Boys swim added as district sport

CLINTONVILLE – The Clintonville School District is adding boys swim to the list of sports it offers Clintonville High School students to participate in.
The Clintonville Board of Education approved adding boys swim to its sports offerings at its May 11 meeting. On at least two occurrences, parents of boy students who want to participate in boys swim competitions, spoke at school board meetings, urging the board to add boys swim to the district’s sports it offers.
Along with approving the addition of boys swim, the board approved that the district’s monetary commitment to boys swim would be the same as it is for girls swim, about $3,500. This would include the cost of a coach and travel.
The approval also stipulated that all sports that the district offers have one year to get their participation numbers up to the guideline numbers the district has set, or the sport will be placed on probation for the 2027-28 school year.
When introducing the topic for discussion, Clintonville Superintendent Troy Kuhn said the district has an administrative guideline that specifies the number of athletes each school sport should have in order to run the sport. He added that technically, boys cross country is not meeting that guideline, but if the number of boys and girls in cross country are combined, then the sport meets the guideline cutoff.

Girls swim and diving should have 10 participants according to the district guideline, but there were only five participants this school year, Kuhn said.
The board was presented with the guidelines specifying how many participants are required for each sport.
“We haven’t been following our guidelines,” Kuhn said. “We haven’t been doing that. Why? I’d say because some of the sports that haven’t been meeting the cut, we’ve had really, really good athletes. We’ve had state competitors.”
Regarding boys swim, Kuhn said he has contacted the New London and Shawano school districts about doing a co-op for the sport. He said New London has one participant interested. Shawano currently has a co-op agreement with the Seymour School District for boys swim.
“The Seymour boys swim team is growing leaps and bounds,” Kuhn said. “Maybe there’s a day that Seymour wants to be on their own and Shawano looks for a new co-op. But I can’t guarantee that. That would be our best bet.”
Kuhn reminded the board that the district needs to make every effort to have equal representations of boys and girls athletics and activities.
Board President Ben Huber said the participation numbers can fluctuate from year-to-year, citing the district’s wrestling program as not meeting its participation guideline numbers for two to three years. Now the participation numbers for wrestling are healthy.
“When the guidelines have been, when the minimum participants falls underneath that, then the team coach is notified and they have one year to turn it around, generally,” Huber said. “We allowed wrestling to do that several years.”
Kuhn said most of the sports are not as expensive for the district to offer as people might expect, adding that football costs the district the most money.
For swim, travel is usually done with district owned vehicles, not buses. There is no cost to the district for uniforms, as participants need to purchase their own swimsuits.
Board Vice President Kris Strauman asked how many students would participate in boys swim if the district added it as a sport.
Kuhn said there are four students fully committed, and potentially more.
Board member Christopher Hoffmann asked what the cost impact would be on the district if it added boys swim.
Kuhn said the costs involved would be for travel and the cost of a coach if the district didn’t find a volunteer coach. The travel costs would be in the district’s athletics budget.
He added that if the board added a swim team, the district would immediately begin working to set up swim meets for the next school year.
“For the opportunity of four young gentlemen, and the opportunity to grow, I see no reason why we wouldn’t entertain bringing that up,” Hoffmann said.
Strauman said she’d like to see a study on the cost impact to the district on adding boys swim as a district sport.
“If we’re all about money and keeping budgets low, what’s this going to cost us for four kids?” Strauman asked.
Kuhn said the cost to the district for the girls swim team is roughly $3,500, adding that a boys swim team would cost about the same amount.