GROWING PAINS
As Intel looms, growth pushes Johnstown, Northridge to crossroads
— Adam Davis remembers riding in the car on Ohio 256 and seeing farmers’ fields on each side while growing up in Pickerington.
Those vast spaces of land are no more as stores, restaurants and office buildings line the four-mile stretch from Interstate 70 to downtown. Davis is living similar growth in northwestern Licking County that will rapidly continue with the construction of Intel’s Ohio One facility.
Davis is the wrestling commissioner for the Northridge Youth Athletic Association. Growth has been a positive for the program as numbers have jumped to more than 40 kids from kindergarten through sixth grade, but it has reached a critical point as the program soon could outgrow the practice facility on school grounds just west of the new Northridge Elementary.
“Typically, you were looking at maybe 25 kids, maybe a little less. Last year, we had 34 kids, and this year, we have 42 kids,” said Davis, who noted he has had to split practices because they “can’t physically fit 42 kids and their parents” into the facility.
“We are definitely seeing new kids in the school, and we seeing a lot of younger kids joining the sports programs as well,” Davis added. “We are trying to split it up to about half just so we have enough room to roll around in there.”
Davis graduated from Pickerington, and in the two decades since, sports programs have sustained or come to dominance as the community has become a destination for families on the southeast side.
That is the challenge for Northridge and Johnstown. High school coaches constantly preach the importance of building programs from the bottom up, and youth teams must embrace rather than attempt to run from the inevitable growth.
“I’m from a big city, so I am for the growth,” Northridge swim coach Rachel Furr said. “I think it is going to be great for (my daughters) to grow up in the culture of having bigger schools. I know that’s not everyone’s opinion.”
Despite her position with Northridge, Furr has a vested interest in Johnstown, too, serving as the coach of the summer Johnstown/northridge Jaguars, which are beginning to outgrow the Johnstown Skate ‘N’ Swim. She is taking four Johnstown athletes with her Northridge team to meets this varsity season. Furr, whose two young daughters are in the Johnstown school system, said a community center with a pool could be the determining factor in what the future
holds.
“I am excited to see a Johnstown swim team come to light,” Furr added. “All four of those kids swimming now came from the summer program, and we have a lot of elementary and middle school kids from the summer team that are going to filter into the high school.”
Partnerships are key
Jeff Barr has a similar vision. A Johnstown Youth Athletic Association basketball commissioner, he is on the board of the Johnstown Joint Recreation District, which was formed in 2021 and is hoping to soon take a proposal to voters.
Between Johnstown’s recreation and select basketball teams, they have reached their limit. Recreation teams have limited time at Johnstown Elementary each week while select teams have practiced at facilities sometimes outside of the district to ease the burden.
“One of the asks is to build a field house, if you will, for indoor hardwood court sports,” Barr said. “Our volleyball program plays in the fall at the elementary school. Right now, it’s girls, but it’s a growing program as well, too. Boys is
an official sport for volleyball, so as our school system grows I am hopeful we can all work together to find land, which is a valuable thing.”
Rarely does a day go by for Bob Orsini without a conversation concerning the growth of the community. Orsini, a Johnstown city councilman, also is the JYAA wrestling commissioner.
Orsini’s wrestlers practice in a building at Belt Park just a stone’s throw from the Johnstown athletic fields. It works for Orsini’s 35 wrestlers and Mike Jackson’s varsity program, but it is not perfect.
“We are making the best of what we have available,” Orsini said. “Johnstown-monroe schools and the youth program could use an updated facility for sure — bathroom facilities, locker rooms . ... Wrestling as a sport is exploding across Ohio, and I would like to see that trend continue here. From the youth all the way through to the high school, we are connected and trying to build that.”
What could be?
It is easy to picture Johnstown and Northridge growing into powerful sports behemoths within the next DECJOHNSTOWN ade.
Johnstown has enjoyed a run of great success highlighted by the football team’s run to the Division V state final in 2018 and the boys basketball team’s Division III regional runner-up finish two years ago.
Northridge’s boys basketball team won the program’s first league championship this season, securing the Licking County League-cardinal Division with homegrown kids.
“These seniors and juniors were the first (Central Ohio Basketball Association) teams at Northridge,” varsity coach Bill Mallernee said. “We started that program back when I was at the middle school. Now everyone is playing COBA, so the results are showing from youth up. The excitement is there, and the parents in the community are behind it.”
Growth, however, presents obstacles programs must clear. Northridge has competed well with Granville and Watkins Memorial in the pool despite having half as many swimmers, but restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic slashed Furr’s numbers.
Without the ability to use Denison University, Northridge was sent elsewhere into Westerville or to Mount Vernon at inconvenient times to practice. It hampered Furr’s ability to recruit students to the program.
“Nobody wanted to try swim when we were practicing at 5 in the morning at Oakstone,” Furr said. “They were like, ‘That’s not it for me.’ This year, we have five or six kids on our high school team that have never swam before. I would like to see Johnstown get to the same stage Northridge has been and see Northridge continue to grow.”
Turning a child away is a community program’s last resort. JYAA basketball might have to do just that next winter.
“You would like to have an hour for each of the age groups,” Barr said. “We have had to do 45 minutes, two teams a time running the side half-court. It works, but come next year we will need to cap off registration, so we know where we can go because there is no other place.”
A multi-sport athlete in school, Davis sees something special brewing at Northridge. The Northridge school community now is challenged with finding the right pot to keep it from spilling.
“We are definitely getting a good mix. The nice thing is it is still a fairly small community,” Davis said. “Normally, you have, I don’t know, 100 kids per grade or 120, but any of the new kids once they get into a sport, all of these friends hang out, and next thing you know if one kid is wrestling, they all are wrestling. If one kid is doing football, they are all playing.”