The Spartan-Wildcat Athletic Merger
“Small school, big dreams”
Students who attend S.S Seward Institute in Florida, New York hear this phrase from the time they enter the school as a 6th grader to the time they graduate in 12th grade and hope to achieve some of the big dreams that they have.
A dream that a lot of students have is to be an athlete. The athletes in Seward tend to find success no matter what sport they play. S.S Seward has been a powerhouse in Classes C and D in Section 9 of New York State for years capturing numerous Section 9 titles across soccer, basketball, baseball, and softball.
Notice one sport isn’t listed above that is usually a staple of high schools. That sport is football. The reason for that is because Seward doesn’t field a football team. The student body isn’t large enough for it to be beneficial for the school.
“If students wanted to play football, they had limited options.” said Seward principal Michael Rheaume “They could either stay here and give up football or could transfer to either John S. Burke Catholic School or another private school.”
Now the students don’t have to make that decision.
After a Board of Education meeting held in December, the Florida school district approved an athletic merger with the neighboring school district of Warwick. This set the wheels in motion for S.S Seward Spartans to be able to play football as members of the Class AA Warwick Wildcats.
“Believe it or not, football has come up a lot over the last 4 or 5 years.” Said Seward Co-Athletic Director Joe DiMattina “In the last two years, it came up more with the intent of actually going through with it and getting the Board of Ed to accept it.”
“The process of completing an athletic merger has to start with finding another school or schools to merge with.” Said New York State Public High School Athletic Association Executive Director Todd Nelson “After you find someone to merge with, it must be approved by both school boards, then it must move to the league you play in for approval. After that, it moves to the section. After the section, all they must do is report to the NYSPHSAA saying that a merger has taken place.”
“With this merger, different generations are into different things.” Said Seward Co-Athletic Director Rob Gravelle “Warwick just happened to ask us at a good time and things moved forward from there.”
Now that the Spartans can join the Wildcats on the gridiron, they need to figure out how many students are going to be interested in playing. The first interest meeting took place last Monday with Warwick Athletic Director and Varsity football coach Greg Sirico at Seward.
“The numbers at the meeting were about what we were anticipating.” Said Gravelle “Among the students there, it was mostly students coming from the middle school level with a few of the high schoolers as well.
The number of students interested is subject to change since this was just the first interest meeting. “The amount of students interested could change, but I think if there are more students interested, they will come from middle school as well.” Said Gravelle “I think the students already playing fall sports would be more likely to stay with our fall sports since they have been away from football if they played it before.”
“I think most students here who are already involved in jayvee or varsity sports will stick with them because they would think I’m already doing this here and I’m not sure if going to play football would be beneficial if I’m only gonna play it for a year or two.” Said DiMattina
Warwick has the smallest AA football program in Section 9. Last season they sported a record of 4–5. Now they have a new season to look forward to with some fresh faces to add to the mix and some will be more excited to keep playing.
“Kids who played football prior to being at Seward before have most likely been playing in the Warwick Youth Football leagues nearby, so there is already a familiarity there” Said Sirico
There is also a familiarity already between the two communities themselves. Warwick and Florida are five miles apart and the village of Florida is part of the town of Warwick. The two communities share a lot of things together and now they can add football to the list.
“When it comes to the community response, I have heard nothing but a positive response and hopefully it will continue to be a positive one.” Said Rheaume
“The people whose kids play football at the middle school level are very excited.” Said Gravelle “The parents really like our school academically, so they’re very happy they can keep their kids in the school for academics and now the kids can play the sport they love as well.”
For the kids, they can learn a lot from sports themselves. Different sports can teach different lessons and football is no different.
“Football teaches kids a lot of valuable lessons and being able to play football can really help kids learn not only about a sport, but about themselves.” Said Sirico “You learn things like discipline and developing a work ethic, it’s a good thing to experience.”
“Being able to provide students with the ability to still go to school here and play football is a great thing.” Said Rheaume “Football is another healthy outlet for students and we are happy that we can now provide that so they don’t have to look out of the district.”
Now this merger went pretty smoothly, but other schools may have apprehensions regarding mergers. one thing that could be hindering schools upon merging was being subject to a graduated scale.
“Some schools would not want to merge because they didn’t want to change their classification number based on this scale and without merging, some students were not getting the opportunity to participate in interscholastic athletics.” Said Nelson
Because of this, the NYSPHSAA has implemented a new graduated scale that has helped this process.
https://soundcloud.com/user-395140649/graduated-scale
Now that the merger is done, all that needs to happen is the new football season to roll around and more students have a chance to achieve their dreams.
“We did everything we had to do and now we’re gonna have Spartan football players.” Said Gravelle
