After North Tama football was demoted to Class A in the early 2000s, the Redhawks bounced around geographically. In many configurations, NT was on the periphery — the northernmost of a southern district, westernmost of an eastern district, southernmost of a northern district. Sometimes GMG was right there with us, also isolated from the bulk of the district because of Waterloo or Cedar Rapids in between. (NT has played GMG every year since 1998 except for 2002-03, either as a district or non-district opponent.)
In the past few years, school attrition and enrollment drops elsewhere have returned North Tama into more geographically compact districts. This two-year cycle, though, brings something new: Two games in the heart of Iowa.
North Tama has never played Colfax-Mingo and Grand View Christian of Des Moines (or its quasi-predecessor, Grandview Baptist) before. Those two teams are quite separated from the rest — BGM is the closest — and it so happens that NT will be traveling to both this year, back-to-back.
For North Tama fans, or anyone else in Class A District 5, I’ve made a page with directions to both of those schools (PDF). Grand View, which is based in what used to be Saydel’s elementary school, plays its football games at Saydel High School.