Members of the merged Wilkes-Barre Area schools track and field team work out at GAR.
                                 Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

Members of the merged Wilkes-Barre Area schools track and field team work out at GAR.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

Some numbers down, but officials see unification helping rebuild athletics from ground up

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<p>Georgina Yarbrough-Vega says she enjoys the merged city schools teams.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Georgina Yarbrough-Vega says she enjoys the merged city schools teams.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>The merged city schools track and field team works out at GAR. </p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

The merged city schools track and field team works out at GAR.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>The merged city schools basketball team works out at GAR. </p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

The merged city schools basketball team works out at GAR.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>The merged city schools basketball team works out at GAR.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

The merged city schools basketball team works out at GAR.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Jude Bourbeau, a junior, says he enjoys the merged schools and team.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Jude Bourbeau, a junior, says he enjoys the merged schools and team.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Meyers, GAR and Coughlin students talk about being on a merged track and field team. </p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Meyers, GAR and Coughlin students talk about being on a merged track and field team.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

WILKES-BARRE — With the fall sport season for Wilkes-Barre Area’s new, consolidated Wolfpack athletic teams over and winter sports well underway, have the naysayers who warned participation would plummet been proven right?

Students at a recent indoor track and field team practice — ironically outside GAR Memorial thanks to unseasonably warm weather — were emphatic in praising consolidation. “I Love it,” Georgianna Yarbough-Vega said with a grin after clearing several hurdles while coach Paul McGrane counted steps between the leaps. “It’s a lot more fun and a really great experience.”

Kameron Taylor, who played football with the consolidated team last fall, agreed.

Not only is it more fun with more people — McGrane said the number at indoor track practice has nearly doubled this year — there’s more pride when they compete.

“We actually looked like a team” when the football team hit the field, he said, adding that last year the GAR football team had dwindled t0 17 by the final game.

“It’s like a family,” Jude Bourdeau added. Others quickly chipped in. “It feels like we go to the same school.” “It’s like we’re the Wilkes-Barre Area all-stars.”

For the indoor track and field team, consolidation meant more than a boost in numbers. It has been operating as an “unsanctioned” team, essentially a self-funded club with competition dictated by the amount of money it can scrape together. This year the district made it an official team and has been providing funding, albeit limited — enough to pay entry fees and transportation to three meets, assistant coach Stan Mirin said.

So, that’s what the students and coaches say. What about the numbers?

Yes. And no.

Going strictly by total number of students on the major teams, at first blush it’s easy to believe they naysayers were right. For example, according to information provided by Athletic Director Michael Namey, the three separate high schools combined last year fielded an impressive 89 football players, while this year’s consolidated Wolfpack had 59. But Namey argues such a comparison is very misleading, and the data tends to back him up.

Start by parsing those 89 players. Coughlin had 28 boys on the gridiron, meaning if they fielded separate offensive and defensive teams for a total of 22 starters, they had only seven sitting on the bench ready to step in. GAR Memorial was worse. With a total of 23, there was only one player ready to substitute if no one played both sides of the ball. Meyers at least could rely on a full compliment of backups with 38 members.

Then there’s fact that last year was a transition year as the district moved to consolidation, which Namey conceded made it harder to pull accurate numbers together. For proof you need look no further than those GAR numbers, which may have been 23 at one time, but were — as Taylor testified — down to 17 at the end of the season. In fact comparing beginning season numbers with end of season numbers can make a big difference. while the inaugural Wolfpack football season last fall began with 59 players, at the end the roster was down 11, to 48.

Under the surface

Namey urges an even deeper dig into the data. A real analysis, he said, will show how frail the three-school athletic system was becoming. Of those 89 football players last year, he said, 25 were seniors. Take them out of the equation because they could not return this year, and the total falls to 64.

And if your thinking that new students entering tenth grade would surely replace the seniors, Namey said that was the biggest problem of all in the old system. The three high schools had little, if any “feeder” system sustaining team rosters in any sport.

“Pre-consolidation, there was no junior varsity football for Meyers or GAR. Students were completely locked out of competition.” It was no better in lower grades. “In seventh and eighth grade there was no football for GAR and Meyers, no field hockey, no baseball, no softball.”

State data going back to 2012-13 — submitted by the district each year to show compliance with the federal Title IX law that requires equal sports opportunities for boys and girls — back up the claim that the programs in grades seven through nine were suffering in the district. Among 51 programs with numbers reported for those grades, 29 of them show drops in participation by 2017-18, the latest available data.

That trend not only bodes poorly for upcoming seasons at the high school level, it added to the decline of those who did decide to join a team but didn’t make varsity, Namey said.

“Without the sub-varsity teams, we had athletes who practiced but had no competition. Who can blame them if they think ‘I practiced an entire year and did not compete, so next year I’m not doing this’. That problem was getting exponentially worse,” Namey said.

“It’s like a house where the foundation is badly eroded. Even though everything looks fine on top, it’s not.”

Consolidation, he said, is restoring that foundation. “This year junior varsity has a full schedule. There are sub-varsity teams now present that were not present last year.”

He rattled off some of the teams that did not exist a year ago: no girl’s tennis at Meyers, no boys volleyball at GAR or Meyers, no lacrosse (boys or girls) at GAR and Meyers. No boys tennis at any of the three schools.

All of which put many programs in peril of vanishing completely. “Every year, no matter how solid the roster is, next year becomes a question mark,” he said. “And if we can’t field a team this year, we’re taken of the next year’s schedule.”

While the district could and did take advantage of rules that allow it to co-op some teams — combine two schools — the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association limited how many co-ops it could have, and which schools could do it. He also pointed out that using the option left many student athletes in a sports limbo. “We had one girl, who has since graduated, who participated in three sports and never wore the colors of her own school.”

Restoration?

Practice is over and the students have gone back into the school. McGrane stands in the spring-like air on the GAR field where one side still sports a smattering of snow. He chats about the district’s athletic standouts from years ago, of how valuable it would often be for teams to share players who played one sport in fall and another in winter — and how much it could help the students all-around development.

He smiles as he shows off pictures of the indoor track and field team crowding a bus or videos of them conducted exercises in the school hallways on colder days. And he admits a dream of seeing more students on the indoor track and team qualify for state meets. The goals are small. “We’re hoping to have a team in 200 relay.”

But thanks to consolidation the possibilities are growing.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish