NEW GLARUS — Homecoming will be a bit bittersweet in America’s Little Switzerland this weekend. After more than 40 years, the New Glarus-Monticello football co-op will discontinue, beginning with the 2024 season. The program had a WIAA-imposed Oct. 1 deadline to either renew or dissolve the co-op for the 2024-25 seasons.
“Coming to this decision was not easy. There were many pieces to consider and there are no assurances or guarantees in choosing either path — only greater and lesser probabilities,” said Mitchell Cernek, New Glarus Athletic Director. “However, after much research and reflection, we do believe this is the best option for New Glarus going forward.”
Discussions on actually dissolving the partnership began months ago, and picked up steam as the fall season got underway. One of the leading components was simply a lack of overall numbers in the program — specifically the drop in players coming from Monticello. On September 26, Cernek presented the New Glarus school board with a power point presentation, and later that evening it was decided to cease the partnership.
“We heard it mentioned in July, and made a pitch to New Glarus administration and board to keep it going,” said Monticello athletic director Carolyn Schwartzlow, mentioning longstanding traditions one of the main reasons.
What entails for the future? New Glarus will remain an 11-player program. Monticello will have to decide if they will join another program as a co-op or potentially create their own 8-player team in order to avoid a shuttering the sport for a year or two.
“We have worked to communicate with Monticello administration throughout this process, to keep them informed on our research and our plans, understanding they would be greatly affected by the direction we chose for the future of the program,” Cernek said. “While it would not be easy, Monticello would still have options for offering high school football for 2024 and 2025. An example would be the new Southwestern-East Dubuque co-op formation out-of-sync with the WIAA’s timeline for 2022 and 2023.”
The change in the football cooperative will not change any of the other co-ops the two schools have, which include cross country and softball. The schools are planning to continue those partnerships, as well as the NGM youth football program.
“We are grateful to have worked together in our football co-op with Monticello for 40-plus years, and we ultimately want to see both programs provide a safe and positive football experience for students in the future, after the programs are officially divided following the 2023 season,” Cernek said. “We will plan to work with Monticello in any way we can to help them either transition into a new co-op or start their own 8-player program for 2024 and 2025.”
A long history together
The two schools joined first forces on the gridiron in 1983. New Glarus was in need of added players, and the opportunity made sense to Monticello. Over the last 40 years, players of multiple generations played in the program — with several father-son duos along the way.
“I played with the co-op in the 1990s,” current head football coach DJ Schuett said. His son, Darris, recently graduated from the team in 2021, and is an assistant coach for the team. “There used to be more Monticello kids that were in the program and contributed.”
In 1995, NGM left the Trailways Conference for the Capitol South, along with Belleville.
That placement continued through 2019, when the WIAA rearranged conferences across the state to better stabilize enrollment issues. The WIAA readjusts conference placement every two years now to promote competitive equity. For example, a school that’s enrollment jumps from 300 students one year to 600 two years later will likely shift to a league of larger schools. The adjustments happen as well for when a cooperative is created, dissolved or moves between 11-player and 8-player options.
For 2020 and 2021, New Glarus was moved to the Southwest Wisconsin Conference, though the 2020 season was played under the alternate-fall SWAL/SWC option due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2022, the enrollment size of the Knights led to a return to the Capitol, however, the Capitol is the same in name only. Of the seven other schools in the league, none belonged to the old Capitol South of 2019, which had included Wisconsin Heights, Waterloo, Marshall, Cambridge and Belleville. This year the league includes Columbus, Madison Edgewood, Lake Mills, Lakeside Lutheran, Lodi, Beloit Turner and Big Foot — all with larger enrollments than NGM. Five of those seven teams have spent time in the Top 10 rankings this season.
“There is going to be 1-2 teams from our conference that misses out on the playoffs just because all those good teams are in our conference,” DJ Schuett said. “From my standpoint, when the WIAA went with their realignments based on enrollments, that really backed us into a corner. All the old Capitol South teams are gone now.”
The alignment in the Capitol will continue for 2023, as will the NGM cooperative. However, by splitting, New Glarus is likely to be moved for the 2024 season, whether it be back to the SWC, or joining another conference like the SWAL or Eastern Suburban.
Concerns with participation numbers
As a co-op, NGM has a combined enrollment of 426, with 323 coming from New Glarus and 103 from Monticello. The NGM number is up 10 from the 2021-22 school year, while Monticello is down 7. The change over the previous five years has NGM up 27.7%, with Monticello down 3.7%.
Participation numbers at NGM are down as well. In 2016 there were 63 players in the program — 47 from New Glarus, 16 from Monticello. While New Glarus’s participants went both up and down, Monticello’s has declined each year. In both 2021 and 2022, the football team fielded 41 players from New Glarus, and just seven from Monticello — a total participation of just 48.
Worse yet, most of those players are underclassmen. The Glarner Knights have 18 players this season that are either a junior or senior, with many missing games due to injury. That means nearly 30 freshmen or sophomores have to line up against full-size seniors from powerhouse programs — some of those players headed out to play college football in a year.
“Each week, we look at the rosters of the other team. Big Foot has something like 18 seniors and 17 juniors. I look at it like, ‘Is it a safety issue?” Schuett said of his homecoming opponent, which is 1-5 on the season and 0-4 in league play. “You can’t compete on paper, but if you could, we’d be able to compete a lot better in the SWC. They are closer to our size.”
To continue against top-tier programs in the Capitol, like public school stalwarts Lodi, Lake Mills and Columbus, plus private schools Edgewood and Lakeside Lutheran, which draw in student-athletes from more than 50 miles away, is unsustainable, Cernek said.
“The Capitol today is made up of schools and football programs that we are not built to compete against. We simply cannot match the resources that schools like Edgewood, Lakeside Lutheran and others have to offer,” Cernek said. That includes strength training facilities, practice facilities, training staff and other things.
Big Foot spent $7.8 million in 2019 on a referendum to build two turf football fields — one for games and a second for practice. Edgewood has premier facilities, like a turf field and updated weight lifting facilities. The school was the Wisconsin Sports Network Cup Winner in 2021-22, the third year in a row for a “small” school. It’s the ninth time it has been awarded since 2000. Lakeside Lutheran has 77 participants out for football across three levels this year
“Lake Mills has a production company filming a documentary title ‘A Season with the L-Cats’, which is showcasing the program’s journey throughout this season, and their impressive weight training facilities, athletic training staff and turf football field,” Cernek said.
Cernek added that while wins are not the highest priority for the rebuilding team, the success or failure from one year to the next does impact participation numbers. If those numbers get to low, between total participation or injuries, either JV or varsity games could face the option of forfeiting in order to keep players healthy. “In either case, it would be damaging to the program,” Cernek said. “The effects of playing in the Capitol Conference for an additional two years (2024-25) could have lasting damaging effects to the program.”
Among those concerns include potential injuries to student-athletes, as underclassmen are forced to play varsity, and against teams with superior size, strength and talent. A majority of the teams in the Capitol comfortably offer varsity, JV and JV2 team options. NGM, with just 48 players, can only offer two and asks many players to dress for both games each week.
Coming to a decision and looking ahead
Over the past eight weeks, since the start of fall camp, the New Glarus administration has done extensive research looking for answers to various questions, like could the co-op continue but be moved to another conference?
Among those the administration talked to were the chairman of the WIAA Realignment Task Force Committee, the Chairman of the WIAA Board of Control, WIAA directors and staff, conference commissioners of the Six Rivers, SWC, South Central, Rock Valley and Capitol, and veteran athletic directors from around the state.
“Through these conversations, phone calls and emails, we learned that we needed to declare our plans prior to Oct. 1 before applying to move to a new football-only conference. The two greatest factors that dictate football-only placement are enrollment and location. It would be very difficult for the football-only Realignment Task Force Committee to keep New Glarus alone in the Capitol Conference for 2024 and 2025, while NGM together would have an uphill battle to move conferences,” Cernek said.
Monticello was left in a tight spot with a short deadline to come up with a solution. Schwartzlow said she reached out to schools across the region, and all were understanding of her plight. However, those same schools also would be left in the same situation as New Glarus, where the extra 100-student enrollment of Monticello could bump them up a division or to a tougher conference. Plus, she said, driving 45 minutes every day for practice didn’t make much sense either.
The solution? Schwartzlow said she is proposing to the Monticello school board at their October meeting that the Ponies move to 8-player football beginning in 2024. She talked with several other regional schools that have made the switch, like Orangeville in northern Illinois and Belmont in western Lafayette County among others.
“We’ve gotten great feedback from schools that moved to 8-player. The game is a little bit safer and interest is up. Many schools have grown their participation numbers,” she said, adding that if the Ponies went that route, the Ridge and Valley Conference is a likely destination.
Should Monticello go the route of 8-player football, the Ponies would need a new coaching staff, though New Glarus would help share equipment.
If the Monticello board doesn’t choose to go the 8-player route, Schwartzlow said the only other option is to not offer the sport until after 2025.
And in the end, the WIAA’s conference realignments this term could have more moving parts than just two or three regional teams shifting around. Iowa-Grant, Highland and Potosi-Cassville have been said to be pondering going the 8-player route, which would free up spots in multiple southwestern Wisconsin conferences, including the Six Rivers.
“I think the landscape in the southwestern realignment part of the state will change quite a bit as moves to 8-player and new co-ops continue,” Schuett said.
