Northeast Iowa Conference rejects Mason City

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The Northeast Iowa Conference has unanimously rejected Mason City’s request to join the athletic and scholastic group.

In a letter to Mason City Superintendent David Versteeg dated March 3, Joshua Ehn, chairman of the NEIC executive board, said the board had voted 7-0 to deny Mason City’s application for membership in the NEIC “under the current conditions.”

The board is made up of superintendents of the seven member schools of the NEIC — Charles City, Crestwood, Decorah, New Hampton, Oelwein, Waukon and Waverly-Shell Rock.

“We know that there will be continued talks of expansion and realignment of a new or different NEIC, we hope that Mason City keeps the door open to those conversations down the road if a coalition can be established,” Ehn said in the letter.

Ehn is the superintendent of the Oelwein Community School District, which has recently been accepted to the North Iowa Cedar League. The letter said that Oelwein intends to “honor their commitments to the NEIC through the summer of 2021.”

The NEIC executive board has been undergoing discussions of forming a new “super conference,” with classification built around competition and equity to distribute teams into competitive groups. This work included Mason City in a bigger conference with competitive advantages.

“Those efforts have yet to materialize and work continues to actively find a long-term solution for a viable interscholastic conference,” Ehn said in the letter.

The Mason City school board approved in December 2019 the drafting of a request to join the NEIC after decades of being a member of the Des Moines-based Central Iowa Metropolitan League (CIML).

Besides Mason City, the CIML includes Ames, Ankeny High School, Ankeny Centennial High School, Des Moines East, Des Moines Hoover, Des Moines Lincoln, Des Moines North, Des Moines Roosevelt, Dowling Catholic, Fort Dodge, Johnston, Marshalltown, Ottumwa, Southeast Polk CSD, Urbandale, Waukee, and WDM Valley.

Mason City wanted to join the NEIC because most of the CIML’s 18 school districts are much bigger than Mason City. It also has high transportation costs because Des Moines schools are a four-hour round trip.

Mason City already plays a number of the current NEIC schools in multiple sports.

Among NEIC schools, Charles City is closest to Mason City geographically. A handful of Charles City varsity swimmers have participated with Mason City’s swim team since 2016, when the pool at the old Charles City Middle School was shut down.

Charles City was one of the founding members of the NEIC in 1920, along with Decorah, New Hampton, Oelwein, Cresco and Waverly. Charles City left the conference in 1939, then rejoined during the 1946-47 school year, and has been a member since then.

The same seven schools have made up the NEIC since 1970. Although the NEIC is most known for athletics, it also sponsors a music festival, a leadership conference and other academic events.

Should Oelwein follow through with its intention to leave the conference after the summer of 2021, that would leave the league with just six schools.

That’s a concern in sports like basketball and baseball where teams play home-and-away games with league foes. In basketball, for example, that would mean the NEIC would only have 10 conference games, meaning 11 non-league dates would have to be found.

That’s why there continues to be discussion among the NEIC board about expansion and realignment of multiple schools in northern Iowa. A possible super conference could be structured in multiple ways, including adding more schools and divisions within the conference.

NEIC superintendents will further discuss the future of the conference at their next meeting on March 25.