High school football is coming to the St. John Valley.
The SAD 27 board of directors in Fort Kent approved the proposal Monday night. It followed similar votes two weeks earlier in neighboring SAD 33 of Frenchville and last week by the Madawaska School Department to create a three-school, eight-player cooperative football program incorporating the previously independent Valley Mustangs that has served young football players in the region since 2006.
“We have the boards’ approval,” said Ben Sirois, superintendent and executive director of the Valley Unified Education Service Center, which serves all three school districts involved in the cooperative team.
“We’re going to be on the schedule for the fall.”
The cooperative entry will still be known as the Valley Mustangs and players will wear that team’s traditional gold and black colors. Madawaska High School will serve as lead school in the cooperative effort because the Mustangs were founded in that community in 2006.
A survey of students at Fort Kent, Madawaska and Wisdom high schools indicated a prospective varsity roster of between 20 and 30 players, and the Mustangs’ subvarsity program for players from middle school through high school players not quite ready for varsity play will be continued through the school systems, Sirois said.
The varsity Mustangs — with a modified enrollment of 270 based on the use of Madawaska’s full enrollment as the lead school and percentages of the enrollments for Fort Kent Community High School and Wisdom High School of St. Agatha using the number of players on the varsity roster from both schools — will compete in the Maine Principals’ Association’s eight-player, small-school North division.
Last year that grouping was comprised of Houlton, Stearns of Millinocket, Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, Orono, Dexter and Mount View of Thorndike, with Dexter winning the state championship with a last-second 34-30 victory over South finalist Maranacook of Readfield.
The Mustangs’ home games will be rotated between Madawaska and Fort Kent, with the first home game this fall set for Madawaska. Practices will be held in Frenchville.
“Each community gets a little of the Valley Mustangs as we move along,” Sirois said.
This will be the third season of eight-player football in Maine. Ten teams competed in 2019, and the participation rate increased to 25 eight-player programs last fall. Bucksport High School, Greely High School of Cumberland Center and the Valley Mustangs are set to join the eight-player ranks for the 2022 season.
“Eight-man football statewide has provided communities a chance to either save football or in the Valley Mustangs’ case to add interscholastic football even though they were competing at a club level before,” said Maine Principals Association interscholastic executive director Mike Burnham. “We know the value of these activities and getting the kids involved and the expansion of eight-man football has provided those opportunities for more kids.”
The effort to have the Valley Mustangs join the interscholastic ranks was motivated by the decreasing number of other independent league opponents available for the team to play.
Just four teams competed in the independent ranks last fall, three in Maine and the fourth in Berlin, New Hampshire, and the Mustangs were anticipating just a three-game schedule this fall.
“The region has been very supportive of the Mustangs as they have been,” Sirois said. “They’ve been in operation since 2006, and that model has been there as a cooperative team. Kids from all over the Valley have been playing on that team, including kids from across the border, and it’s only been recently that the independent football league has dwindled down to almost nothing.
“As they’re driving down the highway going past Houlton and going past Orono and all of the other towns that have MPA-sanctioned teams, it just seemed like the logical next step was to go under the schools’ umbrella.”
The Valley Mustangs will play an eight-game regular-season schedule this fall, then be eligible for postseason play, with their club experience serving as the two years of subvarsity play normally needed before a new football program may join the varsity ranks under MPA policy.
The Mustangs’ organization will become the team’s boosters club and will be responsible for raising funds for uniform and helmet replenishment, Sirois said. The three schools represented by the cooperative team will share business costs such as game fees and travel expenses.
“The basic premise here is we have appreciated this program since it began, and for the schools we’re just so happy we can support the program as it always has been,” Sirois said. “It’s going to be the Valley Mustangs moving forward, and being under the MPA’s umbrella is just a bonus so we can get more games.”
