MUSKEGON — After a drawn-out realignment process that included seven O-K Conference schools leaving to form a new league, Reeths-Puffer is largely happy with the way the new alignment played out.
The O-K realigns every four years, with a general focus on balancing enrollment, competitiveness and driving distance. The O-K Green wraps up its four-season run in its current alignment after this season. Starting next academic year, R-P will compete in football and non-football divisions, the first time that has happened in the O-K.
Four of the six members of the football Green division will carry over, with Union, Mona Shores and Muskegon continuing to play the Rockets. Byron Center and Forest Hills Northern jump into the Green, with the two Zeeland schools, Wyoming and Holland all departing.
R-P was a tertiary component of the controversy surrounding the original O-K alignment announced last fall; seven schools announced their departure from the O-K to form the River Cities Alliance after a previous alignment, which would have sent R-P to a new O-K Black, was approved. Four of those seven - Lowell, Greenville, Kenowa Hills and Cedar Springs - were set to join the Rockets in the Black. (Allendale, Coopersville and Sparta also joined the RCA.)
Driving distance was the main stated reason for the River Cities group’s departure, and the trips to R-P, the most northwestern school in the league, were clearly a factor in their discontent. The new alignment sought in part to address similar concerns for the remaining schools. R-P athletic director Cliff Sandee described the new alignment as a compromise between multiple camps within the league.
“There was a constant sticking point around football and the divisions that they came up with aligned with both sets’ wants and needs,” Sandee said. “We’re really excited about the idea of keeping our mainstay rivals, the two Muskegon-area schools. Non-football, it doesn’t get much better than Byron Center and Caledonia. From the football lens, we have to look at that as an opportunity to have eight ubercompetitive football games.”
All four of R-P’s non-conference football games will also be against O-K foes from other divisions: Spring Lake, Forest Hills Eastern, Forest Hills Central and Caledonia. Sandee said the crossovers are not mandated, but R-P wanted to continue playing schools from within the league.
Caledonia, along with Jenison, will be in the Rockets’ O-K Green in the non-football sports, replacing Union and Forest Hills Northern. Sandee said that league will be a terrific all-sports conference and specifically cited baseball, soccer and volleyball as sports in which the competition will be fierce.
Driving distance will still not be ideal, as R-P faces an hour’s drive each way for conference games with Byron Center and Caledonia, for instance. However, Sandee said, such trips are commonplace in more rural areas of the state, and the drawbacks of the long drives don’t outweigh the positives the school sees in its relationship with the O-K Conference.
“I think it’s, all in all, a win for our community,” Sandee said. “We get to keep the two schools we’re closest with, and we get to find those new relationships like Byron Center. We value the heck out of the O-K Conference. We were willing to give up some other things that we wanted for the betterment of all.”
