Mount View football gets OK, Calais denied

The football committee of the Maine Principals’ Association voted Thursday to accept Mount View High School of Thorndike and Yarmouth High School as new varsity programs beginning with the 2007 season.

But a similar application for a cooperative varsity football program made by Calais and Woodland high schools was turned down, according to MPA assistant executive director Larry Labrie.

Mount View is set to join the Eastern Maine Class C ranks as a member of the LTC provided it approves a budget to fund the sport, while Yarmouth would join Western Maine Class C.

That would bring both Eastern and Western Maine Class C to 10 teams, meaning each division could play a closed schedule of nine regular-season games followed by four-team regional playoffs.

In recent years, both Eastern and Western C have had nine teams, which necessitated one crossover game against an opponent from the opposite Class C division to complete the nine-game regular-season schedule.

Both Mount View and Yarmouth have played a developmental schedule in Maine for at least the last two years, while Calais-Woodland has not – a primary reason that application was turned down.

“The committee did not accept Calais,” said Labrie, “feeling they needed to first play two years of club football that all schools are asked to do.”

According to the MPA’s football bulletin, “New varsity teams must maintain/participate in a J.V. program (with a minimum number of six games) for a minimum of two consecutive seasons prior to entering varsity competition, based on the two-year classification cycle. If a league wishes to admit a school earlier due to an odd number of teams, it may apply to the football committee.”

While Calais-Woodland hasn’t competed at the junior varsity level, area football supporters had hoped the football committee would take into account a local youth program that has competed in the Canadian-based Fundy Football League for the past three seasons. Two youth teams, the older a bantam program at the under-16 age level, have competed in that league, and last fall the bantams won the Maritime provincial championship.

In the aftermath of that success, and given the fact there is no place for the older football players to compete once they age out of the Canadian program, support quickly grew locally to have a Calais-Woodland team join the Maine high school varsity ranks as soon as next fall.

In addition to the Calais-Woodland team not having played a junior varsity schedule for two years, Labrie said football committee members expressed some safety concerns about 16-year-old players from Calais-Woodland who had aged out of the Canadian league competing against high school varsity players typically ranging in the 17-18 age bracket.

Calais assistant principal Matt Clark, a former high school varsity football coach at John Bapst of Bangor, said “the best interests of the kids and their safety is always our first priority, and after that we still believe varsity is the appropriate level.”

Calais school officials learned of the football committee’s decision Friday morning.

“We certainly understand that there are a lot of factors that go into the MPA’s decision-making process and we respect that,” said Clark.

Calais officials are expected to appeal the football committee’s decision once the MPA’s classification committee finalizes the classification of teams in all sports for the next two-year cycle at a meeting scheduled for next week. The ultimate approval of all classification decisions will be made by the MPA’s general membership in April.

“After discussing this, we still feel that the varsity level of the LTC [Eastern Maine Class C] is the most appropriate level of placement right now and we will be going through the proper appeal process,” Clark said.

If that appeal is unsuccessful, it is expected the Calais-Woodland team would play a junior varsity schedule against LTC competition beginning next fall in preparation for future entry to the varsity ranks.