It’s official: Classic Lake will dissolve
Posted on November 21st, 2008 – 1:01 PMBy John Millea
It was no more than a formality, but the final days of the Classic Lake Conference have been assured. Conference superintendents have voted to dissolve the league at the conclusion of the 2009-10 school year.
Earlier this month, the conference voted to exclude Armstrong from the league beginning with the 2010-11 school year. That left the conference with four schools, one less than allowed in Minnesota. Those four are Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Wayzata.
“For the past three years, the CLC included only five schools, which made it difficult to effectively schedule events,” Hopkins superintendent John Schultz said. “Our schools have traveled great distances, and at times to other states, to play football games. We don’t play our first conference basketball game until the 19th game of the season, and in the spring, we’ve played triple-round-robin contests. While it is difficult to see the end of the Classic Lake Conference, the vote to dissolve is in the best interest of our students.”
All five current Classic Lake schools must individually attempt to join an existing conference, as required by the Minnesota State High School League. If any school is unable to find a league that will accept them, the MSHSL will place them in a conference.
According to a statement from the Classic Lake superintendents, “It is expected that final decisions on conference placement will be made no later than fall 2009 so scheduling for the 2010-2011 school year can be completed.”
Here’s your chance, prep fans … what should happen with these five schools? What would be best for those schools, as well as high school activities in general?
Let’s hear your opinions…
6 Responses to "It’s official: Classic Lake will dissolve"
Put the bloomington schools in that conference and it would be the original lake. They would get killed in sports but are there any schools in the lake conference that are original besides Kennedy and Jefferson (Bloomington)?
Hopefully now with the dissoving of the Classic Lake, maybe those bad feelings with the Lake Conference will finally dissolve as well and two conferences that make more geographical sense. Perhaps this type of scenario:
Lake Conference:
Rosemount, Apple Valley, Eagan, Burnsville, Lakeville North, Lakeville South, Eastview
New Conference:
Chaska, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Wayzata, Hopkins, Edina, Chanhassen, Jefferson, Kennedy
And from a geographical standpoint, you might as well take Farmington out of the Missota and put them in the Lake as well.
I know for a fact that the Bloomington schools don’t want to leave the Lake or follow EP into any new alignments.
I agree with Mcgee78!
The MSHSL needs to step in and get the Lake and Classic Lake straightened out. The arrangement he has is perfect along geographic lines. I know Eden Prairie would rather compete against Minnetonka, Wayzata and Hopkins than going way down to Lakeville, Rosemount, etc. due to the length of the trip down south.
Finally, the MSHSL needs to run seeding tournaments in sports like Football and basketball. These two conferences generate lots of very good teams that usually knock each other off in sections. Minnetonka and Hopkins in baketball as an example last year. They played for the section finals and that game was essentially the state championship game.
The MSHSL needs to distribute the more powerful teams throughout the state or just the metro area so the best teams end up in the state tourneys as they should. I am not holding my breath on this or the logical realignment of the Lake and Classic Lake conferences as the MSHSL is a pretty misguided organization.
Here is a good example of their weakness in organizing high school sports. This year in girls soccer they seeded the first 4 teams 1-4 and drew their opponents at random form the other four teams. Because one idiot on the MSHSL board said they didn’t want to seed the lower four teams so they didn’t feel bad. Wow! These kids could care less where they are seeded. Hell, they are in the state tournament! Who cares if you are the 6th seed or the 8th? You still have to win three games as does the first or second seed. These kids know where they should be seeded roughly. The MSHSL’s actions to not hurt someone’s feelings actually screws up what should be a typical seeded 8 team tourney as it is possible via the luck of the draw that the #1 seed ends up playing the #5 seed instead of the #8 seed which they should get as they have earned their #1 seed, etc.
If anyone from the MSHSL reads this PLEASE do something that makes sense with regard the lake conferences and state tourney seeding for sports.
With all due respect the Lake is not the problem here. The Classic Lake chose to kick out Armstrong and then subsequently to disband. I agree that the MSHSL will probably have to step in at some point, but to say that they need to straighten out the Lake is an incorrect statement. The Lake has no problems scheduling opponents or creating a competetive balance.
I think the solution is obvious and well stated on this blog. Add the four teams to the Lake and then split the Lake into 2 divisions based on geography.
The problem I have isn’t with the way the conferences are structured. It’s with the MORONIC way that the MSHSL assigns teams to Sections for State tournaments.
I am constantly perplexed by the Section assignments across many different sports - e.g., Hopkins and Mtka in basketball; AV and Hastings in Wrestling; Eastview, Burnsville and AV in Dance etc. etc.
I’m sorry, the argument that you need to give some schools a chance to get to State by placing them in easier Sections is fraudulent. There is a way for those schools to get to State - work hard and defeat the favored team!!
