Eric Rismiller was a line coach for the Pottsville football program in 2004 when the Crimson Tide joined the Berks Inter-County League.
He remembers how important it was for the Crimson Tide to get into a league at the time, and the positive impact the competitive nature of the league had on the Pottsville program through its successful run of eight straight playoff appearances from 2004-11.
Now the Pottsville athletic director, Rismiller sees a lot of similarities in the Crimson Tide’s move to the Anthracite Football League for the 2016 season.
Pottsville will become the AFL’s 12th member starting next fall as the conference switches to a two-division format.
The league’s biggest school district enrollment wise, Pottsville will be joined by Blue Mountain, Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, Tamaqua and North Schuylkill in Division I.
Small schools Marian, Mahanoy Area, Minersville, Panther Valley, Schuylkill Haven and Shenandoah Valley will comprise Division II.
“Right now, with the way our numbers are, our population is decreasing,” Rismiller said. “Our opponents in the Berks League keep getting bigger and stronger.
“Berks has great teams, but they don’t have great followings. We have to get our fans there, and their fans there to make things work money wise.”
The Anthracite Football League’s split into two divisions is the latest change to the conference that began as the Anthracite 8 in 2002, and creates a balance the league hasn’t yet experienced in its 14-year history.
As Lehighton (8-0), Jim Thorpe (8-0) and Blue Mountain (7-1) engage in a great battle for the 2015 league crown entering tonight’s Week 9 contests, let’s take a look at how the AFL got to this point, and take a glimpse into its future.
League history
The Anthracite 8 was born in 2002 and included Jim Thorpe, Mahanoy Area, Marian, Minersville, Panther Valley, Schuylkill Haven, Shenandoah Valley and Tamaqua.
At the time, all of the schools in the conference were Class A in enrollment except for Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua, which were Class AA.
The conference solved scheduling issues that hampered several of the schools, cut down on travel and gave them a trophy to play for at the end of the season.
The league also gave area teams a chance to showcase their hard-hitting brand of Coal Region football, highlight their long-standing rivalries and attract bigger crowds.
“This is Coal Region football,” Marian coach Stan Dakosty said in 2002. “We always brag about Coal Region football. This is our chance to showcase it.”
Expansion
Since its inception, however, the Anthracite 8 had to deal with balancing schools of different classes.
Jim Thorpe moved up to Class AAA in 2004, while Panther Valley jumped to Class AA.
The league took the first step toward adding balance in 2006 when it admitted North Schuylkill, which is Class AA by enrollment.
In 2014, Class AAA schools Lehighton and Blue Mountain left the Mountain Valley Conference and Berks Football League, respectively, to join the AFL. Now at 11 teams, getting No. 12 was imperative to the AFL’s future.
“We put a feeler out two years ago and we petitioned some other districts around our league within
a certain mile radius,” said AFL president Steve Toth, the high school principal at Tamaqua. “The one that stuck out was Pottsville.
“We felt that Pottsville was a good fit for our local schools and they wanted to come into the league, which was a bonus for us.”
Pottsville agreed.
“The competition is right up our alley,” Rismiller said. “Blue Mountain, those games are always dogfights. Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, North Schuylkill, they’re right there in the mix as well. We think it’s a good fit for us.”
Maintaining balance
The addition of Pottsville necessitated the split into two divisions. The league was one, 11-team division for 2014 and 2015, and the disparity between the big schools and small schools was huge.
Since Lehighton and Blue Mountain joined the AFL, the teams that will comprise Division I have compiled a 43-3 record against teams that form the new Division II entering tonight’s slate of games.
The only Division II teams to break through were Marian’s win over Tamaqua last season, and victories this season by Mahanoy Area over North Schuylkill and Schuylkill Haven over Tamaqua.
“It puts balance into our league that we now have 12 teams for the next cycle,” Toth said. “It gets away from the Class A schools playing bigger Triple-A schools. It creates a competitive balance within the league.”
Keeping that balance while maintaining the local rivalries was the major objective when the league sat down to do its schedule for the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
Toth said the AFL athletic directors did not want to have mandatory crossover games, and left it up to the individual school districts to fill their non-league games.
“We wanted to maintain the rivalries and locality within the divisions at the end of the season,” Toth said. “That’s typically the playoff push, and people want to come out and see games at the end of the season that are vital and important. Those division games will be important because they will be playing for division trophies.”
Filling the schedule
The Anthracite Football League back-loaded its schedule, putting the five league contests in Weeks 6-10 and leaving Weeks 1-5 open for the schools to fill themselves.
There were some minor adjustments — Schuylkill Haven and Blue Mountain and Marian and Tamaqua wanted to keep their annual rivalry games on Week 10, so the league slate begins Week 5 for those four schools.
Basically, the AFL followed the lead of the Berks Football League, which plays five weeks of non-league games before beginning its league slate.
“A lot of dates that are open with other teams and other leagues are typically in the first half of the (season),” Toth said. “We kept open lines of communication.
“If a single-A school did want to play a triple-A schools, like Haven and Blue Mountain, we kept that. We worked under the premise that the ADs in the room are intelligent people who can work through schedule issues and conflicts. We came up with the best kind of schedule for the bulk of the districts in the league.”
Several AFL schools kept most of their current opponents, while a few revamped their schedule entirely.
Jim Thorpe, Schuylkill Haven and Tamaqua will play a schedule of entirely AFL opponents, while Marian kept four and North Schuylkill, Lehighton and Panther Valley retained three.
North Schuylkill added games with Boyertown (Week 2) and kept its rivalry game with Mount Carmel (Week 5), Lehighton added Fleetwood (Week 1) and Schuylkill Valley (Week 3), and Panther Valley secured games with CMVT (Week 1) and Hamburg (Week 2).
Shenandoah Valley added non-league games with Kutztown and Canton, Mahanoy Area signed Jenkintown, Kutztown and Hamburg, and Minersville renewed its rivalries with Tri-Valley League teams Tri-Valley and Williams Valley.
At the current time, only Marian (Week 1) and Mahanoy Area (Week 3) have open dates on their 2016 schedule. Minersville and Shenandoah Valley will play twice, meeting Week 2 in a non-league game and Week 6 in their AFL game.
Schedules for Shenandoah Valley, Mahanoy Area and Minersville may change depending on Nativity’s status in a proposed new league the Green Wave will join for 2016.
“For 95 percent of the scheduled games right now, we’ve had minimal balking and squalking,” Toth said. “Some little things here, some little things there.
“Really, it’s been a very good process. The best word to use is communal. The ADs have really worked well together to make sure they have the best schedule possible and allow for some fluidity.”
Rating points
When Pottsville agreed to enter the Anthracite Football League, it had one stipulation: The Crimson Tide didn’t want to play any Class A teams.
When the league complied, Rismiller immediately hunted for possible opponents.
“We knew going in, when we were approached by Steve Toth and other people from the league about joining, that we were not joining if we have to play small schools,” Rismiller said.
“I talked to guys like (Schuylkill Haven’s Scott) Buffington and (Minersville’s) Rich Dry, and I said ‘It’s not that I don’t want to play you guys. But it’s not going to help my kids playing an A schedule.’
“I wanted to give my kids the best opportunity to do well and make the district playoffs.”
Following a list provided by head coach Tom McGeoy, Rismiller quickly called some old friends from the Berks League, landing games with Wyomissing, Reading and Muhlenberg. The Tide renewed a current contract with Crestwood, then added a game with Steel-High.
Rismiller said Steel-High was the last possible option for their Week 3 hole. He said talks are under way to add Hazleton to the schedule in that spot in 2018.
Blue Mountain followed a similar path. The Eagles kept their rivalry game with Schuylkill Haven, but secured games with Muhlenberg, Hanover, Daniel Boone and Wyomissing for Weeks 1-4.
Crystal Ball
Will the Anthracite Football League continue to grow? Or will it stay at 12 teams?
For 2016, the AFL will be as balanced as ever. The PIAA’s switch to six classifications shouldn’t really affect the AFL, as the teams in Division I will be in either AAA or AAAA, and the teams in Division II will be either Class A or AA.
Toth indicated the Anthracite Football League might never be satisfied, and would still someday like to add Schuylkill League schools Pine Grove, Tri-Valley and Williams Valley to the mix.
Could a merger of the AFL and Schuylkill League be in the works?
For now, all 12 schools are looking forward to 2016 and two divisions.
“I think it’s going to be a great league,” Rismiller said. “The last time we played these local schools ... they were all dogfights. This time around I think it’s going to be the same way.
“People will go to these games. We’re playing these teams in other sports like baseball and basketball, creating rivalries. It’s good competition and good, quality football on the field as well.
“I’m really impressed with what I’m seeing.”