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Coughlin and Meyers played football last Friday in what could possibly be the next-to-last meeting of the two Wilkes-Barre schools in a series that started back in 1931. Plans are to merge the two high schools into a new school to be built on the site where Coughlin currently sits.
The exact timetable for the new school isn’t completely clear. Nor is what is going to happen to the sports teams. Rumors have the sports merging in 2018 when the two-year scheduling cycle ends. More scuttlebutt has it not happening until the new school is filled with kids.
Either way, the new school is going to need a new nickname and new colors. No sense recycling the ones used now. A fresh start is needed. Heck, the new school doesn’t even have a name, but Wilkes-Barre Central has a nice ring to it.
Anyway, let’s look at some possibilities for a new nickname and school colors. First, a little history.
There were two public school mergers in the area in the early 1990s. Hazleton, West Hazleton and Freeland merged to form Hazleton Area. Scranton Tech and Scranton Central merged to create Scranton. Both schools dropped the ball when if came to nicknames.
Hazleton Area became the Cougars. Not bad, but 15 schools use the nickname including Valley View. Scranton was named the Knights, joining 20 other schools with the nickname.
The new school needs a nickname that isn’t overused, so here are three to consider.
• Miners. The Wyoming Valley is rich in anthracite history. Only one other Pennsylvania high school uses the nickname — Minersville. (Who would have thought of that?)
But Miners is too old-fashioned for a state-of-the-art school. And the history of the local coal industry hasn’t always been a pleasant one.
• Corruption. Well, it certainly fits the area. The uniforms could be horizonal black and white strips like you see in those old prison movies on TCM. The school can even “steal” an idea from Wyoming Area.
Wyoming Area has a Ring Of Honor where it annually inducts people who played instrumental roles in the football program. W-B Central can have a Ring of Dishonor to pay tribute to all those who disgraced the school district. There are plenty of candidates for induction and another might be coming aboard soon.
Don’t think this idea would get out of executive session of the school board, though.
• Barons. We have a winner. It pays homage to those old semi-pro baseball and basketball teams which called Wilkes-Barre home. Manheim Central is the only other school in the state that uses it. It’s historic and fresh at the same time.
It makes plenty of sense … so the school board will pick something different.
Now for colors. White is obvious one of them. The others need to have some meaning to them.
• Purple. Not because I’m a Baltimore Ravens fan, but because what it is. Purple is the combination of red and blue. So mix Coughlin red and Meyers blue and you get a new school color.
No Wyoming Valley Conference school uses purple and only two in District 2 — Scranton Prep and Wallenpaupack — have it in their color schemes.
• Gray. This is bit of a preemptive strike in case GAR is eventually closed and folded into the new school. Could happen someday, so using GAR’s secondary color would incorporate all three schools.
If purple and gray seems dull, just look at Wyoming Valley West’s gray home football uniforms. They’re the sharpest in the WVC.
SITE CHANGE FOR REDEEMER
The Nanticoke at Holy Redeemer game on Oct. 22, will be played at 6 p.m. at King’s College.
The game was originally scheduled for 1 p.m. at Wilkes-Barre Memorial Stadium.
UPRIGHTS NOT GRAND
The PIAA should look into the height of the goalpost uprights throughout the state. Some local schools such as Abington Heights and Nanticoke have uprights only about 10 feet high and it’s difficult to determine whether a kick is good or not.
At Abington Heights on Saturday, the best way to determine whether a kick was good was where it hit off the scoreboard or the high entrance way at the other end of the field. Kickers are just too good to go with the shorter uprights.
The PIAA should give all schools a five-year window to install higher uprights.
ONE JOB ONLY
Injuries have hit Lake-Lehman hard, requiring coach Jerry Gilsky to dip a little more into his bench than expected. Gilsky, though, isn’t overwhelming the new starters. Instead, he’s having them concentrate on learning one position and using more one-way players.
“Our two middle linebackers are one-way players. That’s a luxury,” Gilsky said. “Our outside linebackers, (Tyler) Wojciechowski and (Nate) O’Donnell, one-way players. It’s really key because kids can concentrate on their position rather than both sides of the ball.”
The strategy also makes sense from a fatigue standpoint. Who’s going to be fresher late in the fourth quarter, a kid who has played 80 snaps or a kid who has played 40? It also makes practice more tolerable for some players who don’t have to wait for an injury to a two-way player to ever see the field.
More coaches — in all sports for that matter — need to realize that games can often be lost because some kids just don’t have the stamina to play every minute. Unfortunately, some coaches just don’t understand that or ignore it all together.
EVERYBODY’S IN?
Schools have until Oct. 18 to decide whether they will participate in the District 2 football playoffs. While no team has ever backed out of the football playoffs, its has been done in District 4.
Southern Columbia was so powerful during its run of six Class A state titles that a few District 4 Class A teams would elect to play in the Eastern Conference playoffs where the chances of playing two games instead of getting wiped out in one.
Under the new six-classification format, only 12 of 37 teams (36 in District 2 plus D4’s Williamsport) will fail to make the district playoffs. Too many, especially in Class 4A where eight of 11 qualify.
