Two Rivers will remain in the Northeast Conference for football only, at least for now.
The tri-op of Kohler/Sheboygan Lutheran/Christian won an appeal to The WIAA Thursday that will keep them in the Eastern Wisconsin Conference for football after they were scheduled to move to The Northeast Conference effective 2026.
Two Rivers Athletic Director Brian Gallagher told SeehaferNews.com that he initiated an appeal to The WIAA in January to move back to the EWC for two reasons: less enrollment than KLC (about 600 students), and demographically, the Two Rivers School District is less affluent than the Sheboygan County Tri-op.
“We have a much higher poverty level than Kohler does,” he explained. “When you look at those two things alone, you step back and see that we (Two Rivers) is a traditional EWC school and participates in all other sports in that conference.”
Gallagher added, “Then, The WIAA moves us to a larger conference (for football) and replaces us with the largest school in enrollment in the EWC. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Gallagher says we are seeing more realignment in 11-player football, partly due to declining participation.
“Not only do you have traditional 11-man football teams dropping to 8-man football, but you also have schools where individual teams and programs are co-oping to form one,” he said. “As a result, conferences are moving from eight teams to five or six. You can’t realistically have conferences with that few teams.”
The Two Rivers Athletic Director says he’ll have one final chance to make the Raider’s case to The WIAA next month.
“Our plans for this upcoming school year and season are set, but they like to make plans for following years well in advance.” he noted. “Every two years, when things move around, sometimes you just have to scrap what you did and redo everything.”
Gallagher adds that they (Two Rivers) are not trying to be the “bad guy”.
They just want to do what they feel is the right and fair thing to do for the betterment of the student-athlete and The School District.
