EWING — Beginning next season, Ewing students will co-op with CWC in football.
The decision was announced after the school board examined the thoughts of students, what would be the best fit and its current situation with O’Neill. The school had been in a co-op there for the last six years. Athletic Director Greg Appleby and Ewing explored a few options.
“We wanted to kind of get an identity a little bit back for our school and football program,” he explains. “We did some surveys, looked at six-man and maybe didn’t have enough interest in that.”
Enter Chambers-Wheeler Central. The schools compete in D2, eight-man football, but has a smaller roster than many teams. The number sits at just 15 this season. Appleby says it’s tough to gauge how much of a bump adding Ewing players will give, but it should be somewhere between five and 15. Their thoughts were taken into consideration for the decision, as well.
“It’s like any survey, I think it’s mixed,” Appleby says. “There are some kids that went up to O’Neill and had some success, did some good things there and wouldn’t have mind staying and then there are other kids that maybe wanted to get that small town feel with going with Chambers-Wheeler Central.
As of now, it’s not known if any Ewing coaches will come with the program to CWC. The other hope is to bring home football games back to Ewing, who’s facility wasn’t the right size to host C1 with O’Neill.
