Eight Northern Michigan school districts announced last week that they will be forming a new conference, the Northern Shores Conference. In the days since, 9&10 News has learned more about how the conference was formed and why the schools that joined it have chosen to do so.
The conference will feature Kingsley, Cheboygan and six schools from the Lake Michigan Conference - Harbor Springs, Charlevoix, Boyne City, Kalkaska, Grayling and Elk Rapids.
Those six schools along with East Jordan and Traverse City St. Francis currently form the Lake Michigan Conference. East Jordan announced this winter that the school district will be leaving the LMC to join the Ski Valley Conference in 2024-25, leaving Traverse City St. Francis as the odd school out in the formation of the Northern Shores.
“We weren’t a part of any of the discussions revolving around forming the new conference,” said St. Francis Athletic Director Aaron Biggar. “We were actually kept in the dark quite a bit.”
Competitive balance was a term used often in conversations about forming the Northern Shores. Administrators were seeking schools that were similar to one another in enrollment size, in what programs they offered and at what levels, and in a variety of other factors.
“As we met, it was really looking around and seeing the schools that were like each other for lack of a better terms,” said Harbor Springs Superintendent Brad Plackemeier. “Whether it be the number of sports they offer or the levels of sports whether it be varsity, JV, who we’re playing outside of conference.”
Biggar said he feels the LMC met those criteria as presently constituted.
“[The LMC] was fine as it was because we had a great group of schools close in size,” said Biggar. “We were actually one of the smaller schools in the conference.”
Traverse City St. Francis has had a lot of athletic success in recent years. In fact, in the last five years across 16 sports, Traverse City St. Francis has won 40 Lake Michigan Conference championships. All the others schools in the conference combined have won 36. Still, Biggar said the idea of St. Francis presenting a competitive balance issue was the source of a disconnect between St. Francis and other schools.
“I understand where they’re coming from but it is a fundamental disconnect as well. I mean if our teams aren’t as successful as we expect them to be, we look within,” he said.
He also maintains the decision to form the new conference without St. Francis was based too much on recent history.
“There’s not that institutional knowledge where people know that Charlevoix used to be the best basketball program and nobody could come close to them,” he said. “And Harbor Springs was very strong in cross country and track and nobody could come close to them. We kind of focus in on the now a little bit too much.”
Boyne City Athletic Director Adam Stefanski insists that which schools were asked to be a part of the Northern Shores Conference was based solely on what was best for the students in each district moving forward.
“Any conversations that I had really involved just on what was best for Boyne City and the other schools involved,” Stefanski said. “The best I can say is that I personally have always had a great working relationship with Traverse City St. Francis,” Stefanski said. “But really this was about us as individual schools and what was best for us moving forward, not necessarily about anyone else.”
Stefanski said that the six LMC schools joining the Northern Shores along with Kingsley and Cheboygan are good fits athletically and academically. Multiple administrators said that a primary goal of the Northern Shores will be to collaborate with the other schools outside of athletics as well.
Stefanski said that while future schedules are yet to be determined and are dependent on many factors, he hopes Boyne City can continue to work with St. Francis down the road.
“I have nothing but respect for Aaron Biggar. He’s a terrific administrator and he’s first class all the way,” Stefanski said. “So he’s a great person to work with and hopefully we can continue to in the future.”
As for the two non-LMC schools joining the Northern Shores, Kingsley Athletic Director Mitch Miggenburg said moving out of the Northwest Conference is something the Stags have been looking to do for a while now.
“Some of this actually pre-dates my time here,” said Miggenburg. “Just as Kingsley has grown in enrollment, some of the schools in the Northwest have not. So the idea was to get our student-athletes into a conference with more like-sized schools.”
Kingsley had actually applied to join the LMC in 2017 and was denied because the conference did not want an odd number of schools, according to Miggenburg. Kingsley’s interest in joining the LMC rekindled when East Jordan announced it would be leaving for the Ski Valley. It was at that time that Miggenburg said he heard about the possibility of forming the Northern Shores.
Miggenburg said the district is grateful for its time in the Northwest Conference, a league Kingsley has been a part of for over 50 years.
“We’re looking forward to this new opportunity but I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t extend our gratitude toward the Northwest Conference and how good they’ve been to us,” he said.
Cheboygan found itself in a similar situation to Kingsley. The Chiefs are a part of the Straits Area Conference and, like Kingsley, have seen steady to increasing enrollment in recent years while the other schools in their conference have seen enrollment decline. Cheboygan is a Div. 2 school in many sports while the majority of the other schools in the Straits Area are Div. 4.
“It’s the same reason that Kingsley left, because some of the schools in their conference really had seen declining enrollments and it just wasn’t a good fit for us anymore simply because of the size,” said Cheboygan Athletic Director Jason Friday.
“I met so many people, so many great people from the Straits Area Conference and in those schools. I’m glad that they’re not holding a grudge or anything so we’ll be able to continue to play those [schools],” he added.
The Northern Shores will not impact conference membership in football. All eight schools are a part of the Northern Michigan Football League, as is Traverse City St. Francis. All administrators that spoke with 9&10 News expressed optimism that the Northern Michigan Football League will continue and remains a beneficial partnership.
The Northern Shores will begin competition in 2024-25, making next school year the swan song for the Lake Michigan Conference.
“Scheduling was already done for the next school year, so the ‘23-’24 school year,” said Plackemeier. “So we start with the next scheduling cycle that will help us start fresh and get the schedules, whether it be basketball, baseball, softball, skiing, anything like that other than football obviously. We have a year to get those schedules ironed out whether it be conference meets, conference championships, locations and all of those things.”
Biggar said he’s still trying to figure out what comes next for Traverse City St. Francis as the Gladiators will find themselves without a conference after next school year.
“We’re reaching out to a couple of schools that we think would be good partners and we’ve had a couple of schools reach out to us,” he said. “My guess is that we will become independent at least for awhile.”
If St. Francis were to become an independent, it would have greater scheduling flexibility to play schools from all over the state. But there are drawbacks as well, according to Biggar.
“The detriment [of being independent] is, one, that we lose the ability to win a conference title,” he said. “Conference titles weren’t one of our biggest goals but it’s always a goal for our teams to reach that. We also lose all-conference awards for our kids.”
After months of discussion, the Northern Shores is becoming a reality.
For the eight school districts that are joining, it marks an exciting step and a fresh start. For Traverse City St. Francis, it marks the start of a period of uncertainty about what comes next.