Monday, October 20, 2008

The Final Four

Grand Blanc becomes the latest high school to abandon the Big Nine Conference.

"The mass exodus from the conference began when Clio joined the Metro League in 2005-06. Swartz Creek left for the Metro in 2006-07, Owosso left for the Capital Area Activities Conference in 2007-08 and Kearsley left for the Metro this fall,"
reports Bill Kahn of The Flint Journal.



5 comments:

  1. I only followed the Genessee Wolves football games between 1978 and 1980 (Lived practically next door to the football field and was able to walk over and watch for free), so I can't say this matter much for me. But I do wonder whether some of the former Big 9 schools have lost a number of people and are thus no longer able to properly play at a "Class A" level.

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  2. Too bad. The Big 9 used to be a great conference in so many sports (football, boy's & girl's basketball, hockey, baseball, etc.)

    Kahn's article was correct. Clio and Creek left the beatings given by the Big 9 schools to go to a weaker conference only to become bottom feeders once again.

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  3. I have no idea what the conference situation is with Flint's public schools, but it would make sense to have Powers playing Northern, Central and Southwestern every year. Powers seems to be able to hold their own with bigger schools, even though they're down to less than 700 kids.

    And Clio and Swartz Creek were usually viewed as easy marks in the 80s at least.

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  4. Okay, I take that back. I just checked the standings and Powers is 2-5

    And the Saginaw Valley Conf, where the Flint schools play, already has 11 teams, most of them big schools.

    Maybe Powers would be better off playing the Lakeville's and Hamady's of the Genesee Conf.

    Or become a roving independent like Notre Dame, although that would be a scheduling nightmare for the athletic director.

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  5. I should mention that Northwestern (Class A) and Beecher (Class D) still have teams. Why not a Vehicle City League with Northern, Central, Northwestern, Southwestern, Powers and Beecher? They could fill out the schedule with some non-conference games with traditional opponents. Powers could play Flushing and Grand Blanc. And the public schools could play some of their old Saginaw Valley opponents.

    I'm giving this way too much thought.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.