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When Gary Quisno was hired to take over the Oak Harbor football program in 1979, his goals were to win Suburban Lakes League championships and get the Rockets into the state playoffs.
By the time he left Oak Harbor, following the 2007 season, Quisno had put together a 224-83 record and guided the Rockets to eight state playoff appearances. None of those playoff appearances occurred when the Rockets were a member of the SLL, despite their success in that league.
Oak Harbor took second in the SLL in 1980 and '83 and tied for the league title in 1981. The Rockets won the SLL title outright in 1982 and '84 and tied for second in '85.
Quisno's program, however, was never able to muster enough computer points to qualify for the playoffs. Something needed to be done.
“In 1984, we went 10-0 and didn't make the playoffs,” Quisno said. “There were openings in the Sandusky Bay Conference after Tiffin Calvert and Fremont St. Joe left (for the Midland Athletic League). We were one of the bigger schools in the SLL and we thought we were going to keep getting bigger because of Davis-Besse.
“Football-wise, there were a couple of real good teams at the top of the SLL, but the teams at the bottom weren't real competitive year in and year out. Some of the schools didn't field seventh and eighth grade or freshman or jayvee football and it wasn't easy to fill out schedule all the time, so we went to a conference that could field all those teams.”
Oak Harbor had left the SBC to join the newly-formed SLL in 1972, and the school re-joined the SBC beginning with the 1986-87 school year. Oak Harbor's decision to leave the SLL irked many members of the SLL community.
Steve Stoller, who coached Eastwood's boys basketball team from 1983-2006, recalled being “disappointed” that the Rockets were leaving the SLL. Northwood joined the SBC in 1986.
“Oak Harbor was a good program, especially in basketball and football,” Stoller said. “You hated to see them leave. The SLL lost some strength when they left. Eastwood was the biggest of the small schools, and when you take Oak Harbor out and put Northwood in – nothing against Northwood – but that didn't help us make the playoffs, either. Our league just didn't get you the points for football.”
Bill Hubans was the athletic director at Oak Harbor at the time and was the man who hired Quisno. Hubans served as an assistant coach on Quisno's staff for 28 years, and he was also the Rockets' head coach from 1974-76.
Hubans said he knew that in order for the football program to gain enough computer points to reach the playoffs, the Rockets would have to play in a conference with bigger schools. The SBC was a perfect fit.
“We hated to leave the SLL,” Hubans said. “We had a great relationship with all the schools in the SLL. We had to get in a bigger league, not a better league, and we had perfect timing. We weren't just finding this new league, we were just going back to the league we had already been in that had grown.”
Hubans said Oak Harbor's coaches, including those such as cross country, baseball and softball, did not have a problem moving to the SBC.
“Some of those smaller SLL schools weren't fielding entire freshman and jayvee teams,” Hubans said. “Many times our jayvee and freshman (events) weren't scheduled because of numbers.”
The SLL also took a financial hit when Oak Harbor left the league.
“When we came to town, we brought a lot of people,” Hubans said. “We were everybody's biggest game. If it was a big game in the SLL, it was a full stadium. Consequently, there was a lot of money to be made. It wasn't a matter of me trying to take money out of people's pockets, I was trying to be fair to our kids. We simply decided to make that decision for one reason, to get into the playoffs.”
One downside to leaving the SLL was losing rivalry games against Genoa and Eastwood.
The Rockets and Comets, who had played for the Celestial Ball trophy for years, did not play each other from 1986 to 1992. Oak Harbor then beat Genoa in 13 of the next 15 meetings after the rivalry resumed in 1993.
“The SBC was a good move for us,” Quisno said. “It raised our level of play. From seventh grade on up, we were playing better competition week in and week out. The SLL, the teams at the top, there wasn't a whole lot of difference. But the bottom teams, there were more competitive teams in the SBC than in the SLL.”
The Rockets qualified for the state playoffs - for the first time in school history – in 1994. When they finally got in, the ball really started rolling. Oak Harbor made the playoffs in 1995, '96, '99, 2001, '02, '06 and '07 and twice reached the Division IV state semifinals.
It should be noted that prior to 1985, the Ohio High School Athletic Association's football playoff format included only 40 qualifying teams. The format was expanded to 80 teams in 1985, then to 96 teams in 1994 and then to 192 teams in 1999.
“We always felt the SLL was a very good league,” Hubans said, “but the problem we felt was it had a number of schools that were only at the Division IV and Division V level. We were in Division III and IV all the time. The SLL was at the Division IV and V level and not worth enough (computer) points. That's why we decided to get in a league that had more schools our size.”
Only one SLL team has ever reached the state championship game in football. Otsego lost to Nelsonville-York in the 1981 D-IV state finals.
By contrast, six current or former SBC teams – Clyde (1994, '95), Tiffin Calvert, Margaretta (1986), Perkins, Sandusky St. Mary (1990) and Fremont St. Joe (1974) - have played in the state championship game.
Calvert won back-to-back state titles in 1980 and '81, while Clyde was a state champ in 1995 and Perkins won a title in 1999. Perkins beat Oak Harbor in the semifinal game on its way to the D-IV title.
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