By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph School District hasn't ever had a sanctioned middle school or junior high football program, but that'll be changing soon.
The school board last year approved the creation of two junior high football teams, involving seventh and eighth grade students, starting in the 2022-23 school year.
Spring Garden and Truman Middle School will combine for one team, while Bode and Robidoux Middle School combine for another. Dr. Robert Sigrist, the district's director for student services, updated the board Monday night on what this program will look like.
Sigrist says this fills a long-time need in the community.
"It's been a gap for a few years in St. Joe," he said. "This is a great opportunity for us to get a large number of kids active and involved in something. Also, we think the gravy of that is we think it'll also help us from a competitive standpoint."
The team colors will be in teal and gray - same color scheme as the St. Joseph School District. The mascots, which were chosen by district students, are 'Panthers' and 'Jaguars.'
"We wanted to make sure that we didn't do anything that was skewed toward any one of the high schools," Sigrist said. "The district's logo is teal and gray, and we thought, 'what a great opportunity to use that color scheme for uniforms.'"
The goal is to have about 60 players per team, involving seventh and eighth graders. The Panthers and the Jaguars will both have an 'A' and a 'B' team - the 'A' team having the top players on it. Sigrist the 'A' and 'B' teams will not be based on age level.
"We're not necessarily going to say it's eighth grade-seventh grade," Sigrist said. "It's similar to what we've done in basketball the last few years. If our seventh graders are able to compete on the A team, we do that. We want kids to be able to compete at the level they can compete at."
St. Joseph's junior high students used to participate in Bantam football - a volunteer-based youth program that filled the need for middle school football for years - until it fell off about six years ago.
That could be part of why St. Joseph high school football hasn't had as much success as nearby programs like East Buchanan or Maryville.
Benton, Lafayette and St. Joseph Central all had losing records in football in 2020. The Cardinals haven't had a winning season since 2010. For Central, not since 2013.
The Irish have had the most success with nine winning seasons since 2010, including four playoff wins in the last six years and a 6-4 mark in 2021.
Middle school football had been a discussion in the St. Joseph District for years. The discussion really ramped up within the past year and earned unanimous approval from the board in 2021.
The cost of starting junior high football will be about $100,000. While uniforms and equipment need to be ordered, Sigrist says the other big piece to figure out is where these junior high teams will practice.
"The Truman-Spring Garden team will practice there," Sigrist said. "There's an area there behind Truman that'll be a good practice. Then, the Robidoux-Bode team will practice behind Robidoux. There's some good space up there."
Now with the board's approval, the district is also looking to hire coaches for the junior high program - a position that previously didn't exist.
"We hadn't a position in the district of middle school football coach," Sigrist said. "So, we kind of had to go through that (approval process). It was a formality, but we are taking applications right now for both head and assistant coaches for those programs."
While being more competitive at the high school level is an incentive, Sigrist says the far more important motivation for this is giving the city's youth an extra opportunity to compete, develop and succeed overall.
"It's going to have 120 kids engaged and involved in an activity," Sigrist said. "All of the research indicates that kids who are involved in activities, their attendance is better. Their grades are better. Everything is a positive for them in terms of school. It gives them more opportunities to be engaged at school."
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