What does the future hold for the TAAC?

Press Contributing Writer
sports@presspublications.com

The last decade or so has featured plenty of movement among area teams from conference to conference. In 2011, for example, the Suburban Lakes League disbanded after nearly 40 years and six of its teams — Lake, Genoa, Otsego, Eastwood, Woodmore and Elmwood – joined Rossford and Fostoria to form the Northern Buckeye Conference. Next year, the NBC will welcome Oak Harbor and Maumee, while the Royals leave to join the Blanchard Valley Conference and the Wildcats will become members of the Sandusky Bay Conference River Division, where Gibsonburg resides.
The Three Rivers Athletic Conference will be in existence for just one more year as Clay, along with Whitmer, Fremont Ross and Findlay, will join the Northern Lakes League in 2023, giving it 11 teams. Central Catholic, St. Francis, St. John’s, Notre Dame Academy and St. Ursula will join the Catholic High School League in Detroit and Lima Senior will become a member of the City League and join Waite, giving the conference seven teams.
But what about Northwood and Cardinal Stritch?
Both teams are part of the Toledo Area Athletic Conference and face uncertain futures. The league currently has six full-time members – Northwood, Stritch, Emmanuel Christian, Maumee Valley Country Day, Ottawa Hills and Toledo Christian.
There are three teams located closer to Indiana – Edon, Hilltop and Montpelier – that are members of the conference for only football. The Eagles are participating in 8-man football and the Cardinals didn’t field a team this season.
There is a possibility of a merger with Michigan’s Tri-County Conference, which has seven teams located in the southeastern part of the state, all of which are similar in size to those of the TAAC. The conferences will play football games against one another starting next season.
“They (will be) filling fourth and fifth games (on their schedule) and we are filling out our third and fourth games (on our schedule) for football,” said TAAC commissioner Rick Kaifas. “We can’t come to any type of agreement right now as far as a merger for all sports.
“They’re still exploring (other) leagues in Michigan. It’s a good fit – the schools are similar sizes, there are no long trips, and I think it would benefit both of us,” he said. “We’re waiting to see what they come up with as they explore merging with other leagues in Michigan. It’s open-ended, we are exploring looking at Ohio conferences. We’re
trying to survive.
“One of the things about bigger conferences is you have easier access to schedule,” he said. “We will probably get back together in late November or early December. If the conferences did merge, in football, it would be 10 schools; they have a couple of 8-man football schools. Stritch doesn’t have football, so that knocked us down to five (11-man football schools). Hopefully Stritch will bounce back and have football in ‘23.”
In the last four seasons, the Cardinal went 18-18, so the potential for success is there, but the numbers were too low to field a team.
“It’s all conjecture on my part, but I sure hope (they field a team next year),” Kaifas said. “Remember when SMU got the death penalty in football and never really came back? I’m not sure if Stritch will be able to come back. They’re a major force in our league for all sports.”
Kaifas, who is known to many in the area for his 187-85 record as the head boys basketball coach at Whitmer, a run that included five Great Lakes League titles and one regional championship, talked about some of the other conferences and what the future holds for them.
“It’s going to be interesting what happens when the TRAC dissolves,” he said. “There’s going to be a disparity there between the big and the small schools. I think the NLL is going to have a six-team division and a five-team division.”
The TAAC did have an interest in possibly joining up with Swanton, Delta and Evergreen, who are located in eastern Fulton County and are part of the Northwest Ohio Athletic League.
“It doesn’t seem feasible right now,” said Kaifas. “They are the oldest league in the state of Ohio, and nobody seems to want to break away from it.”
The TAAC did have an agreement to merge with the City League – except for football and basketball – and competed against one another in 2019, but that all changed when COVID-19 took hold of the country in March 2020.
“It’s something we might explore again,” Kaifas said.