The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
With November being high school football playoff time in North Dakota, there’s been a lot of talk about the teams that have gone through their respective divisions and onto the Dakota Bowl.
As many of us know, high school football has been re-aligned again and there are actually six divisions of North Dakota high school football. They include AAA, AA, A, 9-man, 6-man and independent.
And after looking at every team in every division, there are hyphenated community teams almost everywhere. Sports writers used to call the 9-man championship the “Hyphen Bowl,” but that hasn’t been tossed around much lately because even the big schools are catching that bug.
As an example, in the AA division, we have West Fargo-Horace. It’s the only team in either AAA or AA with that moniker.
But when we get into A and 9-man, the examples explode.
In the A division there’s Hillsboro-Central Valley, Ellendale-Edgeley-Kulm, Langdon Area-Munich, Harvey-Wells County, Des Lacs-Burlington, Ray-Powers Lake, Velva-Drake-Anamoose-Garrison and Minot Ryan-Our Redeemer’s.
The 9-man ranks are even more profound with up to six communities making up one football team, many that used to have their own teams.
These are the teams: Wyndmere-Lidgerwood, LaMoure-Litchville-Marion, Fairmount-Campbell-Tintah-Rosholt, (sometimes called Tri-State because the communities are in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota), Griggs-Midkota, Mayville-Portland-Clifford-Galesburg, Hatton-Northwood, New Rockford-Sheyenne-Maddock, Midway-Minto, Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood, Westhope-Newburg-Glenburn, Kenmare-Bowbells, South Prairie-Max, Hettinger-Scranton, Richardton-Taylor-Hebron, Napoleon-Gackle-Streeter, New Salem-Almont and finally, Linton-Hazelton-Moffit-Braddock-Strasburg-Zeeland.
There are two of these teams in 6-man, including Center-Stanton and Parshall-North Shore-Plaza. And, New Town is the only independent team this year.
In defense of these communities, none of them can sustain a football team on their own so they go to the neighboring school – most likely a larger school – and merge. This has worked fairly well and has made high school football in North Dakota, no doubt, more competitive.
However, this can be a nightmare for a sports reporter, or worse yet, someone doing play-by-play on the radio. And if a reporter happens to forget a town in the name, the phone will be ringing on Monday morning.
On the other side of that coin, sometimes the mosaic of these communities becomes one name and maybe that’s where the word salad should go. Everybody has their sacred white elephant, but for the sake of professionalism, wouldn’t it make more sense?
As an example, some of the teams have taken up the namesake of the county: Bowman County (Bowman), Sargent County (Forman), Nelson County (Lakota), Divide County (Crosby), Hettinger County (New England), Kidder County (Steele) and Grant County (Elgin).
Some schools chose other names that seem to resonate throughout these communities collectively such as: North Border, which is Walhalla and Pembina; North Prairie, Rolla and Rolette; North Star, Cando-Bisbee-Egeland; Standing Rock Community, Fort Yates; Heart River, Belfield and South Heart; and South Border, Wishek and Ashley.
Keep in mind, these co-ops are football only. There are lots of other names in other sports. Ironically, some small towns remain islands unto themselves such as Warwick, Mandaree, Beach, Alexander, Dunseith and Hankinson.
Some of these split community teams have been around a long time. As an example, there was Glenfield-Sutton-McHenry. That name changed to Glenfield-Sutton-McHenry-Grace City-Binford. That changed again to Midkota, and now it’s called Griggs (Cooperstown) Midkota.
Aside from all that, North Dakota high school football has added several new teams in recent years. They include South Prairie, Nedrose, West Fargo-Horace, Minot North, West Fargo Sheyenne and Bismarck Legacy.
