Conference threatens to jettison Eden Prairie

The Lake Conference, one of Minnesota's premier high school athletic leagues, is threatening to kick out Eden Prairie and its powerhouse programs in a revolt against ... well, maybe not Eden Prairie as much as against the Minnesota State High School League.

Either way, the structure of high school activities for many of the largest schools in the western and southern suburbs is going to change.

Last week, a committee of current and retired school administrators recommended that the MSHSL place Edina, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Wayzata in the Lake Conference. Those four schools have been members of the Classic Lake, which will disband at the conclusion of the 2009-10 school year.

If the MSHSL board of directors approves the recommendation at its August meeting, the Lake Conference will expand from 12 schools to 16 in the fall of 2010. But the executive committee of the Lake Conference, which met Monday, fired a new salvo at the MSHSL by letting it be known that nine Lake schools were ready to withdraw from the league in 2010-11 and form a new conference.

The Lake had told the placement committee that it was willing to accept two new members. If all four land in the Lake, all bets are off.

"[The massive Lake withdrawal is] one of the outcomes that could happen," said Bloomington Jefferson Principal Steve Hill, who chairs the conference's executive committee. "There's another outcome that has an equally positive chance of happening, and that's if the high school league puts two schools in the Lake Conference."

The nine Lake schools threatening to exit are Bloomington Jefferson, Bloomington Kennedy, Burnsville, Lakeville North, Lakeville South, Eagan, Eastview, Rosemount and Apple Valley. Two other Lake schools, Chaska and Chanhassen (which will open this fall), have applied for membership in the Missota Conference for 2010-11.

If all those schools exit the Lake, Eden Prairie would be left standing with the four Classic Lake schools. All five are similar in enrollment and are geographic neighbors, but ending up with a five-team league would put the Classic Lake schools right back where they started, with Eden Prairie joining in the misery of facing the scheduling difficulties caused by having such a small conference. Last November, the Classic Lake schools voted to kick Armstrong out of the league, which began the MSHSL placement process because conferences are required to have at least five members. Armstrong has since been accepted into the Northwest Suburban Conference for 2010-11.

"All we want is a schedule and a place to play," said Hopkins athletic director Dan Johnson, referring to the Classic Lake's scheduling issues. Those schools have traveled as far as Michigan and Missouri to find football opponents, and their basketball schedules have sometimes included 19 nonconference games before the first conference contest.

MSHSL executive director Dave Stead, who is in Chicago for the annual convention of the National Federation of State High School Associations, spoke with the Lake Conference officials during their meeting Monday.

"They asked me, 'What does this mean if we pull apart?' " Stead said. "I said I have no idea what that will mean. There are so many unknowns, we have to figure out what the potential scenarios are."

One person expecting the Lake to break up is Mike Grant, the athletic director and football coach at Eden Prairie. The Eagles are the Lake's dominant football team, having won six state championships since 1997.

"The Lake Conference will dissolve," Grant said. "That's what everybody wanted. Nobody wanted to play us. I imagine we'll still be playing. We have to play some games. Somebody has to play us."

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