Blind Brook school board oks football merger with four schools

It's better late than never and better early than not at all, and now it is time to wait and see what happens next because you never know which way the pigskin is going to fly.

Which is to say: The Blind Brook Board of Education approved four proposed football mergers with four different high school football programs at its meeting Tuesday night (11/7) so the Blind Brook football team can play next year as a merged team after its season was canceled this year due to a lack of numbers that jeopardized players’ safety.

The school board approved potential mergers with Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Port Chester and Putnam Valley and budgeted $23,089.47 for the proposed merged football program at whichever school Blind Brook plays with as a combined team.

The board approved Hastings-on-Hudson for a merged team last season, but the bid was turned down by Section One as basically being too late and disruptive to the already existing league football schedule as well as being unfair to the other schools in the league because the merger would alter the school population that determines what league—A, B, C, D—the school would play in.

So a merger is not as simple as ABCD.

"It takes time and we're not going to take any chances this time around," said Blind Brook Athletic Director Kimberly Saxton. "We're not putting all our eggs in one basket. We're placing all our ducks in a row. I just want to make sure our boys get a chance to play football. So I'm reaching out to four schools to see what works best for all of us. It starts with our making sure their BOEs [boards of education] are in favor of making the merger work. So nothing else is happening now except that we are speaking to the four schools and seeking their BOE approval. And we'll see where we go from there before we seek Section One approval for the proposed merger."

If you look at the four schools, Hastings and Irvington make the most sense because they are similar small schools as is Blind Brook although they are both around 20-30 minutes away which would make attending practices a factor. Port Chester, a large school with a struggling grid program with relatively low football turnout numbers, makes the most sense geographically because it is just across town and its head coach (Chris Halstead) once coached Blind Brook to just one game short of an undefeated season. And Putnam Valley is seemingly a remote choice because it is almost an hour away, hence making it the longest schlep for daily football practices.

So, as it stands now, basically the proposed football merger is up in the air, the pigskin is flying in the direction of four schools, they're all talking and where the ball will land, nobody knows. At least not yet.