SPORTSBEAT, by Peter Jakey: Hurons will not play in the SAC in ?05
This will be the last season the Rogers City football team will play in the Straits Area Conference, according to Rogers City athletic director Pat Lamb. The athletic directors of the league conducted a special meeting last week to discuss the possibility of Munising and Manistique joining the conference. That didn’t happen. Here’s what did transpire. Alcona decided to leave the conference in all sports, mainly because they are so far away from other SAC schools, and Rogers City said they want to stay in the conference for all sports but one: football. “We were passively seeking membership in other conferences as of last year,” said Lamb. “I took that to the Straits Area Conference athletic directors last week, that we are no longer passively seeking membership in another conference, but aggressively seeking, meaning that we are writing letters. I’m going to be bouncing it off of a lot of athletic directors within the next year.”
AT THE TOP of Lamb’s list of concerns is the health of the players. “I need to look out for the safety of our kids,” said Lamb Tuesday in a phone interview. “It’s paramount above everything else. Right now, I don’t think it’s a very safe situation to send them into playing those schools that are not only bigger, but at this point, anyway, better.” The situation was magnified when Sault Ste. Marie roughed up the Hurons two weeks ago. The host Blue Devils scored 68 points against Rogers City. I was hard pressed to find a point total that high the last couple of decades. Nobody wants that. The boys still have to take on Cheboygan, and the Chiefs are better than the Soo. Cheboygan defeated the Blue Devils last month, 41-18.
LEAVING A BURNING memory in Lamb’s mind was the sportsmanship at Sault Ste. Marie as the Huron cheerleaders were booed. That didn’t sit too well with Lamb, the parents, or the kids. Hopefully that is something that is being addressed. Another reason to leave the conference and to find more competitive games is the need for six wins to get into the Michigan High School Athletic Association playoffs. Playing the bigger schools makes it awful tough to get in.
In pretty much every other sport, there’s an even playing field when the playoffs start. Every school in the state is in until they lose. It’s impossible to do that in football.
“IN THE PAST, where you had playoff points, you could actually gain points by losing to a bigger school, whereas that’s not a possibility anymore,” said Lamb. “It is possible to gain points by beating a bigger school, but those don’t come into play until after you get your six wins. In this sport it really makes a big difference. “I thought that we could compete on a more even keel than what we have been,” he said. “It just so happens that it’
Lamb now will explore the possibility of the Hurons playing in other northern Michigan conferences such as the North Star League or the Ski Valley Conference, or he just might look at starting a new conference. Could there be a return of Posen and Rogers City on the gridiron? The way the basketball rivalry went last season with all of the fans and the competitive games, I think it would add a touch of excitement to the football season. Personally, I would like to see it happen, but I’m not involved in coming up with the schedules.