NEWPORT – The SAD 48 board of directors voted 17-0 Monday night to accept football as a varsity sport at Nokomis Regional High School.

That acceptance was a requirement for the school to field a varsity football team next fall.

“This is a big happening for us,” said Don Mendell, a teacher at the school and one of the founders of the Friends of Nokomis Football organization that has pushed for the addition of the sport to the school’s extracurricular offerings.

Nokomis has fielded a developmental football team each of the last two years. Last fall the Warriors played a schedule of primarily Class A opposition by scheduling games against Pine Tree Conference Class A programs such as Bangor and Lawrence of Fairfield during their bye weeks from regular-season competition.

The Maine Principals’ Association anticipated Nokomis seeking to join the varsity ranks next fall during its recent reclassification discussions, and has a spot available for the Warriors in the Eastern Maine Class B ranks within the Pine Tree Conference.

With Brewer slated to move up from Class B to Class A next fall because of its enrollment, the addition of Nokomis would allow the Pine Tree Conference Class B ranks to retain a 12-team, two-division format with eight regular-season games followed by an eight-team playoff format.

Approximately 60 high school students played on the Nokomis football team last year, including only five that previously played another fall sport at the school, according to high school football head coach David Evans.

In addition, between 80 and 95 students played football at the middle-school or fifth- and sixth-grade levels.

Monday’s vote followed a presentation to the board that included input from members of the football team as well as statistical data presented by athletic administrator Jason Tardy from a doctoral study done by Nokomis principal Arnold Shorey about the impact of interscholastic athletics on student performance.

Those statistics revealed an increase in grades and attendance among those who joined the fledgling Nokomis football program during the last two years as well as a decrease in disciplinary issues among those students.

“It was really some powerful stuff,” said Evans.

The next step for school officials will be to notify the MPA of the school board’s acceptance of the program’s new varsity status, and subsequently seek a varsity schedule through the Pine Tree Conference.