If a group of Macks Creek citizens have their way, the Pirates could be playing high school football as soon as next season.
At Monday's school board meeting, Jeff Shore, who is a teacher and assistant high school football coach at Camdenton, made a presentation to the board about the feasibility of starting a football program at Macks Creek.
Macks Creek superintendent Donna Moffatt said she believed Shore to be serving as sort of an advisor to some friends in the community, not presenting himself as a potential coach of the proposed program.
Discussion of the proposal was tabled until the Feb. 18 meeting, when board members will have had time to look over the information.
Shore presented a variety of ways in which the school could handle the cost of starting a program, with possibly the most interesting being a co-op.
In the case of a co-op, the school would merge with a neighboring school that also didn't have football – which in this case would be Climax Springs.
Moffatt said there's been no call to Climax Springs, even to gauge interest. Macks Creek and Climax Springs have traditionally been rivals, and there's been some concern over how the two communities would handle a merger.
Beyond the issue of funding a program, another factor would be fielding a team with enough players.
Shore's presentation set a first-season varsity goal of 30 players.
Macks Creek has 95 students in the high school, about half of which are boys. In that case, the team would need roughly 60 percent of its male population to go out for the football team in order to fill the goal.
And they would also need that many to stay academically eligible and healthy.
Those are issues to be handled far down the road, however. The district wants to allow the school board members some time to consider the facts before discussing it further in February. At this point, there's been a presentation and nothing more.
Moffatt said football isn't the first or only idea brought before the board as a way to provide more activities for students.
She said there have been many ideas over the years, including volleyball, for ways to give students more opportunities.
Shore was not at the school on Wednesday and was unable to be reached for comment.
The next Macks Creek school board meeting will be Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m.
