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Conklin, Mang are guiding leagues
By Greg Gulas
BEAVER TOWNSHIP
As commissioners of two of the area’s three newest high school athletic conference’s, Rob Conklin and John Mang appreciate the efforts of their schools and athletes while continuing to tackle daily challenges faced by newly formed conferences.
Addressing the Curbstone Coaches during Monday’s meeting at Avion Banquet Center, Conklin, who oversees the Northeast 8 and Mang, head of the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference, feel that their respective leagues are built to grow and flourish.
“Leagues are like a marriage. If there’s balance then everything is copacetic,” said Conklin, who most recently spent nine years as athletic director at Austintown Fitch High School. “It’s that imbalance with the give and take when a marriage begins to suffer and ultimately falls apart.”
In their first year of competition (football will compete for a league championship beginning next year), both Girard and Hubbard advanced to the regional football finals and after the Indians’ 43-18 win over the Eagles this past Saturday, are one of four Division IV teams still standing.
They will take on Newark Licking Valley in the state semi-finals this Saturday at Dover.
“In the spring of 2017, seven white tier schools defected from the All-American Conference, then South Range was added after being abandoned when the Inter-Tri County League dissolved,” Conklin said. “My whole experience as an athletic director has been dealing with either getting out of or into a conference.
“While I was at Struthers, it was about bringing the TCL [Trumbull County League] into the MAC [Metro Athletic Conference] and when I was at Ashtabula Lakeside, they had already abandoned the NEC [Northeastern Conference] for the Premier Athletic Conference, went to the All-America Conference and now are back to re-forming the original NEC. At Fitch, they got out of the Steel Valley Conference, went to the Federal League and are now in the AAC. It’s cyclical.”
Conklin said his league will try to avoid the many pitfalls that have doomed other conferences.
“We will focus on four core values,” he said. “Those values are sportsmanship, respect, compassion and trust. They all play a part and we should be all right if everyone adheres to those values.”
Mang is no stranger to leading a conference, having served as commissioner of the former Tri-County League for eight years before a merger with the Inter-County League to form the ITCL, which lasted 11 years.
A longtime area official who has worked football, basketball, volleyball, baseball and softball, he also serves as assigner of officials for the NE8, Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference, AAC (except for basketball) and area independent schools.
“It’s good for me to go to other conference meetings because we get to share ideas. I might pick up something that I think is good for the MVAC while they might like something that I am doing,” Mang said.
Being cutting-edge is nothing new for Mang and with the help of Western Reserve High grad Josh Bodner — he’s also worked with Conklin at the NE8 — have developed their new MVACatheltics.com website to keep all boy’s and girls’ sports updated.
“Josh is the originator and our website guru,” Mang said. “He’s in his first year and the plan is to turn it over at the end of the year. What he has done has been well-received.”
He’s thankful to the league’s athletic directors for working together to develop workable schedules in all sports and is looking forward to the implementation of a Saturday basketball program for grades 4-6.
“The program will last for five weeks with games at different school sites,” Mang said. “The varsity head coaches and their staffs will help run it with the emphasis on fundamentals, not on who wins or loses. This will hopefully create interest when they get to junior high and hopefully act like a feeder system.”
Mang, like Conklin, has also been working closely with D.J. Yokley of YSN Sports Radio, an internet-based station with the hopes of expanding broadcast coverage from its current football and baseball format, to include basketball, volleyball and softball.
He’s also created an academic all-star team for all sports, which is awarded to those who have achieved a 3.5 cumulative grade-point average or better and this past spring, sponsored the MVAC Classic.
“This year the baseball classic will be played at Cene Park while softball is set to play at Springfield Local High School,” Mang said.
Next week, Brian Tolnar, Mill Creek Metroparks PGA Director of Golf will serve as guest speaker.