BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Oak Hills High School is poised to join one of Ohio's leading athletic conferences if Lima agrees next month to withdraw from the Greater Miami Conference.
Superintendents from Fairfield and Sycamore urged finding alternatives to trips to Lima during Tuesday's league meeting at Fairfield High School.
They argued the estimated 115-mile journey north inflicts academic and financial strain, and indications are they have broad support.
But Tuesday's session adjourned with a decision tabled to May 19. Unhappy Lima officials, who covet exposure in the Cincinnati area, left with a feeling of dread.
If they don't withdraw at the May meeting, they sense most of the league will withdraw and dissolve the GMC in forming a new league.
"I'm not pleased some of the new superintendents have decided it's time for us to exit," said Dr. Charles Buroker, Lima's superintendent. "We helped some of those schools get in the league and this isn't great treatment. They claim it's travel time, but I must tell you it's really a strange coincidence this is occuring the same time another school has expressed interest in the league."
Sycamore superintendent Dr. Bruce Armstrong stressed that Green Township-based Oak Hills isn't an issue.
The only question, he said, is the distance from Lima and the rest of the GMC: Fairfield, Sycamore, Princeton, Lakota East and West, Colerain, Milford, Hamilton and Middletown.
Armstrong said a football game at Lima costs his school $2,600 more than the rest. On Monday, the baseball team left for Lima at noon, didn't return until 11:30 p.m., and some players were late for school Tuesday.
"I don't view this as getting Lima out and putting Oak Hills in," said Dr. Charles Wiedenmann, Fairfield's superintendent. "Although I would much rather go to Oak Hills than to Lima because of travel time, safety issues being on the road for that long and that late at night, and keeping kids out of class. I just can't see sending eight to 10 buses up to Lima and pulling 200 kids out of school for a football game."
Wiedenmann hopes Lima agrees to withdraw so the school can use a transition to leave officially by July 1, 2000. GMC by-laws require schools to give a two-year notice when they withdraw.
Oak Hills, which has one more season in the Queen City Conference, has applied to join the GMC for the 1999 season. With the ninth-grade moving to the high school, athletic director Dick Haucke said his school will have 2,400 students, plus a load of upgraded facilities that provide a good fit for the GMC.
A new football stadium, an eight-lane all-weather track, a new 2,500-seat gym and a soccer facility at Rapid Run Middle School have made Oak Hills an attractive option.
"It would be good for us and good for the league," Haucke said. "We're closer, we're going to travel with more people and we've got more sports to offer than Lima."
Some of the schools are caught in the middle. The Lima-Hamilton rivalry goes back to the 1920s and the Great Ohio League.
"Our heart is certainly for Lima," said Hamilton principal Tom Alf. "On the other hand, we see all the positive things of the current GMC."
Since the GMC constitution doesn't address how to oust a school or dissolve the league, the configuration is anyone's guess. It could be a legal maze if Lima refuses to withdraw.
"We've given Lima a month to go back to their community and talk it over," Wiedenmann said. "We want to be part of their transition."
Buroker said Lima has applied to the Greater Miami Valley Conference. The league has schools like Troy and Piqua, about 45 minutes away. West Carrollton's defection to the Mid-Miami League opened a spot. But indications are smaller schools are blocking Lima's entry for fear of its powerful football program.
