ALLEN — After the final second ticked off the scoreboard at Isom-Hill Field on a picture-perfect Friday night, members of the Allen and Emerson-Hubbard football teams shook hands, hugged and got together for a group photo.
The photo, coming after Allen’s 50-14 win over the visiting Pirates, documented the final time the two schools would play against one another in a high school sporting event. Next year, the two teams will play as one, part of the Tri County Northeast co-operative between the two schools that is already in its second year.
Two years ago, the two school districts were in talks with Wakefield Public Schools about a co-op between the three schools. The co-operative was all but set, including a name (Quad County) and mascot (Trailblazers), but the idea that was unanimously approved by school boards at Emerson-Hubbard and Allen was rejected on a 3-3 vote by the Wakefield Board of Education.
Because of the timing of the decision, officials in Emerson-Hubbard and Allen had to scramble to put their own co-operative together. Tri County Northeast was the result of that co-op, allowing the two schools to participate in every interscholastic activity — except football.
Every two years, the Nebraska School Activities Association requires schools to declare what level of football they will compete in (11-man, 8-man or 6-man). The deadline for that declaration came days before the proposed Quad County co-operative dissolved, forcing Emerson-Hubbard and Allen to play two years of eight-man football on their own while their schools came together in all other activities as Tri County Northeast.
Longtime Allen athletic director and football coach Dave Uldrich said the people in his community were fine with the co-op arrangement with Emerson-Hubbard, and they’re looking forward to seeing it happen in football as well beginning in the 2022-23 school year.
“I don’t think anybody here is resentful of it,” he said. “You have to analyze your numbers and know what’s good for your kids, and I think both (school districts) have worked pretty amicably to put it together.”
Uldrich has been part of the Allen school for 40 years as a teacher and a coach. He came on board during the school’s last year as an 11-man team in 1982 and has seen the community support its football program without fail, in good times and bad.
“We’ve always had decent numbers of kids interested in playing,” he said. “In the old days it was the traditional farm families and there wasn’t a lot of weightlifting involved. Now we have to keep up with the Joneses because kids aren’t working on the farm like they used to.”
Football Friday nights in Allen are always a must-attend event, regardless of how well the team is playing or who the opponent is.
“Our community enjoys football Friday nights,” he said. “We don’t always travel the best, but on Fridays here it’s the only show in town and everybody either has kids playing or relatives on the team, so there’s always a lot of interest.”
Longtime resident Jay Jones can attest to that. The 1985 Allen High graduate and mayor of the small town, played for the Eagles during the time when they transitioned from 11-man to 8-man and remembers home football games being THE topic of discussion, both on game day and the morning after.
“Back 20-30 years ago, that was the talk of the town,” he said. “It was what people talked about at morning coffee, and then on Saturday morning they would talk about the game and what happened.”
Jones said the school has always been good about locally-promoting its high school sports, which has helped the community maintain its interest in the team over the years.
“The school has always been upbeat about promoting all the sports and the community has kind of grasped that ideal as well,” he said. “It’s dwindled down to some extent as the number of people in the community has shrunk over the years, but it’s still the thing to do here on Friday nights.”
Jones said that small-town football programs like Allen’s gives a younger player a chance to see the kind of playing time he would never see in a big-school program.
“In a lot of the bigger schools, they have tryouts to make the team, but in a place like Allen, if you have any athletic ability as a freshman, you’re going to see some playing time,” he said. “You actually have an opportunity to play, as opposed to just standing on the sidelines.”
Uldrich said that by having the Tri County Northeast co-operative already in place for sports like basketball, track and wrestling, it will give the kids playing football from the two schools a better opportunity to get to know one another as they begin playing together next season.
“I think there are good relations among the kids and the kids have really bought into it,” Uldrich said. “After the game Friday night, the two kids were shaking hands and hugging each other and congratulating each other so I think there are good relationships among the kids. It might take a year or two to really get it on its feet, but when you start something new like this you have to get to know people.”
One of the big changes that will come with the co-op is the return to 11-man football. The two schools will have enough boys participating that it will move them out of the eight-man division and into 11-man football.
With that change, both schools will have to make adjustments to their football fields to accommodate the 11-man game, which is both longer and wider for 11-man than it is for 8-man.
Uldrich said that the two schools will work together on scheduling and will both play host to the Wolfpack’s home games.
“It’s kind of like what we’re doing now for the other sports,” Ulrdich said. “(E-H athletic director Doug Mackling) and I look at our home games and determine which teams come from which directions, and some of the games will be played here and some will be played over in Emerson.”
Who coaches those teams is also a decision jointly made by the two school districts. No decisions have been made as to who will coach the Tri County Northeast football team, but Uldrich expects the two boards and administrators to have that sorted out before next season.
Jones said he feels the new co-op team will do both school districts proud.
“There was some skepticism in the beginning because the two schools have been rivals since the 90’s, but these days it’s different,” he said. “My son played for Allen a few years ago, and there were people (at Emerson-Hubbard) that he got to know from playing and they would meet on the football field and a lot of friendships were formed because of that. I think people in both school districts saw the writing was on the wall and I think the kids get along a lot better than they did even a few years ago. I think we’ve come a long way with that.”
