Top 10 Sports Stories of 2023: No. 5 -- Lake Michigan Conference fades away
Dec. 27—TRAVERSE CITY — Drastic changes emerged in the northern Michigan high school conference landscape in 2023.
The Lake Michigan Conference essentially dissolved, with every team but Traverse City St. Francis joining different leagues — mainly the newly-formed Northern Shores Conference.
A January superintendents meeting in Charlevoix brought frustrations to the surface, with "league membership and competitive imbalance" the primary topic discussed. No formal action was taken at that meeting, but the ball was rolling.
The creation and formation of the Northern Shores Conference came less than three months later, with all of the former LMC schools — minus East Jordan, which had already announced it'd be leaving for the Ski Valley Conference, and St. Francis — joining Cheboygan and Kingsley to form the new league.
"We'll have to either find a conference to join, form a conference or be independent," St. Francis Athletic Director Aaron Biggar said at the time, adding that the Gladiators likely will be independent for the near future. "I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed that the schools in our conference are going in this direction."
The moves led to others as Brethren left the West Michigan D League to join the Northwest Conference, replacing Kingsley. Cheboygan's departure from the Straits Area Conference left the SAC with only four teams.
Kalkaska Public School Superintendent Rick Heitmeyer said he and other officials in his district are in favor of moving on without St. Francis in the league.
"Over the last 25 years, a lot of the schools have changed shape and size; and what it comes down to is that we've got a lot of schools who feel like there's a big competitive disadvantage," Heitmeyer said earlier this year. "That's not fair because they (St. Francis) are very competitive and they win year in and year out. While we see both sides, there are a lot of schools that are struggling to compete."
The Gladiators claimed LMC titles 144 times — about 5.5 a year — to Harbor Springs' 96. Other schools' LMC title levels are Charlevoix with 77, Elk Rapids 64, Kalkaska 26, Boyne City 23, East Jordan 21 and Grayling 17. Grayling joined the conference in 2003, with the rest of the school in the league ever since it started in 1997.
In the sports of football, boys basketball and girls basketball, St. Francis won almost as many LMC titles (32) as all the other schools combined (42).
St. Francis won seven of the last eight boys basketball championships, 10 of the last 12 in volleyball and five of the last six in boys cross country. Other sports are even more of a stranglehold for the Glads, with the girls cross country, boys tennis and boys golf teams winning nine consecutive titles, girls track and field six years running, and girls tennis with five consecutive.
The new league didn't impact the Northern Michigan Football Conference, a multi-leveled league that largely draws teams from the LMC, Northwest, Ski Valley and several other programs such as Ogemaw Heights, Tawas and Oscoda.
In 2010, LMC athletic directors voted St. Francis out in football only, a move effective with the 2012 season. Elk Rapids and Grayling agreed to continue to play the Gladiators every year. The Northern Michigan Football Conference, which includes all former LMC football teams, started in 2013.
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