New Conference

         The West Central Conference posed many problems for the Mora School District—hundreds of dollars spent on travel expenses multiple times each week, athletes and coaches needing to miss parts of school days, and everyone dealing with long bus rides and late nights. Mora decided that it needed a change, and the Granite Ridge Conference was born.
        The Granite Ridge Conference includes Mora, Milaca, Foley, Princeton, Zimmerman, Little Falls, and St. Cloud Cathedral. Instead of traveling a typical hour and a half or more for games in the current conference, Mora’s longest conference trip is now about an hour.
         After the Rum River Conference dissolved three years ago, Mora became an independent conference. Mora’s Athletic Director, Gary Gauffin, said that being independent often included more travel time than being in the West Central Conference (WCC).
        The Minnesota State High School League had placed Mora in the WCC, but Mora athletes and coaches weren’t happy with it most of the time because they had multiple games a week that involved long travel times. Mora High School Junior Evan Kolberg said, “I like the conference change because it’s closer, we get home early, and we don’t have to leave school early and miss homework.”
        This was what ultimately led Gauffin and the Mora School Board to start looking at options that would be a better fit for Mora. Trying to get several schools from different conferences to all come to an agreement and make the conference change at the same time was difficult, said Gauffin.
        Gauffin said that getting the approval to change conferences from the school board and having to do withdrawal procedures from current conferences was one of the first steps they had to take to make the change.
          Six months of meetings and procedures came next. After schools approved the change and withdrew from their previous conference, they had to meet and write a constitution, discuss and approve the financial aspect of the change, address individual policy and procedures for each sport, and discuss the Fine Arts programs and Junior High activities.
         When asked about why the school district didn’t change conferences earlier, Gauffin said, “We had tried to form a new conference of more local schools before, but it was not the ‘right time’, so the WCC became our best option.”
         It turned out to not be a great option primarily because of the travel issues. Gauffin said that it was difficult for fans and parents to get to some of the games because of the distance, and “passing through St. Cloud was a very unique issue for several trips.”  It also cost about $500 for transportation each trip, whereas the new conference will be about $300.
        Brandon Ostien, a coach and teacher at Mora High School, said, “I think it will save the school a lot of money, not having to travel as far.” Ostien also thinks that the new conference will not create problems because of long trips and having to get back late on week nights.
        Parent of two high school athletes Sharon Weaver agrees, saying, “I think it is good. Not as far to drive and it should be good competition with the schools in the conference.”
       Kolberg, Samantha Weaver, and Paige Thielen are all juniors at Mora High School and have experienced many times the problems with the WCC. They all mentioned that the long bus rides and late nights were hard, especially with all the homework they had. All three agree that the new conference will have some good things about it, as well as not so good things.
       Kolberg said, “The best part of it is that its closer and we might win more games, the worst part is that I think it will be worse competition.”
       Weaver said, “I like that the towns are closer than the conference we’re in now. I think the worst part about the change is that we don’t know the competition as well, but I think they will be about the same level as the WCC.”
       Thielen is mostly against the conference change saying, “I like the harder competition we have now, it makes us better. I also like the teams now because they are tougher and better than the teams we’ll have next year. I like that we will have more time for homework though.”
        Gauffin agrees with the students that less travel time will be a huge benefit with the new towns. He thinks that the competition level will still be at a high level, even with WCC being “very, very competitive.” He says the new conference includes new towns that are somewhat bigger than Mora, but he expects them and the conference in general to be very competitive. Gauffin said, “A sense of commitment to the group is important, as schools left three different conferences to come together.”
       Whether you are for or against the conference change, it’s coming next fall.