The O-K Gold Conference ma
y be losing Hastings in its lineup, beginning with the 2016-17 academic-athletic year.
Hastings this week was announced as the top preference for admission into the Interstate-8 Conference, to bring that league to eight schools. The Interstate-8 will be losing Charlotte, which wants to go back to the Capital Area Activities Conference.
Wayland has been a member of the O-K Gold Conference for nearly 30 years. The league now includes, besides Wayland and Hastings, Grand Rapids Ottawa Hills, Grand Rapids South Christian, Grand Rapids Catholic Central and Middleville Thornapple Kellogg.
The league will lose Ottawa Hills and Catholic Central beginning next fall and gain East Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Christian and Forest Hills Eastern, for a total of seven.
However, that will be reduced to six if Hastings indeed joins the Interstate-8, which now includes Jackson Northwest, Jackson County (Parma) Western, Battle Creek Harper Creek, Battle Creek Pennfield, Coldwater, Jackson Lumen Christi and Marshall. All are Class B except Parma and Northwest, which are Class A.
All schools in the O-K Gold next fall will be Class B.
Interesting development, and I have a couple of thoughts.
First “Hastings this week was announced as the top preference for admission into the Interstate-8 Conference” which may seem that this is the I-8 inviting Hastings to join. Now did Hastings ask prior to this? Where does Hastings admin, AD, and school boards come in to this?
If Hastings leaves the OK, which just expanded to 50 schools with the addition of Fruitport & Spring Lake, does the OK re-shuffle the deck. They were scheduled to have 6 leagues of 7, with the OK Red having 8 teams. Do they go to 7 with 7 and bring maybe Caledonia into the OK Gold? Caledonia was in the OK White with EGR and GR Christian, and they also fit into the eastern geography. Plus they were a member of the Gold in the recent past.