Merger still undecided

By Joe Warren

Nevada Daily Mail

With hopes of keeping the Southwest Conference alive, Nevada athletic director Kevin McKinley proposed a football-only merger with the schools of the Central Ozark Conference during a meeting of athletic directors in Willard Wednesday.

McKinley, talking on behalf of the SWC schools, asked the COC schools to consider a merger in football, while keeping all other sports and extra-curricular activities separate.

"The point I made is at least it's an incremental step to see if this is a good long-term option for everybody," McKinley said after the meeting.

The proposal had been agreed upon by the Southwest Conference ADs during a meeting Friday.

Wednesday's meeting, which consisted of ADs from both conferences, didn't generate any action. Instead, the COC schools decided to take the proposal back to their respective superintendents and school boards. McKinley said he anticipates another meeting in the next couple weeks to see if the proposal will generate any momentum.

"There was no future meeting set at this point in time," McKinley said. "I think there will be, it just wasn't set today."

The two conferences have been discussing a possible merger, with a new superconference beginning play in 2008-'09.

The original proposal had the 10-team COC and the 5-team SWC coming together, with Carl Junction (currently of the Big 8) joining to create a 16-team league.

If the merger were to take place, the conference would likely be split into two divisions based on enrollment. The larger schools would be in one division, with the smaller schools in another.

While there is still a proposal on the table calling for a complete merger, McKinley said the football-only superconference would be better because the main reason the SWC is even talking about changing is because Webb City is having trouble scheduling football games.

"To me this is the best of both worlds because Webb City and the COC schools get their football scheduling problems fixed, and we can keep everything else as is," he said. "If the conference works well we can see about the possibility of merging completely."

The COC schools have been looking for a change for a couple years. Some schools like Ozark, Nixa, Willard, Branson and Republic have looked into the possibility of joining the Ozark Conference.

"Something needs to happen in our league because there is a wide disparity in enrollments of our schools," Ozark AD Phil Montgomery said before Wednesday's meeting.

"The bottom line is you've got two small schools at one end and at the top you've got two big schools in Nixa and Ozark," Republic AD Greg Garton said. "You've basically got to change because the small schools are having trouble competing with the big schools."

Buffalo is the smallest school in the COC with an enrollment of 588. Logan-Rogersville is right there with them at 589. Meanwhile, Ozark (1,312 students) and Nixa (1,277) are not only twice that size, they are growing rapidly every year.

Buffalo athletic director Brad Roweton said a change has to occur because they can't compete.

"Every school deserves a chance to compete on a given night," Roweton said. "We can't remain in a situation where our kids are going against a school 2 1/2 times our size, twice a year."

The talk of adding the Southwest Conference schools came about recently when Webb City expressed its need to move to a bigger league because of scheduling problems.

There was some hope within the SWC that if Webb City left, they could simply replace them with Carl Junction.

However, McKinley said he doesn't think Carl Junction will be a part of any new conference.

"I don't think Carl Junction is interested in leaving the Big 8 for the Southwest Conference or the COC," McKinley said. "They haven't been at any of the meetings the past two weeks, so what does that tell you?"

Calls to Carl Junction seeking comment have not been returned.

There is also the possibility that Carthage will decide to leave if Webb City goes, meaning McDonald County, Neosho and Nevada would be left to fend for themselves. That's why the SWC-COC merger is getting so much play.

Without Carl Junction, that would leave 15 teams potentially in a new, expanded version of the COC.

"The one fear that ADs have is going independent, because you simply can't schedule games," McKinley said.

The direction the COC schools will choose is still unclear.

"My gut feeling is that we'll either come together with the Southwest Conference or we will stay as is," Montgomery said.

Garton said Republic would prefer to leave the conference as is, and if the smaller schools need to leave, so be it.

"My gut instinct is it's (the merger) not going to work," Garton said.

"What I think is going to happen is we're going to leave it as is and we're going to say 'get on board or get out.'"

That wouldn't work for Buffalo.

"We need a change," Roweton said. "If they come out saying we're not going to change, I'm not sure what will happen."