Proposed New League Could Give OAA oppertunity to Expand if they so choose.

Written Thursday April 21st at 11:15 PM
Updated Friday April 22nd at 9:40 PM

The KLAA will be different in two years.

On Thursday Morning, ten KLAA schools decided to leave the conference and form their own league effective the 2017-2018 school year according to Hometown Life's Brad Emons.

The schools that are leaving are nine in Oakland County and one in Livingston County. They are Waterford Kettering, Waterford Mott, Lakeland, Milford, South Lyon, South Lyon East, Walled Lake Northern, Walled Lake Central, Walled Lake Western, and Pinckney.

The move will bring the KLAA down from 24 to 14 schools.

Last month, the league voted down Proposal B which was suppose to realign the league based on competitive balance but travel concerns and student enrollment voted down that proposal thus forcing the ten schools to form their own league.

However for the new league to happen it needs approval from the five school district superintendents. If that fails then they can separate and join different conference like the OAA or in Pinckney's case the Capital Area Conference.

We will know by June if this new league forms with the ten schools because the KLAA bylaws state that the schools leaving must stay in the league for one year and have their plan in place by June.

Could They Come to the OAA???

Odds are that the ten schools coming to the league are not likely but you never know but if I had to be an odds maker, odds that nine of them come to the OAA are about 40-60. If these schools join the OAA then they could be perfect fits based on location and distance geographically along with competitive balance, especially the Waterford and Walled Lake Schools along with Lakeland and Milford. South Lyon is very close to Farmington and could establish rivalries with the three Farmington schools along with the rest of the southern schools.

The league could very well talk to these schools and with the OAA having 23 schools and needing to expand. This could be the perfect opportunity to expand to 33 schools or 32 because of the geographic standpoint that nine of the schools are in Oakland County but there is a possibility that Pinckney could be left out because they are in Livingston County and it is very well documented especially with Grand Blanc, Davison, and Lapeer that no matter how hard schools try to get them in, the OAA will not take schools who are not from Oakland County.

The Lessons

This is a wake up call for the OAA to address some of their problems such as travel and competitive issues, especially in football. The KLAA issues revolved around one sport, football and the conclusion that came out of the league disagreement concluded in disbandment. Now the superintendents could prevent this from occurring, this would be a very unpopular move and I'm not sure the superintendents would want to anger their constituent.

Stay tuned to OAA Now on this developing story.