The Final World – Conference Efforts Make Sense

by Diane Lowrey
R-T Editor
Trenton’s efforts to affiliate itself with an athletic conference remain up in the air, although a decision as to where the school could land could come as early as February.
For the past several years, Trenton has been working to get itself back into a conference after leaving the MEC in the late 1980s. Meetings have been held with officials from several conferences, including the Missouri River Valley and KCI conferences, however, none have produced much success. With changes coming in the Grand River Conference over the next few years, Trenton’s best chances may be just “up the road.”
The GRC membership is changing, with some of its smaller school members opting to go to an eight-man football schedule. This leaves other GRC members such as South Harrison, Princeton, Gallatin and Maysville with holes to fill in their 11-man football schedule. One of the options being considered by the GRC is to form a two-division conference, made up of smaller schools on one side and larger schools on the other. This would allow for additional schools to come into the conference to help fill in those gaps on both sides as well as provide scheduling options when it comes to basketball and other sports the conference will offer.
There are a lot of arguments that could be made – pro and con – regarding the addition of Trenton into the GRC. School size is probably the biggest debate at the moment, although when you look at actual participation numbers, Trenton’s are about the same as other schools (less in some cases). However, with Trenton already playing many of the GRC schools in both football and basketball, it makes sense fo Trenton to look at becoming part of any newly-formed conference that might come about. Other schools Trenton has played in the past have also been suggested as possible new GRC members, so including Trenton would seem to me to be something that should be seriously considered by the other conference schools. Because of district assignments already made by the state, any changes that would come with the conference could not take place before the 2016-17 school year.
Trenton has already made application for membership and a decision is anticipated some time next month. Let’s hope that decision lands in the favor of Trenton and we can once again call ourselves conference members.