The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Madison to CVC headlines area conference changes
The distinct clanking of metal echoed through the weight room at Madison High School on Aug. 1.
Just outside the weighttraining facility, Blue Streaks assistant coach Harry Deligianis barked encouragement to another group of players pushing weighted-down sleds across a hot, black-topped parking lot.
There’s a different energy among the Madison football team this month. A big reason for that energy is the return of so many players from last year’s squad that finished a disappointing 2-8. Players are bent on improving on a recent run that has seen the football program win only three of its past 20 games.
But another thing that has the Madison football team ramped up for the coming season is a new conference. Starting this fall, the Blue Streaks will be competing in the Chagrin Valley Conference, having exited from their previous home in the Western Reserve Conference.
The move, Coach Mike Gilligan said, gives his program — and all the Madison programs for that matter — a better chance to compete against schools of similar size and demographics
compared to the larger-schooled WRC.
“The demographic explosion and growth of the Painesville and Concord that Riverside has had, their student-body is probably double of ours,” Gilligan said. “Chardon is Chardon. Those two schools are
state qualifiers and statechampion (material). Kenston is up there and Mayfield is really solid.
“It’s not that we’re going into a league that isn’t good in football. It’s really good in football. We’re just playing schools that are closer to our size and against kids
that are more like our kids.”
Madison’s move to the CVC is just one of a handful of moves that area conferences are experiencing this fall. In addition to Madison, the CVC is also welcoming Conneaut and Jefferson.
The Greater
Cleveland
Conference is adding Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights this season.
Word is the WRC is continuing to scour Northeast Ohio for possible fits to expand, but that league will enter this season with only six teams after Brush departed last year and Madison
this year.
The changes will continue in coming years as the CVC braces for Grand Valley’s departure to the Northeast Athletic Conference and the GCC slides back to seven schools when Solon departs.
But as far as this year is concerned, Madison’s move is the headliner, breaking up a marriage it has had with Riverside, North, Mayfield, South and Chardon since all but the Wildcats helped form the Premier Athletic Conference in 1998.
Now Madison joins a CVC Lake Division along with Geneva, Lakeside, Jefferson, Conneaut and Edgewood — a division that bears a striking resemblance to the defunct Northeastern Conference that once included Ashtabula City and Ashtabula Harbor (which consolidated to form Lakeside), Geneva, Riverside, Conneaut, Edgewood, Jefferson, St. John and Harvey.
“We have coaches on our staff that definitely know about what (the NEC) is,” Gilligan said. “Harry Deligianis played at City and we have our two Geneva guys — John Mirabell and Jim Chiaccherio. They know the NEC well. It’s going to be fun to regenerate some of those rivalries.”