Bigfork wrestling: Grappling with a seven-year loss

PART ONE: This is the first of two articles focused on wrestling in Bigfork. Pick up a copy of next week's Bigfork Eagle to read about what has been done to try to reestablish wrestling in Bigfork since 2003.

Following a series of seasons with only a handful of participants, Bigfork High School's administration terminated its wrestling program in 2003.

"There was about seven or eight kids at the start of the season and we would lose about half of them to injuries and whatnot by the end," said Wayne Loeffler, who served as the school's activities director at the time. "We just didn't have the numbers to keep it viable."

In order to be in accordance with Title IX, the school offered softball for the girls, but that team suffered from a similar numbers problem as they often didn't have enough girls to field a team.

Even though there weren't a lot of participants on the wrestling team or the softball team, dissolving them was met with opposition by students and parents. However, the school administrators opted to do what they felt was best.

"It's a lot of money to have five or six kids travel on a bus for two to three hours, wrestle for an hour and then travel back for another two to three hours," Loeffler said.

Although there were never enough participants to fill every weight-class, there were years that Bigfork had a thriving wrestling program. In the mid-90s, the Vikings wrestling program had multiple individuals win state titles, including twin brothers Tim and Les McAnally who graduated in 1997. However, once those boys had graduated, things got tough for Bigfork wrestling.

"We were fairly competitive at that time, but once they were gone we struggled to fill a team," Loeffler said. "Even with the Little Guy Program, we had problems with finding older kids that wanted to wrestle. We could get a lot of the younger kids, but we struggled to get seventh and eighth graders who wanted to participate."

In the 1997-1998 school year Bigfork moved up to Class A. The wrestling team was boasting more wrestlers than it had been in previous years as it started the year with 17, but seven of them were seniors. The following year 18 boys turned out for the team, but the Vikes finished with just nine as the grapplers dropped due to school-related problems, injuries and a lack of interest. That year Bigfork didn't win a single meet and barely filled half of the 14 weight classes at most competitions. In 2000 just 10 boys started the season and the Vikes went without a team-win again in all nine of their matches. In 2001, with 12 kids, the Vikes won their first match in three years over Hamilton. In the program's final year, 2002, there were just eight boys on the team.

At the time, Loeffler and the other administrators at BHS tried to find alternatives to just cutting the wrestling program all together. One option was that the school could co-op with another school and the Bigfork athletes could compete with that school under their mascot. Flathead High School was approached with the request to allow the Bigfork wrestlers join its program, but at the time Flathead was the biggest school in the state and adding wrestlers from another school was frowned upon.

So it was then that Bigfork's wrestling program, as well as its softball program, was cut.

"You look at the flow of what your community wants and that's what you go with," Loeffler said.

Now, nearly a decade later, current BHS activities director Matt Porrovecchio is faced with a similar dilemma as he responds to requests to bring wrestling back to Bigfork.

"With decreasing population across the state you have to focus on where your greatest interests lie in order to be fiscally responsible," Porrovecchio said.

Currently, BHS offers more Montana High School Association-sanctioned sports and activities per school enrollment size than any other school of its size, according to Porrovecchio who said that he sees that as a point of pride for the school.

"Sports keep kids engaged and they keep kids focused," Porrovecchio said. "Sports help keep kids' grades in check and they are an important part of school."

Although Porrovecchio values the importance of athletics as a part of education, times are too tough economically for BHS to be adding line items to the budget.

"Due to our budget constraints, the possibility of adding any new programs isn't there at this time, though we would like to be able to add all of the programs that our students are interested in," he said.

With the school's budget a hot topic for discussion right now, Porrovecchio said that any and all changes to the activities department are being made with the utmost care.

"My focus is to minimize the impact on the kids while doing what we're tasked to do with helping the school with its financial responsibility," he said.

The budget isn't the only problem foreseen with the idea of reinstating the wrestling program at Bigfork. The issue of numbers still remains.

"That's the difference between big schools and small schools," Porrovecchio said. "They have enough kids to fill the activities. They have the interest and the smaller schools don't always. You have to have enough kids to support the programs. You have to have the numbers."

In order for any program to work at a school, Porrovecchio said it takes three main components. It has to meet MHSA standards, there has to be funding and there has to be enough student interest.

Bigfork Little Guy Wrestling head coach Marc Nadeau had a similar view on reestablishing a high school program, though he said he would like to have one.

"You don't want to start up a Bigfork program and not have enough numbers and have a losing season," Nadeau said.

While the idea of co-oping with another school has resurfaced, it still isn't a simple solution. If Bigfork attached itself to another school's program, they would be able to practice in Bigfork most days and then travel to the other school to practice as one squad one day a week.

However, the Bigfork team would still need a practice facility that could accommodate a high school team. Also, co-oping is known to cause problems with getting the team to blend together as one since the students are clearly from different towns and different backgrounds.

There is also the issue of travel. Many parents may see traveling to a different school to practice once a week as comparable to just moving their child to a school that offers wrestling.

Other plans to get wrestling back into the high school include the idea of creating a club team that is not associated with the school or a self-supported team that is part of the school.

However, any team that is associated with the school must still abide by Title XI rules, so either a boys sport would have to be removed or a girls sport would have to be added.

As for a club team that is not part of the school, that plan would likely lead to the team having few tournaments that are far from home as they try to find tournaments interested in inviting a non-school-related team.

"I think that there is really only one way that this will really work," Nadeau said. "It will have to be funded by MHSA and the school in order for it to be a valid program. The team will have to have uniforms and mats and a mascot to stand behind. It is going to have to have the numbers too. It is hard to go to a meet with three wrestlers and call it a club team."