The Bowden Grandview School football team may go from six-man to nine-man football next season.
Chris Grudeski, the team's head coach, made that announcement during a Bowden town council meeting last week.
“We're probably going to join the local nine-man league instead of the six-man league, so I think we'll actually have more bodies out or just as many this year,” Grudeski said.
“That's great; awesome,” some councillors said.
Grudeski and defensive coach Adam Neale came to a council meeting to report on the team's success as the school's first football team in about 40 years. They also asked for money to assist its operations next season.
In addition, he and Neale presented Mayor Robb Stuart with a framed photo of the team.
During an interview with Mountain View Publishing, Grudeski said the team has to submit a letter of interest to join the league in April but it's his understanding that they're pretty much in anyway.
“We're going to run a spring camp to make sure we have the numbers, but I've talked to the league commissioner and a couple of other teams and if we want in, we're in,” he said.
“The only thing that would not put us in would be if we don't have the bodies next year. But if we get everybody back who should be, there shouldn't be anything that keeps us from joining that league.”
He said a big attraction for joining the league is that it would be a lot cheaper – possibly $100 per player cheaper – to be in the nine-man league.
“The reason being is our costs this year to travel, just because of the nine-man league – Mountain View County – it's Carstairs, Sundre, Didsbury, Innisfail, us and Strathmore,” Grudeski said.
“This year we had to pay to go to Hanna, we had to pay to go to Provost, and we had to pay to go to Edson. So we had about $3,500 in bus costs. Whereas, if we were just in the local community kind of thing, that bus cost would probably go down to about 1,000 (dollars).”
There are other advantages to joining the nine-man league as well, according to Grudeski.
“There are a whole bunch of advantages, but I think one of the main reasons that we committed to do it was just because we had 22 kids on the team this year and it's only six on the field at a time, so we just kind of got to the point where we want the program to be successful and we need guys on the field to do that,” he said.
Another advantage is that because less travel is involved, players will miss less class time.
He said kids involved will likely know each other too.
Although they're jumping from six-man to nine-man football, Grudeski said it's not likely the school will join a 12-man football league, at least not for a long time.
“I think we're a ways from 12-man to be honest with you,” he said. “I know numbers-wise it doesn't seem like it. Olds High School has 12-man football, but they're carrying usually 30-plus guys, type of thing.
“We look at our numbers over the next few years and I don't think we'll ever be much over probably 20 to 22, so I don't think we'll be in the 12-man league,” Grudeski added.
“And the 12-man league itself, a lot of these teams are going to nine-man, so I think we're a long stretch away from 12.”
