Sharing the wealth: Sports co-ops enable schools to join forces, help each other – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When Quaker Valley and Cornell school districts formed a football cooperative in 2012, the uniforms reflected the agreement.

While the Cornell players wore Quaker Valley’s colors of black, white and gold on jerseys emblazoned with “Quakers,” a gold “C” painted on the back of their helmets paid tribute to their true school.

That small gesture reflected how the co-op and many others like it throughout the years have thrived in the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League.

Quaker Valley and Cornell will field separate teams next season to avoid moving up a class when Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association football expands from four to six classifications, but both parties said the co-op was not only productive on the field but positive off the field as well.

“The kids did a phenomenal job from the beginning,” Quaker Valley coach John Tortorea said. “They just kind of accepted each other quick, and that’s what made the co-op successful.”

There are at least 25 co-ops within the WPIAL, involving about 50 schools and 15 different sports — nearly every sport the WPIAL offers. According to the PIAA constitution and bylaws, co-ops must involve at least one school with a boys or girls enrollment, depending on the sport, of fewer than 300 students in grades 9-11. This prevents two powerhouse sports programs from banding together for competitive advantage, as co-ops are meant for smaller schools to get the assistance of larger schools’ infrastructure.

Also, according to the PIAA bylaws, the public school districts of the participating PIAA member schools must be contiguous and/or overlap.

Quaker Valley and Cornell were one of just a few co-ops in the WPIAL’s most popular sport, football. Quigley Catholic and Freedom Area, Penn Hills and Trinity Christian, and Blackhawk and Beaver County Christian also have football co-ops.

Bill Sacco, Cornell’s athletic director, said the transition into the co-op was smooth because Mr. Tortorea used to be an assistant coach at Cornell, and Edward Dawson, Cornell’s coach before the merger, joined Mr. Tortorea’s staff. The two teams had also played each other in prior seasons. The only challenges turned out to be logistical “nightmares,” Mr. Sacco said, that required a lot of communication between the two schools’ administrations.

The schools had to coordinate transportation for athletes, cheerleaders and bands for practices and games. And because Cornell’s school day ends earlier than Quaker Valley’s, football players attended a special after-school study hall until practice.

That discouraged about four Cornell kids from playing.

“They didn’t want to be bothered with catching the bus to go over there to Quaker Valley,” Mr. Sacco said. “Some said they didn’t want to wear Quaker Valley colors to play football. … But the ones that went, they had a great experience.”

Mr. Tortorea attributed part of the successful run to Dane Jackson, a Cornell player who was a standout for Quaker Valley and is now a freshman on the University of Pittsburgh football team.

“He did everything we asked of him, and he was kind of a leader early on, and the rest of the Cornell kids kind of followed his lead,” Mr. Tortorea said. “He really committed himself to Quaker Valley.”

Wrestling is a sport that has many co-ops, including Avonworth and Northgate and Jefferson-Morgan and Carmichaels Area. What makes the Avonworth and Northgate cooperative interesting is the two schools are rivals in football but have shared a co-op in several sports for about a decade.

“It just makes sense for smaller programs like ours to be able to do that with some place like Northgate,” Avonworth athletic director Tim Giel said. “It’s also difficult because, as the wrestling coach, we have one of the toughest football games of the year against their football program, and now I’ve got to go and ask those kids to come and wrestle for us.”

Even WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley was surprised that the co-op between the two schools worked so well. “I went to Avonworth many moons ago, and for the life of me, there used to be an extreme hatred, albeit a friendly hatred, between those two districts,” he said. “And somehow now they come together.”

Mr. Giel said some of his wrestlers also play football, but the student athletes don’t have a problem going from opponent to teammate. He instead echoed Mr. Sacco about logistics, adding that neither Northgate nor Avonworth provide transportation between the schools, so athletes in the co-op sports must find their own way.

All of the co-ops in the WPIAL must last at least two years, and the WPIAL and PIAA must sign off on the arrangements. Through the thorough application process, Mr. O’Malley said, he believed all of the co-ops in the WPIAL had the right objectives behind them.

“The intent behind the rule is to provide competitive opportunities for the students,” Mr. O’Malley said. “And if the cooperative sport agreement, the existence of it, leads to increased interest and eventually a standalone program, I think idealistically that’s the route you’d like to take.”

That’s what happened with Quaker Valley and Cornell football, even if reclassification spurred the separation. But the greater good that came out of the arrangement might be the relationships built. Mr. Tortorea said his football players will often cheer on the separate basketball teams. And should Cornell not be able to field a team next year, with about 30 athletes interested right now, those Cornell players who began their careers at Quaker Valley would be able to return.

“We’re excited for them to have their own program back,” Mr. Tortorea said. “We’re just going to miss them.”

egan R: mryan@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1722 and Twitter @theothermegryan.