For nearly 15 years the Patriot Athletic Conference served as a home for teams across Lorain, Cuyahoga and Medina Counties, starting with 10 teams in 2005 and ending with 12 before its disbandment last year.
There were rivalries built over the years and relationships with opposing teams fostered on and off the field, but in the end the Lorain County coaches felt an imbalance throughout the PAC and thought it best to form their own league moving forward: the Lorain County Conference.
“What happened with the PAC is very similar to what happens with a lot of conferences,” Columbia coach Jason Ward said. “You always seem to get a school or a couple schools that kind of outgrow everybody else and I think that’s what happened with Buckeye.
“Buckeye was far and away the largest school in the league, and I think in terms of the number of championships they won, that kind of showed. When you’re dealing with a Division III school in a conference that is primarily made up of D-V’s and D-VI’s, there was an imbalance there. I think when you look at conferences and travel and all those things, and you’ve got Lutheran West and Fairview and Brooklyn in there and Cuyahoga County schools, not that it’s extremely far, but I think when you bring everybody together like that, those schools are a little bit different. We’re all kind of rural areas and they are not.”
The new Lorain County Conference features eight teams, including: Black River, Brookside, Clearview, Columbia, Firelands, Keystone, Oberlin and Wellington.
The remaining four teams found new homes around Northeast Ohio, with Fairview and Buckeye joining the Great Lakes Conference and Brooklyn and Lutheran West joining the Chagrin Valley Conference.
It was shocking at the time, but for the Lorain County coaches, the move has been a long time coming.
“To be honest, I love the new conference,” Wellington coach Rob Howells said. “I’m from Lorain County. I originally grew up in North Ridgeville and from North Ridgeville, so I’m a little familiar with the old (West Shore) conference. Avon and Midview are bigger now, and they’re out. You insert Columbia and Black River, and I think it’s going to get back to some of those old school, small school rivalries, which will be nice for everybody.”
The sense of community is what was seemingly most appealing to both the coaches and players, not just within the smaller conference but actual proximity between schools.
Now, there are shorter driving distances for games and a smaller-town mentality a lot of the Lorain County teams share.
“We’re very familiar with one another,” Ward said. “Some of my best friends are in and coaching in this league. I think you are dealing with like-minded athletes, coaches, communities and physically you’re dealing with similar people as well, so I think it’s extremely balanced in that regard.
“We’re so close too and our kids are so much alike with the Keystones and the Wellingtons and they are like-minded coaches and like-minded communities. To only play those schools twice in a row and then not see them again for a number of years, it just felt wrong. So this is really an exciting thing for everybody.”
It’s what the players are most excited about, too.
“I can’t wait to go up against these new schools like Clearview, Columbia, all the teams on the other side of the conference that we never got to go against,” Firelands junior Alex Angle said. “I think it will be a great matchup between us and the other teams.”
“More rivalries will start,” Columbia senior Drew Saki added. “Before, I thought our only rivalry was Lutheran West but now, in all sports, Keystone is a big one that could start and then Clearview as well so there’s just a lot more local competitiveness.”
And while it was maybe difficult to initially get off the ground, there’s a strong sense of relief for these Lorain County coaches who have been looking forward to starting fresh for some time.
“This just seems to be what it should have been for a long time,” Ward said. “I hope that it’s a conference that does have staying power, that 10 years from now, we’re talking about new rivalries and they are being really tough and getting four schools into the playoffs and all those things.”
