The Big 8 has long been one of the more stable and long-lasting leagues in existence in this part of Pennsylvania. The league was formed in 1972 with charter members, Tyrone, Lewistown, Huntingdon, Central and Chief Logan. Philipsburg-Osceola, Bald Eagle Area and Bellefonte were added within the next two years. Chief Logan consolidated with Kishacoquillas in 1988 to form Indian Valley, which became a member.
In 2000, Central bolted for the Laurel Highlands Conference which began a question going round on what was to be done to the makeup of the league. The Big 8 operated with seven teams the past two years, but hoped to add either one or three more schools.
Over that time, there have been rumors and discussions about Bellwood-Antis and Bishop Guilfoyle possibly joining the Big 8. But that’s all they seemed to be-rumors.
While the trend of the local high schools has been to merge, the big superconference referred to as the Mountain Athletic Conference (MAC) has been talked about and discussed in length and in print. The Daily Herald took an entire half-page plus to talk abut the MAC on Sept. 18, 2002.
The one sport not covered by the Mountain Athletic Conference however, was football, due to the unwillingness and fears of both individual schools and leagues.
In the past few years, with many teams playing in conferences that have no extra dates to play non-league opponents, it has become increasingly hard for athletic directors to fill schedules for their high schools if they are independent or a member of a smaller conference that leaves open dates on the schedule.
Bellwood-Antis, Penns Valley, Bishop Guilfoyle and a few of the bigger schools in the Inter-County Conference received a scare in the spring of 2002, when it seemed the smaller 10 schools in the ICC might form a league that would leave the larger schools high and dry without a league at all. This actually happened to Bishop Carroll in another league. Bishop Carroll ended up playing a schedule that involves a lot of travel and with schools in different classifications, because schools around then refuse to play them.
There is also talk of Pennsylvania changing the number of classes from four to perhaps five or six. Many schools are not certain how that would affect their schedules as well.
At their last meeting, the seven remaining members of the Big 8 voted (according to league by-laws, all changes MUST be unanimous) to accept Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Guilfoyle, Penns Valley and Punxsutawney into the conference, beginning with the 2004 football season.
The addition of the new teams means the Big 8, a new name will be decided on later, will be divided into two sections, a Big School Division with Bellefonte, Huntingdon, Indian Valley, Lewistown and Punsutawney, all AAA schools and a Small School Division with Bald Eagle Area, Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Guilfoyle, Penns Valley, Philipsburg-Osceola and Tyrone. All of these schools are AA, except for B-A and BG which are A schools.
“Our schedule over the past few years has kind of evened out,” said Tyrone coach John Franco. “But we need a game for this coming year and in the past, people who had the opportunity, didn’t want to play us. With the new teams in the Big 8, we will be sure of a set schedule for the first time in quite a while. Central would have made a real good fit, but they kind of screwed it up for the rest. We will have to go with the next best thing. Things are changing everywhere. We now need to go through with it and see what happens. This league gives everybody a schedule and that means it gives all the schools involved security. Give Jack Bailey a lot of the credit. He worked his tail off to get something for everybody.”
Tyrone will play each of the other five schools in the Small School Division and then still be able to fill out their nine-game or 10-game schedule with the AAA teams in the Big School Division. At present, Tyrone plays seven AAA schools, plus Bellwood-Antis and Pius X this year, but last year it was Shenandoah Valley and next year Pius X will not renew their contract.
“What it does for us first, and foremost, is that it solidifies our schedule,” said B-A coach and Athletic Director John Hayes. “The ICC, the league which we were and still are affiliated with, has gone through so many changes and realignments since 1988 when we went from the old Saylor Point System to where we agreed you needed to play everybody in your own division to win a title. When that occurred, it forced people to play schools they weren’t happy to be playing. That came to a boil last spring when 10 of the smaller schools in the ICC started to look into creating their own 10-team league, leaving the other five schools sitting out on the end of the world with nowhere to go. We kind of worked through that with three five-team divisions that allowed 12 of the 15 teams to have a full nine-game schedules. The three teams left without a full schedule were Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Guilfoyle and Penns Valley. There had been talk even prior to the ICC incident about trying to work with the Big 8 to fill the open dates. This year (2003) we were able to get a full schedule, but we were still looking beyond that when the Big 8 made a proposal to enlarge to 12 teams.
I feel comfortable with the scheduling situation, probably for the first time in 12 years, for at least the foreseeable future. The big concern I have is, that over the last five years, our squads could have competed with that schedule and survived very nicely. However schools our size go through cycles and right now we have a lot of work we have to do. It will be a very competitive schedule and I hope we can rise to the occasion and compete in the Big 8 or whatever the new name shall be. The prestige that goes along with it definitely is a plus. The Big 8 has sent a lot of good schools on to playoffs with a lot of success. This would be a good sendoff for us.”
Behind the scenes, Jack Bailey, Secretary-Treasurer of the Big 8, has had a lot to do with putting the new Big 8 together, working long hours to achieve the additions to the Conference.
“We have worked on this for two or three years now,” said Bailey, “ when some of the former Triple-A schools that were members dropped to AA. We looked at teams in the ICC and the District Nine League trying to get the right combination. Everybody gave in some. The Big School Division will be made up of four of the original members plus Punxsutawney. The Small School Division with Tyrone moving over and the addition of Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Guilfoyle and Penns Valley should be an outstanding division.
We though Tyrone might be in the Big Division, but with Punxy already involved in five District Nine League games, that would put them out, since it would be too many games for them to be in both leagues. Rick Keefer, the Lewistown Athletic Director had done a lot of work with the scheduling part of it and we have had great cooperation from everyone so far. The Big 8 has a great heritage with district champions and playoffs and the new teams should only add to it.”
