Mike Donnelly, the athletic director and head football coach at Clay High School, didn't want to say goodbye to the City League next year, but he and the rest of the Eagles' coaches had no choice.

In late June, the Toledo Public Schools Board of Education addressed its $39 million budget deficit by eliminating cross country, golf, wrestling, boys tennis and hockey at the high school level as well as all freshman and junior high sports programs for the 2010-11 school year.

The six TPS schools - Waite, Bowsher, Rogers, Scott, Start and Woodward - were affected by the cutbacks. On May 25, the school board also decided to close Libbey High School following the failure of a TPS tax levy.

Not long after the TPS cuts were announced, the rest of the CL schools – Clay, St. Francis de Sales, St. John's Jesuit, Central Catholic, Notre Dame Academy, St. Ursula Academy and Whitmer – decided to join forces with Greater Buckeye Conference rivals Fremont Ross, Findlay and Lima Senior to form a new conference.

The Three Rivers Athletic Conference will begin play in 2011-12.

“As an athletic director, I'm going to miss the relationships with my fellow ADs from the City League,” Donnelly said. “They are a great group who have their kids' best interests in mind. At the same time, I am excited about joining one of the premier conferences in the state of Ohio. We will benefit both competitively and financially.

“I think this will benefit our entire program. We will have a stable league to participate in from ninth grade through varsity. It will be nice not having to rotate league schedules every two years. This will force us to make a better commitment in the offseason.”

Top to bottom, the TRAC will be a stronger conference than the CL. For example, in football the seven TPS schools (including Libbey) have made four state playoff appearances while the future TRAC schools have made 62 playoff appearances. St. Francis (2001, 1984), Central Catholic (2005) and Lima Senior (1996) have all won state championships.

“I was in favor of this move,” Donnelly said. “By moving to this conference, we are protecting our students' opportunities to compete for league championships in all sports at all levels.”

Clay has made the state playoffs in football just once (2004) but has been competitive in several varsity sports since leaving the Great Lakes League for the CL in 2003. The Eagles' baseball, softball and wrestling teams have won CL titles over the past several years, but they have never won a CL championship in the revenue sports – football and boys and girls basketball.

Donnelly said Clay can be “as competitive as we decide to be” when it begins competing in the TRAC.

“Our community, parents and players will decide our fate,” he said. “We can decide to make a commitment to be as good as we can possibly be, or we can take the 'life is not fair' approach. If we make that commitment, there is no reason why our programs shouldn't be successful against all the schools in the new league.”

Solid competition
Clay baseball coach Garry Isbell, who has been with the program for nine years, said the Eagles will face better competition on a weekly basis in the TRAC.

“In the City League we had the three parochial schools, us, Whitmer, Start and Bowsher, so you had six or seven solid (baseball) teams every year,” he said. “Now there are going to be eight solid teams, or two extra solid games we're going to have every year. It's going to be competitive from top to bottom. It's kind of like the Northern Lakes League in baseball. I don't think there's a weak game from top to bottom. I think it's going to be the same for us in the TRAC.”

Isbell added that he would like to continue playing against TPS teams in the future.

“I've enjoyed playing every single team,” he said. “The camaraderie with the coaches is phenomenal. Those are guys we're going to miss seeing if we don't play them. If we have an opportunity to play them, we're definitely going to take advantage of that.”

Rob Belegrin, who will begin his second season as the Eagles' boys basketball coach this year, said competing in the TRAC will be a challenge. Belegrin, a 1990 Clay grad who played basketball and baseball in high school, is also in his 13th season as the Eagles' boys golf coach.

“From a basketball point of view, this is another challenge,” he said. “This league is every bit as strong as the City League was. The fun thing about playing in a new league is the crowds we'll be playing in front of every night. It's one town against the next and it has the feel of the old GLL against City League competition. There are going to be fannies in the seats. That's good for the kids. They will remember their high school experience better by going to gyms that are raucous with people.

“The revenues will be an added bonus,” Belegrin added. “The travel will be something to get used to. We went to Lima Shawnee last year and we've scrimmaged Lima Senior in basketball the last three or four years at their place. It's a good two hours but it's a beautiful high school and it's got a nice, big gym.”

Waite Athletic Director Bob Utter said he and Donnelly have talked about maintaining an athletic rivalry between the Indians and Eagles after this season.

“No matter what league we're in, we would always make sure we would play Clay in football somewhere - and in all the other sports, too,” Utter said. “We'll try to do what we can.”

Waite, meanwhile, heads into the 2010-11 school year without boys and girls golf and cross country, wrestling and boys tennis. All freshman and junior high sports have also been eliminated, leaving the Indians' athletes to question whether to remain at Waite or transfer to another school.

“I won't know until school starts as far as the number of kids we will have,” Utter said. “Canceling freshman sports and junior high sports has the potential to be a huge loss. If kids want to wrestle, I suppose parents will do whatever they have to do to get their kids into a different school. I'm guessing on that. We'll have to wait and see.”

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