Tupper Lake football players stand between plays during an Oct. 3 home game against Thousand Islands. Pictured from left are Colin Bencze (84), Luka Dukett (80), Cohen Gerstenberger (88), Cooper McDonald (28) and Gaetano Lo Bue (41). (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

TUPPER LAKE — The Tupper Lake Central School District entertained a discussion at its school board meeting on Monday evening regarding whether or not it should move back up to 11-man football from its current eight-man football team, which the district dropped down to in 2018.

It’s atypical for the board to engage in discussion with the audience during its meetings. Board President Jane Whitmore frequently makes it a point to read the district’s policy stipulating the board will listen to public comments, and while it will always respond, it will not usually be on the spot, but rather in the future after the district has had “sufficient time to process and research issues, if need be.”

Monday night was different. Superintendent Jaycee Welsh said that with such a community-centric issue as the type of football the district’s team will compete in, it was important to engage with stakeholders’ opinions in the open.

“This is the type of decision we want to chat about,” she said. “We want to hear people’s opinions. … We want it to be a very transparent decision and not something that happens behind closed doors.”

Welsh emphasized that this was not a decision that had to be made immediately, with the district afforded several months to declare its intentions, as next year’s football season is far off.

Welsh began the discussion by explaining some potential benefits of moving back to 11-man, and why the district was considering doing so in the first place. First and foremost was the travel time. Since far fewer schools in New York play eight-man football than 11-man, that means there’s usually a lot more commuting to get there.

The Lumberjacks’ away games this season were in Cooperstown, Clinton, South Lewis and Syracuse, which ranged from about 96 to 170-mile drives each way. Welsh said not only did the travel sometimes fatigue athletes, coaches and fans — but it was quite expensive to bus a team that far throughout the season.

Welsh also said that it was misleading to think that because Tupper Lake was playing 8-man football, it was playing similarly-sized schools. Oftentimes, she said, the Lumberjacks found themselves playing larger districts that could sink more resources into their football programs. TLCSD Athletic Director Hayden LaMere, who attended the school board meeting, detailed this paradox.

“I think people think that the classification (of school sizes) ‘A(A)’ through ‘D’ means that 8-man is after ‘D,’ that it’d be even smaller,” he said. “That’s just not the case. A lot of the schools that we play are ‘C’ schools, so it’s not an advantage, in that sense.”

Welsh confirmed that if Tupper Lake played 11-man football, its enrollment would place it in Class D, the smallest of the five 11-man state tournaments, if the team qualified. Welsh said during the regular season, it would also renew some “good old” North Country rivalries. She also cited the lack of forfeits as another possible, albeit secondary, reason to play other 11-man teams.

“It seems that every year, an 8-man team cancels a game toward the end,” she said. “This year, unfortunately, it was our senior night for our players. I think we had some disappointed people there. I don’t know if that’s a strong case for eight versus 11, but it seems that that does happen.”

Forfeiting, however, became a double-edged sword in the conversation, with head coach Dennis Klossner reminding the room that it was the entire reason the Lumberjacks dropped to eight-man football seven years ago.

“We went to eight-man in 2018 completely because we were the team forfeiting,” he said. “We’re the team that can’t put the other players out there, especially with the numbers that we have and had. … We went to eight-man to provide football and give the kids the opportunity to continue playing — and that’s what eight-man’s here for.”

School Board Vice President Jason Rolley asked how easy it is to move back and forth between eight- and 11-man football, stating that he felt the modified numbers were “healthy” right now to support moving up, while acknowledging that could change down the road, resulting in an eventual need to drop back down.

Welsh and LaMere said it was theoretically possible to jump back and forth each season, but was not programmatically easy, with Klossner noting that it requires league acceptance to rejoin, and that’s never a given. Klossner also noted that strong youth or modified numbers aren’t always predictive on the varsity level, as there are some drop-outs.

He added that legally, the state requires a larger roster than the names suggest, with eight-man football requiring 12 players on the team, and 11-man requiring 16. When that’s combined with injuries that occur in any given season, Klossner said that even with strong modified numbers at the moment, that would present a “very iffy situation” of having enough kids playing at the varsity level.

“Looking at the future, I hope it works, I hope it’s great — but I see 11-man forfeiting a lot because of injuries, and grades and kids not coming out.”

When asked for his opinion, Klossner spoke plainly, while acknowledging that he hadn’t had much time to think about the potential change ahead of the board meeting.

“I think eight-man’s the way to go,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve got at the younger levels.”

Welsh and Whitmore thanked Klossner for his thoughts and pledged to maintain transparency and open-mindedness as they work toward a decision in the coming months.