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The idea makes perfect sense.
Schools of the same size and reasonable distance from one another playing in all common sports.
Pretty simple right?
Well, it was something that wasn't done on a lot of fronts for one reason or another until a couple of years ago and it's still not totally figured out throughout OVAC membership, which is 46 members strong.
After the OVAC vote for mandatory scheduling in the sport of football was shot down by the schools a couple of years ago, the braintrusts from eight local schools put their heads together.
Out of that meeting formed the Buckeye 8 Conference, which includes Bellaire, Buckeye Local, Edison, Harrison Central, Indian Creek, Martins Ferry, St. Clairsville and Union Local.
The league -- which is in its second full year and third year of existence -- has gotten to the point where its crowned a champion in all of its sports and each of the schools plays a full complement of games in the league, including seven football games and 14 basketball games, which decide who receives the conference title for that season.
"We're kind of going to the next step now," said Buckeye 8 President and St. Clairsville High School Principal Walt Skaggs. "It's a work in progress, but it's grown faster than we could have ever imagined. It's been outstanding."
While on the forefront, it appears the Buckeye 8 was formed only to ease the burden of scheduling for teams in the major, revenue sports. However, there was more to than that.
There's always the rationale of rivalries. While all of the teams in Belmont County basically played each other in everything, they still found themselves missing on opportunities to play against the other teams they seem to run into at the mall, social gatherings or even work together.
"The kids and fans want the bragging rights," Skaggs said. "When you are close to other people, you want to beat those teams."
It also gives athletes another chance to be recognized with a conference title and also individually for standout seasons.
Go to any gymnasium this winter and people want to know what's going on with the other teams in the conference as they continue to keep track of the standings and who's doing what.
Take the Martins Ferry girls for instance, head coach Dave Reasbeck knew exactly what was going to happen if his team won or lost either of their games this past week in relation to the Buckeye 8 standings.
"The whole idea was to make scheduling easier, play schools that we should be playing in terms of geography and not have our fans have to travel hundreds of miles away to see our team play," Skaggs pointed out. "This has brought the fans back as well. Go to some of these games in the Buckeye 8, there are standing-room only crowds and people are into it."
The coaches and those in the battles aren't the only ones buying in. Martins Ferry debuted its brand-new Tolbert Gymnasium earlier this month and on the wall behind the scorer's table hangs the Buckeye 8 conference logo with all of the member schools having their own sign. Harrison Central has strategically placed the Buckeye 8 logo on its gym floor opposite of the OVAC logo on the other side.
"The student-athletes and coaches have really pushed it, and it's been a great ride for us," Skaggs said. "It's grown faster than we ever dreamt it could, and I can only see it getting better."
While the Buckeye 8 is growing in popularity and competitiveness, none of the schools have lost sight of their traditional rivals or their allegiance to the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference has never wavered. Nor will they since it's written into the Buckeye 8 constitution that all members shall be members of both the OVAC and the OHSAA.
"As schools are re-doing their gyms and so forth you see the logo starting to appear," Skaggs said. "There's a lot of pride involved. The OVAC is our primary conference and we're a league within that, but at the same time the Buckeye 8 has really worked well for us much like some of the other conferences have worked."
Each sport has its own set of guidelines, which were established a meeting when the league was in its infancy. Those policies deal with tie-breakers, all-conference selections, championship guidelines, venues, etc.
However, according to Skaggs each sport has a chance to amend the original way and the wrestling coaches have acted upon that. This past year's Buckeye 8 Wrestling Tournament, which was won by Bellaire, will prove to the final time all eight schools come together to sort things out.
The schools have opted to go into a more traditional dual-meet format and just keep track of records throughout the season.
"We started out with the dual tournament, but the coaches have decided to go with more duals and triangulars," Skaggs admitted. "More people are liable to come out if they don't have to sit in the stands for eight or nine hours. We want to promote Buckeye 8 wrestling as much as possible."
The transition into the league has gone well, according to Skaggs. Obviously there were speed bumps and hiccups along the way, but as the teams completed their schedules and eased fully into the conference some of those problems have gone by the wayside.
"Making sure we could get our schedules to jive, so that we had a four-year plan was the biggest task," Skaggs said. "I can't say enough about the effort that our coaches and athletic directors have put into this to make sure that everything got fully scheduled."
While football and hoops are the biggies, let's not lose sight of the fact that the Buckeye 8 offers 11 common sports all told and spreading the word about some of the "minor sports" as well as all-conference teams continues to be something that Skaggs and the entire Buckeye 8 Executive Board looks for ways to improve upon.
"We need to get the word out better," Skaggs said. "We need to get the standings and all-conference teams out better. We'll probably set an exact date to get everything out by, so people can see all of the sports involved."
As for the future of the league, the Buckeye 8 is here to stay and the future appears totally bright.
"There's going travel for some of these teams no matter who they play, but this allows them to know every year who they are going to be playing," Skaggs said. "Obviously, Edison and Indian Creek have to travel a little bit more than some of us because they are on the outskirts, but I have heard nothing negative from anyone about the league and how it's going."
Skaggs wouldn't go as far as to say who, but he indicated that other schools have actually inquired about becoming members of the conference. That's something that is addressed in the conference's constitution, but it would take a two-thirds majority approval to be admitted.
"We're kind of happy with the number right now," Skaggs said. "We've still got room to play rivalries and like in basketball we have to have two openings for the OVAC tournament, so if we go any further it would be tough. Eight is kind of the ideal number of this league, but down the road we wouldn't rule it out."
Along with trying to sort out the championships for the remainder of the winter sports and into the spring, the Buckeye 8 is taking on a new initiative.
The league's principals and three students from each school met Friday during a luncheon meeting to discuss idea of how to promote sportsmanship within the league. That premise is defined in the constitution as the purpose of the conference.
"We're looking at having something in place for the spring to kind of end the year with, and then in the fall having a large program that we can incorporate more of the schools and maybe make it a part of the entire OVAC."
While there were no specifics offered, Skaggs and the rest of the Buckeye 8 hierarchy felt there was a need to nip the any possible problem in the bud before one specific incident occurs.
"Whenever you get groups of students together from two opposing schools you're going to have comments made that we don't necessarily agree or feel are right," Skaggs said. "So, we want to include them in the program and hopefully get some regulations and make it a positive thing. We just want our students to cheer for their team and be positive."
The competition in the Buckeye 8 is heated, the schedules are basically established, teams are cherishing the championship and more and more athletes are gaining recognition.
Sounds like the Buckeye 8 is doing exactly what it was designed to and even more.
It's definitely headed in the right direction and for area athletics that's a good thing.
SETH'S SCOOPS
• TODAY is the drawing for area boys basketball teams' sectional tournaments, starting at 2 p.m. The girls' OVAC pairings have been announced and it appears to us that Saturday at OUE could be a great day of basketball. The championship games could be extremely exciting. It's going to come down to which team plays its best basketball on that night, and something tells me those are the kinds of matchups the OVAC was looking at when it came up with this idea. It's just a shame still that all of the schools won't get on board with this idea. I can't imagine why someone like Tyler Consolidated wouldn't want to play. I understand the rationale for Meadowbrook and Cambridge because they are in another league where they are the only OVAC members. However, something tells me Cambridge would be a favorite in the 4-A tournament this year for girls and the Meadowbrook boys would be a tough out on that side of the ledger. Oh well, no use in worrying about it now.
• DON'T FORGET to look for Friday's edition of The Times Leader when the OVAC Girls' Tournament preview supplement publishes. Complete rosters and game previews can be found inside the edition and it's going to be a must-have at this weekend's tournament.