Post by shelbyrr11 on Jul 30, 2017 9:55:04 GMT -5
PREFACE: Before I say anything, this is going to be a LOT of text with a LOT of caveats in the information I am presenting. Don't go spinning or misinterpreting because you skimmed over this and missed some of the points I am trying to make with what information I could find. That being said, I know this will still fall on deaf ears. Whatever. On to business.
There has been a lot of talk about the increased chaos in recent years regarding conference re-alignment. For the most part, since the early days of NOSF, the most of the changes we saw was Bucyrus leaving the NOL for Fostoria and then Galion and Upper announcing their departure from the NOL in 2009. From there, things have gotten, for lack of a better word, sloppy. I decided to look into things more, as I was not sure if the narrative that schools are getting increasingly picky about their conferences was true or if it was more so that, seeing as how we are predominantly NOL fans on the board, we were just so sheltered from conference movement that our perceptions were skewed.
Search "Ohio High School Athletic Conferences" in Wikipedia, and you will find a big source of information on conferences both alive and defunct. For the most part, the data presented there seems accurate and up-to-date, as even the Shelby and North Union announcements are cited. You can search for conference membership for the Northwest, Central, Northeast, Southwest, and East/Southeast regions of Ohio. This is the information I used to support my findings. If there are inconsistencies, they certainly wouldn't be material enough to compromise the rest of what is on there.
My methodology was this:
- Add up all instances of when a school JOINS a conference. Some schools leave conferences and go independent for a small portion of time, and it is difficult to track this on the Wikipedia page. This also eliminates instances of schools leaving conferences because they were consolidated into another school district.
- Keep track of schools JOINING a conference since 1970. This provides us with nearly 50 years of conference movement. Anything before 1970 and we start dealing with a lot of conference movement for reasons dissimilar to today, such as school consolidations, cities experiencing their first population boom, etc. The information I provide will be listed by decade.
- If I did come across a school "joining" a conference due to a consolidation of two schools who were already members of that very conference, I did not count it.
- I considered new league formations as movement. The TRAC and NBC were both formed in 2011, so I noted all 16 schools in those two leagues as having "moved" in 2011.
- When I was tracking these movements, I logically approached it like this: "Galion and Upper joined the NCC in the fall of 2011, so 2011 has 2 movements that year. The Northern Buckeye Conference was formed in 2011 (Genoa, Woodmore, Fostoria, Eastwood, etc.). That is a league of 8 schools, so now 2011 has 10 movements."
- I included 2017 changes. Shelby, Bellevue, Norwalk, Tiffin, Sandusky, and Willard joining the SBC counted as 6 movements in 2017.
- For each region shown, I am listing how many schools are presently listed in that region on Wikipedia. Not the most scientific, as we will see Shelby move from the Northwest to the Central region based on their jump to the MOAC, but I am not getting paid to do this so I wasn't bothered to be more specific.
Without further adieu:
Total Movements in Ohio:
1970-1979: 253
80-89: 270
90-99: 180
00-09: 310
10-17: 251
Northwest Ohio. 165 schools:
70-79: 59
80-89: 41
90-99: 17
00-09: 38
10-17: 67(!)
Total: 222
Central Ohio. 102 schools:
70-79: 35
80-89: 15
90-99: 39
00-09: 22
10-17: 38
Total: 149
East/Southeast Ohio. 116 schools:
70-79: 40
80-89: 26
90-99: 22
00-09: 26
10-17: 26
Total: 140
Northeast Ohio. 223 schools.
70-79: 66
80-89: 88
90-99: 60
00-09: 144(!)
10-17: 85
Total: 443
Southwest Ohio. 170 schools.
70-79: 53
80-89: 100
90-99: 42
00-09: 80
10-17: 35
Total: 310
There has been a lot of talk about the increased chaos in recent years regarding conference re-alignment. For the most part, since the early days of NOSF, the most of the changes we saw was Bucyrus leaving the NOL for Fostoria and then Galion and Upper announcing their departure from the NOL in 2009. From there, things have gotten, for lack of a better word, sloppy. I decided to look into things more, as I was not sure if the narrative that schools are getting increasingly picky about their conferences was true or if it was more so that, seeing as how we are predominantly NOL fans on the board, we were just so sheltered from conference movement that our perceptions were skewed.
Search "Ohio High School Athletic Conferences" in Wikipedia, and you will find a big source of information on conferences both alive and defunct. For the most part, the data presented there seems accurate and up-to-date, as even the Shelby and North Union announcements are cited. You can search for conference membership for the Northwest, Central, Northeast, Southwest, and East/Southeast regions of Ohio. This is the information I used to support my findings. If there are inconsistencies, they certainly wouldn't be material enough to compromise the rest of what is on there.
My methodology was this:
- Add up all instances of when a school JOINS a conference. Some schools leave conferences and go independent for a small portion of time, and it is difficult to track this on the Wikipedia page. This also eliminates instances of schools leaving conferences because they were consolidated into another school district.
- Keep track of schools JOINING a conference since 1970. This provides us with nearly 50 years of conference movement. Anything before 1970 and we start dealing with a lot of conference movement for reasons dissimilar to today, such as school consolidations, cities experiencing their first population boom, etc. The information I provide will be listed by decade.
- If I did come across a school "joining" a conference due to a consolidation of two schools who were already members of that very conference, I did not count it.
- I considered new league formations as movement. The TRAC and NBC were both formed in 2011, so I noted all 16 schools in those two leagues as having "moved" in 2011.
- When I was tracking these movements, I logically approached it like this: "Galion and Upper joined the NCC in the fall of 2011, so 2011 has 2 movements that year. The Northern Buckeye Conference was formed in 2011 (Genoa, Woodmore, Fostoria, Eastwood, etc.). That is a league of 8 schools, so now 2011 has 10 movements."
- I included 2017 changes. Shelby, Bellevue, Norwalk, Tiffin, Sandusky, and Willard joining the SBC counted as 6 movements in 2017.
- For each region shown, I am listing how many schools are presently listed in that region on Wikipedia. Not the most scientific, as we will see Shelby move from the Northwest to the Central region based on their jump to the MOAC, but I am not getting paid to do this so I wasn't bothered to be more specific.
Without further adieu:
Total Movements in Ohio:
1970-1979: 253
80-89: 270
90-99: 180
00-09: 310
10-17: 251
Northwest Ohio. 165 schools:
70-79: 59
80-89: 41
90-99: 17
00-09: 38
10-17: 67(!)
Total: 222
Central Ohio. 102 schools:
70-79: 35
80-89: 15
90-99: 39
00-09: 22
10-17: 38
Total: 149
East/Southeast Ohio. 116 schools:
70-79: 40
80-89: 26
90-99: 22
00-09: 26
10-17: 26
Total: 140
Northeast Ohio. 223 schools.
70-79: 66
80-89: 88
90-99: 60
00-09: 144(!)
10-17: 85
Total: 443
Southwest Ohio. 170 schools.
70-79: 53
80-89: 100
90-99: 42
00-09: 80
10-17: 35
Total: 310
