Traer Star-Clipper, October 10, 1930
North Tama’s discussion about moving down to 8-player football, as covered by the North Tama Telegraph, had much input from the current athletic director, but just as much from a former coach, principal, and superintendent, Tom McDermott.
For over a year, I’ve had a map of North Tama opponents whipped up, and now’s a good a time as any to serve it. Here is a map of the teams North Tama has played in the regular season since the move to district football in 1992, and their status in the 2022 season.
I am not sure how McDermott and I arrived at different numbers of regular-season opponents, especially since I went to a 30-year span and used his website. It might be due to reorganizations and sharing. 2020 created some one-off situations plus a none-off: Lynnville-Sully had to cancel and West Burlington/Notre Dame was a last-minute fill-in after its opponent for the week cancelled. WB/ND, Alburnett, South Winneshiek, St. Ansgar (as a home-and-home), and Starmont are all opponents only played in the last three years. Ironically, in a move to 8, Starmont will have been the last opponent in the 11-player era. However, Grundy Center will have been the last district opponent, and a fitting one: the first Traer-Grundy game was in 1897, then they played every year from 1921-63, and the Spartans shut out the Redhawks in 1988 (twice!) and 2022 on the way to state championships.
McDermott in the article updated one data point: North Tama this year was the second-smallest school playing 11, but Belle Plaine replaced Le Mars Gehlen as the smallest by BEDS number. Only these three schools have the option of going to 8 for the 2023 and 2024 seasons based on the cutoff. Belle Plaine, in a school board meeting held the night of the North Tama football discussion, voted to do just that.
Now that so many schools North Tama’s size around the district have moved to 8, not doing so would create its own set of problems. Just please don’t put us in with Don Bosco all the time.
The school board meets tonight. The deadline for deciding is Dec. 15.
OMG Mr. McDermott can smile! Only being slightly sarcastic here.
NOT AN UPDATE BUT: The North Tama Telegraph and Sun Courier aren’t showing up on the Iowa Newspaper Association’s map, and I have no idea why.