Perry community searches for answers after forfeiting remainder of varsity football season
The Perry Community School District announced Wednesday that it would suspend its varsity high school football program for the remainder of the season due to injury concerns on a roster that became smaller with each passing week.
To put the team back on the field for the final three games on the schedule was deemed a safety issue, leading to the district's decision to call off the season.
In the days following the team’s 70-0 loss to Bondurant-Farrar on Sept. 30, activities director Katelyn Whelchel, head coach Bryce Pierce, high school principal Dan Marburger and district superintendent Clark Wicks met to discuss what action would be needed to protect their student-athletes.
Ideas of shortening games via abbreviated quarters were discussed. Running clocks have been no stranger to the Bluejays the past few years, as four of the team’s six losses this year were decided by more than 40 points. But after consultation, Perry chose to end the varsity season.
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While the season has come to an abrupt end, leaving the community with many questions, Whelchel said the district is looking to bring back the program for the 2023 season.
“We're kind of living in a day-by-day situation and trying to discuss what options we have,” Whelchel said on Wednesday. “Looking forward, we obviously need to talk about what to do to honor our seniors for senior night.”
District officials were unable to provide numbers for the start-of-season roster and the currently available roster. The district also was unable to provide a roster number that would have been deemed adequate to continue its season. (There are 38 players listed on the team's roster on the Varsity Bound website. For comparison, Friday's scheduled opponent, Norwalk, has 63 players listed.)
In the immediate future, Perry will forfeit the three varsity games with Norwalk, Boone and Carlisle, but will continue to play “curtain raiser” games with the 9th- and 10th-grade players, pending agreement from opponents.
Pierce, Perry’s head coach since 2020, said Thursday that once the lower-level games are completed for the season, he and his coaching staff will gather “to discuss ways to encourage more kids in our school to play football to hopefully avoid this situation in the future.”
From celebration to confusion
On Sept. 16, Perry players were literally jumping on each other to celebrate their 27-21 overtime victory against Des Moines Hoover, ending a five-year losing streak. Pierce said he and his staff had never been a part of such an electric celebration. And that energy was felt in the hallways the following week, bringing positive vibes to team film sessions compared to watching game tape of another lopsided loss.
So to find out three weeks later that the team wouldn’t have the chance to recapture that excitement came as a shock to the community.
The news release sent out by the district on Wednesday said the decision “was made with the best information we have at the time while consulting coaches, the Iowa High School Athletic Association, future opponents, medical professionals and gathering input from concerned parents and students.”
However, not every Perry parent feels that the district took enough input from families.
Steve Heck, father of senior quarterback Caden Heck, who suffered a major injury this season, said on Thursday that he learned of the season’s cancellation on Wednesday through a news report rather than direct school communication. Steve Heck said he didn't feel like he and other parents were a significant part of the decision-making process.
“The last few days, (coach) Pierce was staying in contact with all the seniors, letting them know what’s going on,” Steve Heck said Thursday night. “Then all of a sudden, it was like everything was worked out even with the (next opponent), I believe, to have a decent game with safety and consideration for our players. So I've got a lot of unanswered questions on my mind.”
Steve added that his son was cleared by his surgeon on Tuesday to begin non-contact practice with pads, a sign of his potential to suit up again this season. Getting the news the following day that Perry would no longer play varsity games this year took Caden by surprise, as Steve said the student-athletes had advocated to continue playing this year.
Adding to the frustration, Steve Heck said he is a big believer in Pierce and the potential he brings to the program, saying the coach is “probably the one to take this program to the next level,” leaving him with mixed emotions of how this situation has played out in terms of communication from the school.
Superintendent Wicks said the district gathered input from parents who had contacted Pierce and also met with Dr. Clint Lutterman, the team’s physical therapist. A decision was then made to forfeit the remainder of the season and a letter was then sent out to staff and parents on Wednesday.
“It was a difficult decision but we wanted to keep the student-athletes’ safety first and foremost in mind,” Wicks said.
The decision brought varying reactions in the community. Perry booster club president Mindy Baxter said there was a lot of sadness but a lot of memories shared as well during Wednesday’s booster club meeting.
“I think right now we’re just trying to process what happened,” Baxter said Thursday.
And while the booster club understands that player safety comes first, Baxter said “our hearts just go out not only to the seniors but all the football players.”
“We understand the athletic department’s decision and obviously we support Katelyn Whelchel and what she does because that’s what we’re here for, we’re here to be a team,” she said of the booster club.
The decision to cancel the remaining varsity games directly impacts the booster club’s apparel sales. The Jay’s Nest is located next to the concession stand at Dewey Field and is open during Friday home football games.
“The majority of our sales happen in the fall and Friday nights are huge for us,” said booster club member Tiffany Olejniczak. “So for us to lose two Friday nights is pretty significant. It just means that we’re going to have to work harder to reach people.”
The booster club plans to have apparel for sale during the elementary school conferences. Olejniczak and Baxter said the booster club also plans to have the Jay’s Nest open for 9th- and 10th- games at Dewey Field.
A bright(er) future
Though the program is in disarray, there is faith that the team can thrive in the future thanks to a revitalized youth football league in Perry.
For a time, Perry did not have a youth league to help promote football and feed into the high school program. That left many current Bluejay players putting pads on for the first time as middle-schoolers, or even high-schoolers, leading to not only low roster numbers but also an inexperienced talent pool relative to their opponents.
But since restarting the youth league in Perry in 2019, league organizers said the future looks bright.
In that first season, there were only 13 third-graders and 14 fourth-graders, and not enough interest to form fifth- and sixth-grade teams. Three years later, there are more than 120 kids participating, from kindergarten through sixth grade. Former Perry High head coach Matt Hardy leads the youth program and coaches the middle-school team. He said the league has already made an impact.
“We’ve had the best middle-school numbers in over a decade," Hardy said. "I can’t remember a time when I would have been coaching at the high school level that we would have started the middle school season with 70 kids,” Hardy said. “We almost didn’t have enough equipment to start the season for the middle-school kids this year. We’re definitely trending in the right direction.”
That opinion is shared down the line. One of the coaches of the fifth-grade team, Kyle Baxter, said he feels kids in the “revamped” youth league are on a good path and unbothered by the high school team’s hiccup.
“Everybody’s talking bad about Perry, and these kids aren’t going to let everybody talk bad about Perry,” Baxter said.
His son on the fifth-grade team, Charlie Baxter, said he hopes to see his teams continue to grow so “if we get more injuries, we can still play.” Charlie added that the news of the Bluejays’ season ending is only a motivator to work harder to play for Perry when he’s older.
Kaleb Olejniczak, a wrestler at the University of Northern Iowa and Perry’s starting quarterback in 2018, said he’s encouraged about the state of Perry football when he sees the success of the revitalized youth program.
“We have a lot of momentum with the seventh- and eighth-graders getting some wins,” Olejniczak said. “So that is very exciting for the community and myself included.”
Olejniczak’s mother, Tiffany, serves on the youth football board with her husband, Jason. She added: “We have a very strong K-6 program in place and we have two very full middle-school teams. The youth program is moving in the right direction. They’ve really bought into the skill development and we think that’s going to ultimately be reflected once kids get to the high school level.
Long road ahead
Even with the youth program expanding and the middle-school team seeing a stretch of success, it will be several years before the high school team sees the full benefits of a well-supported farm system, as varsity players are typically juniors and seniors.
In the meantime, parents and fans have advocated for Perry to drop to a lower classification, hoping to help level the playing field and safety against teams with comparable roster sizes.
Steve Heck said there is consensus among parents that the team should be allowed to drop from 4A to a lower level. The Iowa High School Athletic Association's class assignments are based on schools’ enrollment (as opposed to, say, number of participating players in a school's football program).
IHSAA communications director Chris Cuellar said there is no mechanism for a school to drop classification by appeal.
“That doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be discussed by our board or the football advisory committee, but there isn’t a process for it right now,” Cuellar added.
However, at least one alternative is in play. The varsity program could submit a request to play at the junior-varsity level, a route that Hardy had explored during his time as head coach at Perry. It would not be an unprecedented move. In 2003, Eldora-New Providence won the Class 1A state title, and four years later the school petitioned the state to play a sub-varsity schedule.
Perry will at least get a change of scenery with new districts being assigned in 2023. Intention forms for football redistricting are due in December. New districts will then be announced in February or March. Cuellar added that canceling or forfeiting games do not factor in the new schedule, but teams are asked to consider the state of their program when submitting their intention forms.
Perry will not be the only team that is looking at its immediate future as a football program. Cuellar said Rockford, Meskwaki Settlement and Calamus-Wheatland all canceled their seasons prior to the 2022-23 school year. Shenandoah played five games before canceling the rest of its season, and West Fork is now playing week-to-week. Of that group, Perry is the only school designated above Class 2A status.
Decision affects other programs
The games that the Bluejays have forfeited for the year have put their opponents in a bind.
“From our perspective at Boone, it is disheartening, as it will take an opportunity to compete away from our team and student-athletes,” Boone activities director Brett Collins said Friday. “We are still looking to connect with Perry in the form of a lower-level, sub-varsity game. However, this will not help our upperclassmen, who have sacrificed and battled all season long.”
Collins added that Perry’s situation is unenviable for any school district that is trying “to make decisions based on the best interest” of their school and programs, each facing unique challenges.
Perry Chief Editor Allison Ullmann contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Perry Chief: Parents, athletes react after Iowa school forfeits football season
