Students who play a sport will experience a new conference switch, and will now be competing in the South Central Athletic Conference (SCAC) starting within next school year, after the school board and athletic department voted to approve the move.
A decision within the making for a few years, Athletic Director Scott Penner, alongside school board members, made the decision for the upcoming school year for athletic teams to be realigned in the SCAC. “The process started two/three years ago after the realignment in 2023 with the Mid Penn. That triggered conversations, and we just let it marinate for a while.” said Penner. “Then we got more serious about what the differences were and we started to explore [them].”
The process was based not solely on athletic performance within Mid Penn, but values and cultures within the two conferences. “The culture and philosophy of SCAC is more aligned with our belief system,” said Penner. According to the mission statement of the SCAC, they, “will provide a positive environment for student athletes so they may reach their fullest potential with emphasis on academics, character, and sportsmanship.”
President of Student Athletic Leadership Council (SALC), Kendall Boring, discussed the idea of the conference switch for over three to four weeks alongside other members of the club. “I think that it will be beneficial for our athletes in the lens that sports are being put in a division that will allow them to be competitive,” said Boring. “The switch in conferences will definitely be a huge change overall, and will affect some sports positively and some sports negatively.” As a softball player herself, Boring highlights the potential differences between Mid Penn and SCAC. “Personally from a softball perspective our division games next year will be in my opinion lower competition than what we have now.”
Big Spring, alongside James Buchanan and Shalom Catholic, will now be met alongside a variety of teams from across south central PA: Bermudian Springs, Biglerville, Central York, Dallastown, Delone Catholic, Dover, Eastern York, Fairfield, Hanover, Kennard-Dale, Littlestown, New Oxford, Northeastern, Red Lion, South Western, Spring Grove, Susquehannock, West York, William Penn, York Catholic, York County Tech, and York Suburban.
A concern with parents as well as athletes and the athletic department is the potential issue of travel times. With an increase in travel times, students expressed concerns about arriving home later and still having to wake up for school early the next day. Traveling up to distances of 90+ minutes, games that start later such as football, basketball, volleyball, wrestling and more could see a very late night ahead of them.
Big Spring has been in the Mid-Penn conference for over 40 years, so this change is something that will have an impact on all athletes.
