8-14-14 NWN Football Coop

1.JASON LAWRENCE/DAILY FORUMBrushing up on some hittingMembers of the North-West Nodaway football team practiced their form tackling Tuesday afternoon as assistant coach Alan Calfee looked on. North Nodaway and West Nodaway chose to form a football cooperative agreement after each schools numbers came back lower than expected.

2.JASON LAWRENCE/DAILY FORUMPracticing tacklingNorth-West Nodaway junior Koby Reynolds wraps up the bag junior Bryson Smith was dragging behind him during a tackling drill as head coach Andrew Webster looks on at practice Tuesday afternoon in Burlington Junction.

3.JASON LAWRENCE/DAILY FORUMGet lowNorth-West Nodaway senior Trevor Meyer, right, wraps up junior Bryson Smith during a drill working on form tackling during Tuesday afternoons practice.

Football cooperative benefitsNorth, West Nodaway squads

By JASON LAWRENCESports editor

North Nodaway and West Nodaway have partnered before and experienced success, most notably last spring when the two schools came together to form the North-West Nodaway track team.That team experienced success, sending seven athletes including a relay team made up of girls from both schools.We talked here as an administration and I think the success of the track team was a very positive experience. I think that was a very good first step, West Nodaway High School Principal Shannon Nolte said. I dont know that we could have planned that any better to have that happen before this happened, but I think that opened the door to allow these kids to think, You know what, if we combined and put our talents together this would be fun, this would be more competitive. I think that really was the first step in the process having that track co-op be successful first. It allowed us to keep an open mind about football as an option. Some of those kids were out for track last spring, so they already had some positive experiences and werent afraid of doing this.The students athletes may not have been afraid of it, but the West Nodaway Rockets were afraid of the possibility of not having enough players to field a team this season one of the main reasons West Nodaway Superintendent Nancy Greeley reached out to North Nodaway Superintendent Jim Simmelink about forming a co-op.We had been watching our numbers throughout the summer and it was about nine, 10 kids. A couple weeks ago, I had a team meeting with the coaches and administrators and we definitely knew we had eight solid players, probably nine, Greeley said. We had options. Option one was to play with eight or nine and hope it would work or option two was not to have a team at all. Option three was to see if MSHSAA would allow us to co-op with another school. That was our first avenue. We contacted MSHSAA and they gave us the green light and we started talking to North Nodaway and putting our heads together. We had a team meeting with the kids and parents and the West Nodaway kids, they just wanted to play football. They did not want to not play, so that was our focus.The process was also expedient and the Missouri State High School Activities Association gave the schools the go ahead on Aug. 4, the same day fall practice started, through a hardship waiver.On July 30, there was a meeting to set the cooperative agreement in motion and another meeting the Friday before practice was set to line things up, said North Nodaway head coach Andrew Webster, who will serve as the head coach for North-West Nodaway. West Nodaway head coach Scott Reeves will serve as the assistant head coach in the new set up.However, Webster said they werent even 100 percent sure until the agreement got final approval from the boards of education, the last meeting which came on Wednesday, Aug. 6.We knew for sure that Friday, but then we werent even 100 percent sure until there was a meeting after our first practice, Webster said.Co-oping at the high school level just seemed like the next natural progression, as the two schools had already put an agreement in place for the junior high school football teams to co-op, it just came quicker than either side expected.We had already developed a sharing program last spring at the junior high and at that time we had a discussion about the high school. At that time, we also felt that both West Nodaway and ourselves would be able to field a varsity team, Simmelink said. About three weeks ago, I got a call from them and they had some kids move out. They were in a situation where they could possibly not have enough for a team this year.While it gives kids from both schools a chance to play, the co-op also comes with several other benefits including competitive balance and the ability to form a junior varsity squad after West Nodaway went 4-7 and North Nodaway finished 2-8.I would think that the biggest advantage is obviously, they have an opportunity to play and its a very good competitive situation, Nolte said. Having numbers out is always beneficial with practices. Having a junior varsity, well be able to develop varsity players. A lot of schools with programs that have numbers, they always seem to have an advantage. For North Nodaway and West Nodaway, having more numbers was something we couldnt do on our own.North Nodaway, which officially serves as the host for the co-op, has 15 players out while West Nodaway brings nine players to the squad, and Webster said the kids have adapted well to the new setup.The players have taken to it great, they realize it gives us a chance to be a lot more successful. Theyre buying in, Webster said. I think with time, well get more to buy in because theyll see that this is a great thing. The ones that are here, they sure are ready to roll.Even setting up a playbook wasnt too difficult due to the similarities of both offenses.West Nodaway and us ran similar offensive systems, so it wasnt too bad, Webster said. A lot of things were the same play almost, just a different word that we called things, so that part meshing together wasnt too bad. Figuring out who was going to coach what and do what, that took a little more talking and everything.Figuring out where to play and what jerseys to wear also took some tinkering before arriving at a compromise.The team will play two home games in Burlington Junction against South Holt on Sept. 12 and Nodaway-Holt on Oct. 17 and wear West Nodaway uniforms in those contests. The other two home games will be played in Hopkins and the team will wear Mustangs gear for those contests as well as the four road contests. The team will also have a mid-season bye week now on Sept. 26 as the two teams were scheduled to play each other before the cooperative agreement forced bye weeks into the schedules of teams featuring West Nodaway on their schedules.The agreement, however, isnt permanent. Nolte said the waiver through MSHSAA is for two years with an out after this season, but that the situation would be reevaluated as the season progresses.About the first week of September, the stakeholders will sit down at the table and look at the good, the bad and the ugly and kind of reevaluate how things are going to start moving forward, Greeley said.We may be looking at (North-West Nodaway) jerseys and helmets and mascots and colors, and all those things are out there and being talked about.Webster thinks as the North-West Nodaway name catches on more, it has the potential to be a special opportunity for everyone involved.I really do think in the future this thing will grow and be more successful, he said. This is kind of in the infantile stages of everything, but its been going really well, honestly.