Salem schools moving to NBC

SALEM - The 2010-11 school year will be the last for Salem High School sports programs in the All-American Conference. The Salem Board of Education voted Monday that starting in the Fall of 2011, Salem will become a member of the Northeastern Buckeye Conference (NBC).

Current members of the NBC are West Branch, Alliance, Minerva, Carrollton, Marlington, Louisville, Canton South and Canal Fulton Northwest. However, Northwest will be discontinuing their sports program at the end of the 2010-11 season, due to the failure to pass a levy, which would lead to the opening Salem will fill.

Salem currently is a member of the middle tier of the All-American Conference (AAC), a conference broke into three tiers featuring primarily schools from Mahoning and Trumbull County. Salem is the only conference member outside of those two counties.

According to Tom Bratten, superintendent of Salem City Schools, the questionable stability of the three-year-old league - with several schools already looking to withdraw - caused Salem to look for membership elsewhere. The other schools eventually remained in the AAC but the threat of a breakaway always remained.

"Basically we are really looking to give our students and coaches some stability with the league," Bratten said. "After what had happened last year with four teams leaving the league it left us high and dry. It forced the students to be in the Red (highest) Tier or to go independent."

When the Metro Athletic Conference closed in 2008, Salem looked into the NBC before deciding to join the AAC.

With the questionable future of Northwest, the NBC began looking for replacements. Both geographically and size-wise, Salem was a logical fit, and the NBC also served Salem's needs as a conference that provides them the stability they are looking for.

"When the NBC approached us, we rehashed it," Bratten recalled. "We had a meeting with all

the coaches and talked about it again. We asked if we were comfortable with the stability in the AAC. Do we feel like this league is going to be around for us? If we would stay and it happened again, and other teams left, those are our choices - to be in the Red Tier or independent. We feel it's the right move for the stability of our school, our media and our school district."

According to Bratten the coaches of Salem voted 12-2 in favor of joining the NBC. The move was also recommended by high school principal Joe Shivers, athletic director Greg Steffey and junior high principal Sean Kirkland.

The NBC released a statement Monday night accepting Salem as a new league member. In the statement, Joe Knoll, West Branch principal and NBC vice-president said, "We are fortunate to have a high quality school system like Salem City Schools that will be a perfect fit into the NBC."

The same concerns that Bratten had about the stability of the AAC were echoed by the coaches of Salem as well.

"For stability reasons, scheduling reasons, the move makes sense for us," girls basketball coach Jeff Andres said. "The AAC is only three years old and there's always a couple schools that are looking to or threatening to pull out. I think it's a good move, a smart move."

Boys basketball coach Will Klucinec is pleased with the opportunities the move will bring.

"The main concern was that we all look at what was best for the kids and the school in general," Klucinec said. "I think we made the right move. It was a win-win for basketball. Change was inevitable, growth is optional."

Some coaches, such as football coach Mike Kopachy, were taking more of a wait-and-see approach to the move.

"We elect board members to make good decisions for us, whether this is a good decision or not time will tell," Kopachy said. "The only thing I know is how to get my team ready and prepare my team for whoever they line up against us on Friday nights."

Kopachy did voice some of the concerns he had regarding Salem's status in the league in terms of enrollment and other issues.

"Our concern is that we'll be the smallest school in the league and that could cause problems from a numbers stand point," Kopachy said. "I like the current set up with the All-American Conference. These are schools I grew up playing against and I like coaching against Jeff Bayuk at Campbell and (Jeff) Whittaker at Liberty. The next couple of years will have a little different feel until we get used to new teams and develop new rivals."

Other coaches feel like the added flexibility in scheduling the NBC will offer will help them both keep old rivals and develop new ones.

For instance, the boys basketball team will only have 14 pre-set games on their schedule as opposed to the 18 they currently have.

"It gives us much more flexibility," Klucinec said. "We'll still be able to schedule Canfield and Poland and some of the schools we're used to and gives us a lot more options to do other things."

Andres sees the move as being a lateral one as his team will be moving from one power conference to another.

"The AAC and the NBC are almost comparable in terms of competitiveness," Andres said. "There are some big dogs here and there are some big dogs over there. We just look to continue the tradition we've built so far."

Sports Editor B.J. Lisko contributed to this report.