. He new the ropes and everyone in town.
After receiving approval from both boards of education, we held community meetings in both towns to promote the concept. The meetings were well attended. We explained the whys and wherefores of our cooperative football concept and were met with some distain. The students embraced the plan, but many adults did not. The distracters saw their community identity slipping away. Many were former athletes. They feared the students would engage in open conflict, fights would break out, but most of all, they questioned the new identity. Britton-Macon athletes were known as Tories, and athletes from Deerfield were Minutemen. How could two such opposing forces ever compete together? We had an answer for that.
The team would simply be called B-D. The combo was based upon the alphabet. We’d combine the colors from the former mascots and field new uniforms that featured the red, white and blue of the two programs. We’d alternate our home football games, one in Britton and one in Deerfield, and rotate practices from one campus to the other. We’d provide bus transportation for the practices and share all expenses based upon participation numbers. We’d have two homecomings and our bands would march in both homecoming parades. Responsibility for concessions would fall to the host site. The home crowds would be larger, and most importantly, more students would be involved.
The two boards gave their approval, which was forwarded to the MHSAA for the final blessing. Randy was on hand to speak on our behalf and helped usher our proposal through the process.
While the athletic changes were being developed in the two communities, I was also busy gaining approval for a major building addition. Four years prior to my arrival, the district was in danger of going bankrupt. After much discussion and community unrest, the voters agreed to raise the operational millage by six mills to 40.25. It was unquestionably the highest rate in the area, but it was necessary to keep the doors open. The community valued its school, so the proposal passed. The unrest that accompanied the proposal, led to the dismissal of the superintendent after a single year on the job. No one offered a word of support for the departed leader, but history proves he saved the district.
Lack of funding led to a decline in building maintenance. The next administration used the increased funding from the newly authorized millage to develop a plan to replace the school’s roof system, but that’s it. When I arrived three years later, I found the building to be dark and depressing. Students and staff operated with cramped quarters, poor lighting, a system of chains and padlocks to secure interior doors, restrooms with homemade plywood stalls, tile floors worn through to the concrete, and hallways painted a depressing shade of brown. The K-12 facility had a student body and staff that deserved better. We couldn’t change things over-night, but we could start with simple improvements. The chains and padlocks were the first to go.
During the summer of 1992 I had the staff repaint the brown walls bright white and the tan lockers Britton Tory red. That simple change was dramatic. People didn’t feel like they were walking in a tunnel any longer. The repainting symbolized change, and change is what we needed. During that same summer I convinced the board to seek a revenue bond so we could build a new library/media center. The construction took place during the spring and summer of 93. It was the first addition to the school in decades.
By the fall of 1993 our cooperative football program was up and running. The kickoff at the game was an historic community event. I don’t recall our first opponent, the score of the game, or if it was home or away. I just know it was important for the two boards to present a united front, no matter the outcome.
That same September we held an open house for the newly completed addition. It was grand. It housed the district’s library, three dozen computers, a head-end media distribution center with capacity to bring this new thing called “the internet” into district classrooms, a staff workroom, and a new telephone system. Michigan State University provided a server to connect the district improvements, as well as a link to the “world-wide web”. We invited the entire community to the festivities. The architect and construction company provided cookies and punch.
The football crowd outnumbered the media center crowd by 100 to 1.
Seemingly unrelated acts often pay big dividends.
TBC