By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph School District has never had a sanctioned middle school or junior high football program.
Bantam football, a volunteer-based youth program, filled that need in the community for years - until it fell off 5-6 years ago.
"It's a lot of work to maintain," said Robert Sigrist, the SJSD director of student services. "Equipment, and being able to organize that every year and everything."
Since Bantam football's decline in St. Joseph, Sigrist says there's been a missing opportunity for young players across the district.
"It's a gap we have in our community," he said. "It's an opportunity that we are missing to engage a pretty significant number of kids annually. It's an opportunity also to give our kids a better opportunity to be more competitive once they get to the high school level."
That might explain why St. Joseph high school football hasn't had as much success as nearby programs like Savannah or Mid-Buchanan or Stanberry.
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, it's been since 2013.
The Irish have had the most success with eight winning seasons since 2010, including four playoff wins within the last five years. But even so, Sigrist feels like consistent success in football is lacking at the high school level within the city.
"Consistent success and extended success deep into the postseason has been pretty few and far between in the St. Joseph community for quite some time."
Middle school football, Sigrist believes, could teach the city's players more fundamentals and techniques at an earlier age. It also gives St. Joseph student-athletes the same opportunities for competition as some of its rural neighbors.
"If you live in Savannah, Cameron or across the river in Troy or in the Riverside school district or Mid-Buchanan, all of those kids have that (middle school football) opportunity."
Middle school football has been a discussion within the St. Joseph District for years. The problem is - the idea never really got out of the discussion phase. That is, until the last year or so.
Sigrist believes the district is in a solid enough financial state to support the program. He also believes the interest from the school board and area families is at an all-time high.
"When we're talking about over 70 percent of (SJSD) families in 4th-8th grade saying that they probably would or definitely would participate, that's a pretty strong indicator that not only is there a need, but from our families, there's a want."
The cost of starting a middle-school football program would be about $100,000. The four middle schools (Truman, Bode, Robidoux, Spring Garden) would create two co-ops. Therefore, there would be two middle school football teams in St. Joseph to start.
Sigrist says the plan is to bring a formal proposal to the district board sometime next year, with the goal of starting middle school football in the 2022-23 academic year.
"We want to take our time," Sigrist said. "We want to make sure the planning goes into place. We don't want to go in halfway. We want to be committed and we want to do it the right way."
Making St. Joseph high school teams more competitive is a key, long-term potential benefit of adding middle school football.
The more important benefit though, Sigrist says, is giving the city's youth an extra opportunity to compete, develop and succeed overall.
"If we can have 120 kids involved in an activity that would not have been involved otherwise," Sigrist noted, "that's 120 kids in our middle schools that are going to be more engaged with school. They're more likely to be present at school and more likely to have better grades and better behaviors."
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