CLAY CITY-Clay City and West Richland (Noble) school districts are considering working cooperatively to allow the two districts to form high school sports teams.

This discussion was prompted by the decreasing enrollment, by the low number of students interested in participating in various sports, and by the desire of both district’s personnel to have quality programs for those students who are interested.

The schools currently do not have enough participants in some sports programs to field either a freshman, sophomore, or junior varsity team to help build competitive programs. This makes the young students compete against more experienced players in other districts who have had the opportunity to improve their skills through non-varsity competition.

The Superintendents, board member representatives, athletic directors, coach representatives, and principals from both schools met Tuesday, May 26 to discuss which sports, if any, would benefit from forming one team using the student athletes from both schools.

It was agreed upon, that in the sports that each school had enough participants, there would not be a joint team. At this time, the schools would cosider the following high school sports that would currently benefit from a possible joining of the school’s athletes: boy’s basketball, cheerleading, and softball.

Girl’s basketball has already been a cooperative team for the past two years and is hosted by West Richland.

The committee suggested that boy’s basketball and cheerleading would be hosted at Clay City and would be called Clay City-Noble Wolves. The softball and girl’s basketball team would be hosted at West Richland and be called the Noble-Clay City Wildcats. During each season, the school not hosting the sport would have at least one game at their site.

It is their goal to have one of the coaches for each sport from each district. Coaches currently hired would have high consideration for the positions. Awards ceremonies would be held at school hosting the sport. The schools would provide transportation to and from practices, and to away games.

The committee is asking for the communities input before proceeding with the discussion of the co-op plan. 

There will be open meetings in each district for the community input. 

Community members from either community are welcome to attend either session.

The meetings will be held in the Clay City High School Gymnasium on June 8 at 6:30 p.m. and in West Richland High School Gymnasium on June 9 at 6:30 p.m.