Ames activities director recommends moving high school athletics to Little Hawkeye Conference

Ames High activities director Lyle Feders recommended the Ames Community School District pursue membership in the Little Hawkeye Conference and leave the Iowa Alliance, saying the move would better match opponents by size and increase lower-level and middle-school opportunities for student participation.

Feders told the school board that participation in athletics and activities has increased across recent years and that some programs are pushing coach-to-player ratios as high as 1-to-40. He said the district is seeing strains on assistant-coach staffing and rising costs for officiating and equipment. “We would be bringing a recommendation to the board in the April board meeting to act on moving away from the alliance and aligning with the Little Hawkeye Conference,” Feders said.

Feders outlined several reasons for the recommendation: higher participation rates and competitive matches in Little Hawkeye member schools, more consistent lower-level offerings (JV/varsity layers and middle-school levels), and a conference makeup that he said better fits Ames’ demographics for many sports and fine-arts events. He also noted travel and gate-receipt tradeoffs, saying that while average miles might not be dramatically smaller, fans are likelier to travel when contests are competitive.

Feders reviewed participation data drawn from Infinite Campus showing participation counts across recent years: 709 unique participants in one earlier year, 1,018 in his first year (about 69% of the student body), 866 in a later year (59%), and 885 so far this year (58.9%) not yet counting late rosters and clubs. He said projected year-end totals would likely exceed prior years’ participation.

On facilities and capital projects, Feders said the district’s track-stadium project is scheduled to begin May 5 and will include full track replacement, additional west-side bleachers with roughly 300 seats, fencing and new lights. He provided an estimated trophy-case project cost of $125,000 to $185,000 to move display cases into more public areas of Ames High.

Feders warned of rising contracted costs for athletic training. He said the three-year athletic-training contract with McFarland Clinic (noting McFarland’s management relationship with Athletico) expires in June and that McFarland had notified the district of a proposed increase “around $30,000,” which Feders described as roughly double the current cost; he said the district will issue a request for proposals and hopes McFarland will respond.

Board members asked about travel distances, middle-school scheduling difficulties and how fine-arts events would be affected; Feders and Superintendent Grimes said fine-arts competitions and state selection processes are governed separately and would not be strictly bound by conference affiliation. Feders said nonconference scheduling could continue with traditional opponents if the district changed conferences.

The board did not vote on conference realignment at the meeting. Feders said a formal recommendation would be forwarded for board action at the April meeting, and he asked trustees and community members to forward questions beforehand so staff can address them at that time.

Ending: Feders and superintendent-level staff said the district will continue to evaluate conference invitations, travel impacts, and scheduling details and return to the board in April with a formal recommendation. The district continues to operate under the Iowa Alliance while evaluating invitations from other conferences and potential legislative changes affecting alignment.