Hinsdale Girls Hoops In Limbo

The school boards from Saco, Hinsdale and Whitewater met last Wednesday at Saco to discuss the upcoming girls basketball season.

Saco and Whitewater are in the final year of a three year co-op contract and Hinsdale is beginning a drought of players with only four of their seven high school girls wanting to participate in basketball.

Hinsdale came hat-in-hand to request a change so that at least three of their girls could join with Saco's girls and play with the co-op.

Unfortunately for Hinsdale, there were only two interested people from that village in attendance while Saco had at least five and Whitewater out numbered Hinsdale by one person. (Not counting the board members, superintendents, coaches, athletic directors and one nervous newspaper reporter.)

My thinking is this … Whichever way this thing swings, none of you folks from either of the towns involved should complain about any decision that is made by the respective boards if you don't attend the meetings.

But I digress.

As per the agreement twixt Saco and Whitewater, Darrin Cummings of Whitewater stated that 90% of the Whitewater folks who attended their meeting were against letting Hinsdale girls play on the Saco-Whitewater team.

Saco is OK/good with having three or four Hinsdale girls come play with them as Panthers, but in a co-op both teams have to agree on any changes.

As one Saco attendee and parent put it, “I'm scared to death of making Hinsdale angry with us. We will need each other in the future.” Well put, indeed.

None of these three schools can afford to alienate the other simply because of the numbers. Whitewater is complacent this year. They have more than enough girls to field a team of their own. Saco doesn't and neither does Hinsdale

Saco and Hinsdale, combined would have a full team of 11 or maybe even 12 players this year and for the next few years. Whitewater is looking pretty bleak in a couple of years unless they can import some more players from Malta.

It was also voiced that a merger between Hinsdale and Saco would be beneficial academically because the two towns could share teachers as well as ball players. Again, Yikes. To imagine anyone would even think of something that will benefit academics.

Saco and Hinsdale already co-op in volleyball and up until last season the Hinsdale–Saco co-op had had a good run with track and field.. Hinsdale sends boys to Glasgow for football and Saco boys play for the Mustangs. Whitewater co-ops with Malta for volleyball.

What a convoluted mess.

There is still a lot of time to get this thing straightened out. At least until Nov. 1. But all three communities need to get involved and attend the meetings. They will be well advertised and posted. Get out and attend the meetings or stay at home and be quiet about how things turn out.

It won't be that many years into the future when Malta and Harlem will be having merger discussions, as will Glasgow and Wolf Point or Poplar and Culbertson.

It's called trickle-down dwindleationism.

That's it for now folks. Thanks for listening