Traverse City Central, West football leaving Big North to join Saginaw Valley League

Sep. 15—TRAVERSE CITY — Sweeping changes loom as two of the largest high school football programs in northern Michigan leave their conference.

The departure of Traverse City Central and Traverse City West from the Big North Conference is bound to shake things up. The Trojans' and Titans' long-rumored departure from the BNC happened Tuesday night as the two joined the Saginaw Valley League for the 2022 season.

Mike Thayer, SVL executive director and Bay City Western athletic director, said the league extended an official invitation to West and Central to join the league in August and received an email Tuesday evening from TC West Athletic Director Jason Carmien saying Traverse City Area Public Schools accepted.

The move is for football only. The BNC continues on in the remaining sports, but the move essentially dissolves the football conference after a 24-year run.

"The last I heard, it was all lined up," TCAPS Executive Director of Communications Ginger Smith said Tuesday.

The remaining BNC football teams appear destined to join the Northern Michigan Football Conference, a three-tiered league that could expand to four with the addition of BNC refugees Cadillac, Gaylord, Petoskey and Alpena.

NMFC commissioner Dave Jackson, the athletic director at Frankfort, said he couldn't go into much detail until the proposal had been voted on by the league's superintendents at a Sept. 28 meeting. NMFC athletic directors approved a proposal last week.

The four non-Traverse City Big North team superintendents would make their pitch at the meeting, and then the 20 NMFC school superintendents would vote whether or not to accept their applications.

"The ADs came up with pretty creative ideas that are good for everybody," Jackson said.

The proposal involves a fourth division of the NMFC created with Petoskey, Cadillac, Gaylord and Alpena joined by current league members Sault Ste. Marie and Cheboygan. That would all but reunite the old Big North Conference from the late 1990s when the league first formed — minus the Traverse City schools.

The other 18 teams would be divided primarily by enrollment into three other divisions of six squads each.

The departure of the Traverse City teams from the BNC has been rumored for years, and talks intensified as Central and West dominated the league in football the last six years.

"It was mutual," Carmien said. "We look at things like participation numbers and enrollment, and it wasn't a perfect fit anymore."

Thayer said he heard Central and West were "ousted" from the Big North.

"You can see in the Big North, competitively, it just wasn't a good matchup," Thayer said. "You're going to be hard pressed to find a better football schedule than what we'll offer in 2022. We've talked for quite some time about getting creative for the Traverse City schools to get involved."

Gaylord athletic director Christian Wilson said the Big North Conference made a change in its constitution during COVID-19 to allow teams to elect to not play another school because of their enrollment. The pandemic-caused break in competition gave administrators a real chance to take a step back and evaluate the situation. Part of that process was looking at if there was anything systematic within it that allowed Central and West to routinely dominate in football.

The constitution had not been changed in more than 20 years and much was outdated, Wilson said. One part detailed what visiting locker rooms had to look like, which apparently was an issue in the 1990s.

Wilson said he doesn't believe Gaylord will play Central or West next year. The Trojans and Titans can still choose to play nonconference games against former BNC schools, and Bryant said Cadillac head coach Cody Mallory wants to continue playing at least one of the TC schools each season.

Using Friday's 56-7 Trojans win against the Blue Devils as an example, Wilson said a lack of competition doesn't benefit either school.

"This may be the final season Traverse City Central and Traverse City West play the other four in football," Wilson said.

Since the league's inception 24 seasons ago in 1997 when Traverse City West split off from TC Central, either Central or West won the league 20 times. In 10 instances, the Trojans and Titans occupied the league's top two spots, including each of the last five years. In that five-year span, the two Traverse City schools haven't lost a game in league play against anyone else.

Cadillac won three outright titles, Gaylord two, and Petoskey one. Those schools shared the league crown three other times, always tied with a Traverse City team. In the BNC's 24-year history, West won a share or outright conference championship 11 times, with Central claiming another seven. The two schools combined for a 173-69 Big North mark (West 97-45; Central 76-45).

Since 2012, either Central or West ran the table in league play in all but two seasons (when Cadillac posted 6-0 marks in 2013 and 2014).

Cadillac Athletic Director Fred Bryant said the remaining BNC teams — Petoskey, Gaylord, Alpena and his school — inquired about joining the Northern Michigan Football Conference, but are waiting to hear back from NMFC superintendents about whether that application can move forward. Bryant said he hoped to hear something soon.

"I'm not worried about that," TC West football coach Greg Vaughan said when asked about the league switch. "It's not even on my mind. I'm playing 2021 and we've got (TC) Central (this) week."

Bryant said the Old Kent conference wasn't a realistic option and that the Central State Activities Association also wouldn't work out for the Vikings, Blue Devils, Wildcats and Petoskey because they are all too big.

"It's still in the works," Mallory said of the BNC breakup and NMFC possibility. "We're working on some stuff, but nothing's official and all that, so I don't want to say too much."

Carmien said the 2022 schedule hasn't been set, although the Titans' traditional season opener against Midland now becomes a league game that'll be played later in the season.

West and Central both must find foes for the first two weeks of the season. The SVL league schedule puts conference games in weeks three through nine, with teams able to find their own non-conference games or play divisional crossovers.

The SVL Red Division — where Central and West relocate — currently contains Midland, Midland Dow, Bay City Central, Bay City Western, Mount Pleasant, Saginaw High and Saginaw Heritage. The SVL Blue consists of Davison, Flint Carman-Ainsworth, Flint Powers, Grand Blanc, Lapeer and Saginaw Arthur Hill.

Saginaw High, which didn't field a football team this season for the first time since before 1950, and Arthur Hill are merging into one school next year to form a Saginaw United co-op football team as attendance plummeted in both schools in recent years. United and Saginaw Heritage move to the Blue Division in 2022, giving both divisions seven teams.

Thayer said Central and West's consistently high level of competition is attractive, as is the programs' stability in offering both junior varsity and freshmen teams. Thayer said several SVL teams have scrambled to find enough JV and freshmen contests.

Incoming TC Central Athletic Director Justin Thorington, who's at Saginaw Heritage until Wednesday, withheld comment last week when rumors began surfacing.

"TCAPS is honored for our Titan and Trojan football teams to enter into the Saginaw Valley conference," Smith said Tuesday. "The opportunity for new competition and partnerships will further develop the excellence of TC football while maintaining strong partnerships within the Big North for all other Titan and Trojan athletic programs. Next fall will definitely be an exciting season at Thirlby Field."

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