USA-365.com Commentary re: LAC...

Go Where You Want To Go

A special USA-365 supplement by Mark Smith

5-16-2005

LOWELL (5-16-2005) - When Lowell had their fairly well publicized financial shortfall this month, many who could, stepped up to help out with dollars. Of the $50,000 lost from the Red Devil Booster Club, over $10,000 has been made up through donations from the community and faculty. There's a long way to go before the athletic department, which counted on funds they thought they had, is out of its cash flow crisis. But some heavy hitters have stepped up to the plate.

Now the identities of the donors might not be for public consumption, but, to my knowledge, no one from any of the other schools in the Lake Athletic Conference (LAC) has offered to chip in a few thousand dollars to aid Lowell athletics in their time of long green need.

That makes some of the comments concerning the breakup of the LAC somewhat disingenuous. Representatives of the Hammond public high schools have been very public about how they feel that the Munsters, Highlands and Lowells are abandoning them by agreeing this spring to form a seven team conference (with KV, Griffith, Andrean and Hobart) beginning in the fall of 2007. Words like loyalty and friendship have been tossed around with bad intentions. Sounds funny to me.

Using that logic, if the Hammond schools were loyal to Lowell and friends with Lowell, there's got to be a check for $10,000 on the way, at the very least, as a loan, until the Devil Boosters, athletic director Don Bales and his department can get out of the red ink. Bales is the longest standing AD in this area. Well renowned and trusted. He's always worked for the good of high school athletics. But I guess friendship only goes so far because nobody's contacted Lowell to agree to bail them out with bucks.

Why? I would guess because the Hammond schools, coaches and administrators don't have the money to give or loan Lowell, no matter how badly Lowell athletics needs it right now.

It's not about friendship or loyalty, its about the money. It's all about the Benjamins.

It's odd to hear Hammond people referring to Lowell as a 'rich' or 'big' school. A 'have' instead of a 'have not.' Lowell football, their only significant revenue sport right now, has been good for only about 12 years. Before that, they had losing records for 25 years. What changed? The old Lake Suburban Conference, with Lowell, Lake Central, Munster and Highland and Griffith broke up. Lowell went off to play smaller schools in the Northwest Hoosier Conference (NWHC). Combine that with a new young coach with a new attitude in Kirk Kennedy and a big running back named Michael Pickett and Lowell football started filling the stands at a school that was a basketball power under coach Steve Leonard previous to that time.

In the late 90s, the NWHC broke up and Lowell moved to what is now the LAC with the same Griffiths and Munsters and Highlands that were beating them in the 70s and 80s. But this time, Lowell was a major player. The Devils won more than their share, a situation that has continued to the present day. There are other factors involved but the bottom line is, the move to a smaller league was an absolute Godsend for Lowell. They built up their program, built up their fan base and came back to rock and roll without asking for a handout like an underprivileged child.

So Hammond schools, here's what you do. First of all, just shut up. You may still want to schedule those former LAC schools you are badmouthing in nonconference events. The bank doesn't care if those Hobart dollars came from league or non league games. Stop burning bridges. Schedule each other twice and build up the inner city rivalries. Or form a two division set up where Clark, Gavit, Hammond and Morton are in the 'Western Division' while West Side, Roosevelt, Wirt and Lew Wallace are in the 'Eastern' Division. Everybody gets seven football games against opponents that, on a good night, they can beat. Nobody's getting whipped 56-6 by those mean old boys from Lowell.

Crowds won't be big at first but when someone like Morton starts to win titles, the kids and parents will reappear in the stands. Everybody loves a winner. Plus, home and home series, despite what some say, build up the gate. Morton people care more about beating Hammond than they do about beating Munster, which they can't do anyway. Then in about 2010, when the Hammond and Gary schools consolidate, as they should have done by now, the one or two remaining Hammond schools will join the Griffiths, Lowells and Andreans in the next generation of what began as the old Lake Shore Conference.

And guess what? The new and bigger and improved Hammond high will compete and draw big fans and somebody somewhere will get credit for 'turning around the program.' And the sun will again set in the West.

And schools like Lake Station and Calumet, which have been getting beat like a dusty rug for years, will also rally. Playing each other and other small teams, schools like River Forest will come back to the winning side, filling the stands with moms and dads who will smile while their boys score touchdowns. No one will care that they're not beating Highland or Munster. Boys will play close competitive games in front of their friends and families at the smallest of schools and the sun will again rise in the east.

How do I know this will happen? Because it always has. I've been amazed at the weeping that's been going on about the Lake Athletic Conference. Leagues come and go. What goes around comes around. I don't remember Lowell crying when the Lake Suburban Conference broke up and Crown Point jumped to the Duneland Conference in 1992. Lowell, which was playing to half empty stands in the 60s and 80s, got CP back on the schedule in 1997 and now the Devils have won five of the last six meetings in front of sellout crowds.

Some people seem hurt because the LAC was their idea and it was a stupid idea. I can't relate. Only highly educated career brains can possibly be offended when they ran with what should obviously have been a stupid idea. The rest of us don't have so much ego we can't admit a glaring error.

The LAC was an idea that should have been born dead. There was no division of a 16-team (or 12-team) LAC where Lake Station and Whiting were going to compete, much less win consistently. And, of course, those schools will not have freshman teams to compete with those of Munster and Griffith. And this shuffling of teams from the black (strong) to the blue (weak) divisions was pathetic and insulting to the 'blue' teams. Everybody knew that or should have.

So when Hammond played football at Lowell, there were 2,000 people from Lowell in the stands and 25 people from Hammond. When Lowell played at Morton in state playoff games, there were 500 people in the visitors' stands and 50 people in the home stands. 600 people followed Lowell to road games at Lake Station. Sixteen people followed Lake Station to Lowell the next season.

The truth is that Lowell, Griffith and Munster football has been dropping cash money donations on the Hammond schools every football season for the past 10 years and the Hammond schools have not reciprocated when they visited the football powers. Andrean parents have tossed $4 into the kitty at Hammond and Morton every other year during football season while Hammond parents couldn't find 5959 Broadway with a search party. When finances are tight (and they were before the Booster Club scandal) how can Lowell justify playing Hammond and making $550 at the football box office when they can schedule somebody like Kankakee Valley and make $5,500? A financial analyst would have told Lowell to dump the zeros and play some heroes years ago.

Lowell, Andrean, Munster and Griffith have been holding semi-annual fund-raisers for the Hammond schools on Friday football nights in the fall for 10 years and both sides know it. Anyone who says any different is probably still looking for WMDs.

Hammond and Gary schools are not facing a reality that is far larger than sports. The population has moved south and you cannot have four schools in Hammond and Gary any more. That's the problem of athletics AND education in those two towns. For years, Crown Point had pitiful facilities. They badly needed a new school and they had to fight many in their own community to get it. Now, it's time for Hammond and Gary to do the same. Who built the last new school building in north Lake County? East Chicago in the mid-80s? Please. 'Happy Days' was still on TV. How about skimming some of that casino money away from buying Chevy Novas for the police department and put some real dollars into a school building fund?

Maybe if Hammond consolidated Gavit and Hammond high into building a new $64 million dollar high school like Crown Point eventually did, the enrollment would stop dropping, kids would get educated better (don't lie and say money and facilities have nothing to do with it), athletics would improve to the point where Andrean would be begging to play them.

A school's number one athletic priority is its own athletes and facilities. And when it starts to rain, nobody from any other school is going to come running with an umbrella. Like it or not, it's time for Hammond athletics to carry their own water and stop depending on the kindness of strangers. And, now they can.

This now-certain split into three leagues is very similar to the three division LAC concept that some of us have been hinting at for the last few years. The breakup of the LAC is, in the long run, the absolute best thing that could have happened to each and every school involved. Lake Station is going to look back on the LAC breakup and smile like it was Christmas Day.

The only reason to have a conference is to align yourself with 'like' schools for purposes of scheduling, competitive balance and mutual benefit. It's a marriage and when it isn't working, you kick the 'significant other' to the curb. That's the way it's always going to be. And when she's up in the suite and you're down on the street, you can cry about it for two years before you get up and move on or you can get up and move on right away.

If you're Ben Affleck and J-Lo dumps you, you can pick yourself up and make another bad movie or you can go grab Jennifer Garner (and make another bad movie with her). Some thing like, “When God gives one side steak and one side hamburger, if you're on the ground beef side of town, try selling Sloppy Joes. So, go where you want to go and blow off everybody who doesn't like it.