Iowa High School BEDS count 24-25

CloneJD

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2020
1,270
1,986
113
Shenandoah has been invited to the Western Iowa conference. Probably a better fit. They are just overmatched playing bigger Hawkeye ten schools.
Looks like Rolling Hills invited IKM and Audubon and the Western Conference just invited TEN schools including Shenandoah.
 
  • Like
Reactions: heitclone

JEFF420

Not on weed
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 6, 2014
1,640
2,343
113
35
Looks like Rolling Hills invited IKM and Audubon and the Western Conference just invited TEN schools including Shenandoah.
dang, you got a list? I'm from a school now in WIC... was Boyer Valley when I was around... its interesting how some of these areas have changed in class and whatnot... Underwood will probably be in the hawkeye 10 soon no?
 
  • Like
Reactions: heitclone

Kinch

Well-Known Member
Sep 19, 2021
5,740
5,845
113
Honestly, the fairest system, while not perfect its probably more fair and less political than the current conference system would be to move all sports to the District system that Football uses. And really the transition would not be that difficult since they already do it every couple years for Football, just make that the same district for all sports.

In some cases though this does lead to more travel etc because getting the number of schools the same size in certain areas and classes sometimes means more distance between them. In reality though no system is going to be perfect, but to at least get the schools to play similar sized competition etc it really is probably the only way to do it.
I get what you are saying, but I don’t think either association has the stomach to take in that project.
 

heitclone

Well-Known Member
Jun 21, 2009
16,577
14,339
113
45
Way up there
  • Like
Reactions: JEFF420

heitclone

Well-Known Member
Jun 21, 2009
16,577
14,339
113
45
Way up there
Looks like Rolling Hills invited IKM and Audubon and the Western Conference just invited TEN schools including Shenandoah.
This would make for a really big conference geographically. Makes you wonder what other moves might be happening besides the rolling hills moves or why they would cast such a large net. Underwood and Treynor play Hawkeye ten schools in most sports they'd be small but more competitive than red oak and shen. Idk who else would be going anywhere
 

1SEIACLONE

Well-Known Member
Jun 2, 2024
2,489
2,334
113
63
Ames Iowa
Honestly, the fairest system, while not perfect its probably more fair and less political than the current conference system would be to move all sports to the District system that Football uses. And really the transition would not be that difficult since they already do it every couple years for Football, just make that the same district for all sports.

In some cases though this does lead to more travel etc because getting the number of schools the same size in certain areas and classes sometimes means more distance between them. In reality though no system is going to be perfect, but to at least get the schools to play similar sized competition etc it really is probably the only way to do it.
The problem with going to the total district scheduling is the travel for these games during the middle of the week would be crazy. It's bad enough they are doing it on Friday nights, but can you imagine the distance when they are doing it on a Tuesday night game. Plus it destroys a lot of rivalry games that have been played for decades in some situations.
It's doable, but only if the state would come up with a system that allows the schools close together to play during the mid week, and then save the further apart schools for Friday and Saturday night.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: SaraV

mkadl

Well-Known Member
Mar 17, 2006
2,109
909
113
Cornfield
Does anyplace have historic conference member listings? It'd be interesting to see who we played way back vs now.

1960s

Midwest Conference;
Perry
Denison
Harlan
Audubon
Lake City
Carroll
Sac City
Any I missed??

Hawkeye 7 Conference

Atlantic
Red Oak
Shenendoah
Clarinda
Glenwood
Creston
Lewis Central

Wikipedia below
In 1930, Creston approached Little Ten Conference members Atlantic, Clarinda, Red Oak, Shenandoah, and Villisca about breaking away from the conference to create their own league. The conference at the time consisted of those schools plus Bedford, Corning, Glenwood, and Sidney. During a meeting in Villisca on February 15, 1930, the schools decided to make it official. Soon after, The Little Six named was changed to the Hawkeye Six.

The 1930 track meet at Red Oak was the first official event, with Shenandoah claiming the first title in league history. Creston and Red Oak would tie for the football conference championship in the fall of '30.

In 1946 the conference went through their first phase of expansion when Corning was admitted, making the conference the Hawkeye Seven. Glenwood would follow in 1951, making it the Hawkeye Eight.

In 1962, Villisca withdrew from the conference to found the Tall Corn Conference, and Council Bluffs, Abraham Lincoln applied for membership, but was denied. Harlan would be invited at this time, but turned down an invitation to stay in the Midwest Conference.

In the fall of 1963, Lewis Central applied for membership, but was denied. The same happened in 1966 when St. Albert's Catholic and Maryville, Missouri both applied for membership and were denied.

Moving forward to 1968, Corning announced they would be leaving the conference in 1970 for the Tall Corn Conference as well. Lewis Central was soon admitted in 1970, and Harlan the following year.
 

theshadow

Well-Known Member
Apr 19, 2006
19,895
19,548
113
IKM-Manning (136) and Audubon (113) are the two smallest Western Iowa Conference schools. They'd be at the top of Rolling Valley, with Woodbine (135).

Red Oak (220) and Shenandoah (231) would go from the smallest (public) Hawkeye Ten to the biggest WIC.

Not counting the above potential moves, the remaining WIC schools are all 150-195 BEDS. The net they've cast is 8 schools all in the 143-197 range, which seems to be a precise strategy.

If everybody changes places [Mad Hatter voice], then the WCAC would be down to 5 schools -- Woodward-Granger, I-35, Ogden, Madrid, and Pleasantville.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kinch

CloneJD

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2020
1,270
1,986
113
IKM-Manning (136) and Audubon (113) are the two smallest Western Iowa Conference schools. They'd be at the top of Rolling Valley, with Woodbine (135).

Red Oak (220) and Shenandoah (231) would go from the smallest (public) Hawkeye Ten to the biggest WIC.

Not counting the above potential moves, the remaining WIC schools are all 150-195 BEDS. The net they've cast is 8 schools all in the 143-197 range, which seems to be a precise strategy.

If everybody changes places [Mad Hatter voice], then the WCAC would be down to 5 schools -- Woodward-Granger, I-35, Ogden, Madrid, and Pleasantville.
Woodward has applied to Heart of Iowa. WCAC has Van Meter too. I heard the WCAC is ok just staying at 9-8 teams. Move to the WIC seems like a weird move.
 

mramseyISU

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2006
7,005
7,443
113
Waterloo, IA
Honestly, the fairest system, while not perfect its probably more fair and less political than the current conference system would be to move all sports to the District system that Football uses. And really the transition would not be that difficult since they already do it every couple years for Football, just make that the same district for all sports.

In some cases though this does lead to more travel etc because getting the number of schools the same size in certain areas and classes sometimes means more distance between them. In reality though no system is going to be perfect, but to at least get the schools to play similar sized competition etc it really is probably the only way to do it.
The fairest system would be to put a promotion and relegation system in place for classifications and build districts based on geography.
 

heitclone

Well-Known Member
Jun 21, 2009
16,577
14,339
113
45
Way up there
IKM-Manning (136) and Audubon (113) are the two smallest Western Iowa Conference schools. They'd be at the top of Rolling Valley, with Woodbine (135).

Red Oak (220) and Shenandoah (231) would go from the smallest (public) Hawkeye Ten to the biggest WIC.

Not counting the above potential moves, the remaining WIC schools are all 150-195 BEDS. The net they've cast is 8 schools all in the 143-197 range, which seems to be a precise strategy.

If everybody changes places [Mad Hatter voice], then the WCAC would be down to 5 schools -- Woodward-Granger, I-35, Ogden, Madrid, and Pleasantville.

WIC confirming your thoughts. Interesting they would like to be at 12, so if they lose IKM/Audubon, they'd really want to look at just adding 5 of those 10 they invited. Red Oak and Shen seem like a sure thing. That would only leave 3 more teams. Idk if it would be first come or how they would weed things out after that. Geography could get tricky.
 

BikeSkiClone

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2014
1,254
970
113
Does anyplace have historic conference member listings? It'd be interesting to see who we played way back vs now.

CIML History

When I was in school it looked like the list below and was a grind every year in every sport (at least in the Central division). The conference wrestling tournament was pretty much a 3A state tourney preview, other than a few studs from the MVC, Council Bluffs, and Sioux City areas. All 18 schools for a Friday afternoon bloodbath a week before districts (Friday, so officials could turn around and do 1A/2A sectionals on Saturday)

Central Division:
Indianola
Ankeny
SE Polk
Urbandale
Johnston
Dowling

Iowa Division:
WDM Valley
Ames
Fort Dodge
Mason City
Newton
Marshalltown (i think?)

Metro Division:
DSM North
DSM East
DSM Lincoln
DSM Roosevelt
DSM Hoover
Ottumwa
 
  • Useful
Reactions: drmwevr08

ISUTex

Well-Known Member
May 25, 2012
9,837
9,575
113
Rural U.S.A.
CIML History

When I was in school it looked like the list below and was a grind every year in every sport (at least in the Central division). The conference wrestling tournament was pretty much a 3A state tourney preview, other than a few studs from the MVC, Council Bluffs, and Sioux City areas. All 18 schools for a Friday afternoon bloodbath a week before districts (Friday, so officials could turn around and do 1A/2A sectionals on Saturday)

Central Division:
Indianola
Ankeny
SE Polk
Urbandale
Johnston
Dowling

Iowa Division:
WDM Valley
Ames
Fort Dodge
Mason City
Newton
Marshalltown (i think?)

Metro Division:
DSM North
DSM East
DSM Lincoln
DSM Roosevelt
DSM Hoover
Ottumwa

Back in the day it was the American and National Divisions. American was Dowling, Indianola, SE Polk, Hoover, East, Roosevelt, North and Lincoln. National was Valley, Ames, Urbandale, Ankeny, Mason City, Ft Dodge, Marshalltown and Newton.
 
  • Useful
Reactions: drmwevr08

Cyowa 14

THE Iowa State University Class of 2014
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Jan 26, 2019
1,107
1,641
113
33
IKM-Manning (136) and Audubon (113) are the two smallest Western Iowa Conference schools. They'd be at the top of Rolling Valley, with Woodbine (135).

Red Oak (220) and Shenandoah (231) would go from the smallest (public) Hawkeye Ten to the biggest WIC.

Not counting the above potential moves, the remaining WIC schools are all 150-195 BEDS. The net they've cast is 8 schools all in the 143-197 range, which seems to be a precise strategy.

If everybody changes places [Mad Hatter voice], then the WCAC would be down to 5 schools -- Woodward-Granger, I-35, Ogden, Madrid, and Pleasantville.
Not sure it makes much sense for any of the WCAC that got an invite to the WIC but definitely the one that makes zero sense is Earlham.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: dawgpound

Trice

Well-Known Member
Apr 1, 2010
7,308
12,164
113
Does anyplace have historic conference member listings? It'd be interesting to see who we played way back vs now.
There used to be some old Google sites website out there that tracked this stuff along with playoff teams, all-state teams, and a bunch of archival type info going back decades. Sadly I don't think it's around anymore.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: drmwevr08

AuH2O

Well-Known Member
Sep 7, 2013
12,912
20,784
113
The problem with going to the total district scheduling is the travel for these games during the middle of the week would be crazy. It's bad enough they are doing it on Friday nights, but can you imagine the distance when they are doing it on a Tuesday night game. Plus it destroys a lot of rivalry games that have been played for decades in some situations.
It's doable, but only if the state would come up with a system that allows the schools close together to play during the mid week, and then save the further apart schools for Friday and Saturday night.
There's always going to be a tradeoff between travel and playing more schools across classes. For football the districts are fine like you say. Once a week, but there also are kids at smaller schools traveling for multiple levels throughout the week. But still, football it's mostly fine.

For the other sports it would be tough. I'd say maybe a district system based on geography and class, but maybe for sports other than football or ones that have a lot of games allow the districts to include schools from two classes.

Baseball is crazy. Ames last week had 7 games and will have 7 games again next week. Very fortunate to be located in central Iowa. They have 12 games against CIML teams plus play Indianola and Cedar Falls, plus have been fortunate to get some of the better 3As like North Polk, Ballard, Boone, etc on the schedule in the past.

Sioux City schools, Council Bluffs, Mason City and Ft. Dodge play a lot of smaller schools and also travel a lot more. I'm sure a lot of the small schools are in travel hell for baseball and softball. It also looks like a lot of schools simply don't play a full schedule while the 4As, at least in Central Iowa max out at 40 games or close to it.
 

GrindingAway

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Nov 27, 2006
5,444
3,438
113
The fairest system would be to put a promotion and relegation system in place for classifications and build districts based on geography.
I generally agree and have long advocated for this. The one issue I see is outside of the bigger juggernaut schools you can have a lot of variation with one strong class. My kids are all out of high school as of this year, but the youngest had a class full of athletes and one of the stronger sports years for the school since I lived here. The next two classes are rough though. I feel like for a lot of smaller and mid sized schools if you to relegation you'll often be "out of phase" with the actual results.