Sports

DWS takes SCA off 2008-09 sports schedule

• A little more than two months after the GISA announces it has reclassified Sherwood Christian Academy down to AA, longtime city rival Deerfield-Windsor decides if it no longer is forced to play SCA, it’s not going to.

Danny Aller

ALBANY — A longtime city rivalry — although some would debate even that — is through.

At least for now.

On Tuesday, Deerfield-Windsor School athletic director Gordy Gruhl confirmed to The Herald that starting with the 2008 football season, DWS will no longer schedule Sherwood Christian Academy for any sports — boys or girls, on any level — for the 2008 and 2009school years.

And the reason, says Gruhl, is simple.

“With them being moved into a new classification, we no longer have to play each other,” said Gruhl of the GISA’s decision to reclassify SCA from AAA — Deerfield’s region — down to AA back in February. “Plus, with them going down, I don’t really think they wanted to play us. The bottom line is this: We’re taking a sabbatical from Sherwood — and I think that’s for the best.”

Sherwood A.D. Luke Bowers, who is entering his second year with the school, says he wouldn’t classify the decision as a “disappointment,” but rather a matter of logistics he hoped wouldn’t leave any hard feelings in its wake.

“Basically, they’re a AAA school, and now we’re a AA school,” Bowers said. “We hope this doesn’t create any bad vibes, but it’s time to focus on playing schools more our size.”

But for some, the decision hurts.

Second-year SCA football coach Ted “Rock” Knapp was not a fan of the choice by any means.

“It’s a huge disappointment,” said Knapp, who added he found out when he contacted DWS football coach Allen Lowe through e-mail — shortly after the reclassification — with his team’s open dates to play in 2008, only to be told by Lowe that a decision had been collectively made by the DWS athletic department to forego any sporting events against SCA for the next two years, not just football.

“In a sense,” added Knapp, “I feel like we’re robbing the kids in Albany of a chance to play their neighbors — the same kids they see out in the community and go to church with.”

Knapp then continued: “I understand we may not be on Deerfield’s radar the same way they are on ours, but I came here to build my program to be on the same level as theirs — and now we’ve lost our measuring stick.”

Gruhl said that because Deerfield schedules and locks in events with other schools by signing two-year contracts, the “sabbatical” for the two private Albany prep programs will last at least two full seasons.

After that time, however, Gruhl — who has been at the school for 25 years as a coach, teacher and A.D., currently coaching boys basketball and golf — says he is willing to re-examine adding Sherwood back to the schedule.

“If they want to renew (things) then, I’m all for it,” Gruhl said. “But if we’re going to play, we’re going to play all sports — not just some.”

DWS’ frustration with SCA athletics, as Knapp understands it, stems from the fact that last season the Eagles’ sports teams were “inconsistent,” said Knapp, in fielding full squads.

For example, last season, SCA announced it would not field a varsity girls basketball team just before the season was set to begin, citing a lack of experienced players due to graduating nearly every starter from the 2006-07 team that actually won the region championship title a year earlier.

“I think that had some to do with it, and I think it even trickled down to some of the (Sherwood) middle school and elementary sports teams that weren’t able to compete against Deerfield like we, and they, would’ve wanted to last year,” Knapp said. “I wasn’t in that line of fire, but as best as I can tell, our inconsistencies had a lot to do with the decision.”

Sherwood, which used to be known as Riverview Academy, has played a GISA Class AAA schedule since 1994, facing off against Deerfield — the only other private school in Albany with GISA sanctioned athletics — every year since.

During that time, Sherwood football has gone 1-13 against DWS, including a 50-12 rout last year. Basketball, meanwhile, was even more lopsided this past season as the Knights beat the Eagles three times, outscoring them a combined 299-96 in those three matchups.

And while Knapp wasn’t realistically expecting to come into 2008 and beat Lowe’s Knights team which reached the Class AAA Final Four last season, he says he certainly wasn’t expecting a complete void of DWS on the schedule for the next two years.

“I have a great amount of respect for (DWS coach) Allen Lowe and his program, but the fact is simple: We compete with (DWS) to attract the best talent in the area, year-in and year-out because as far as your options to play football at an Albany private school, us and Deerfield are it,” Knapp said. “So here I am, still in my proving stage that I can come in and build a winner and that’s hard to do when parents look at success of the two programs when trying to decide where to send their kids. And 9 times out of 10, they’re going to choose the best athletic program, and that’s been Deerfield.”

Knapp added that the decision makes him now believe it could be even longer before the Eagles get the Deerfield monkey off their backs.

“I mean, it’s the big elephant in the room — us not beating them. Whether they like it or not, they are the team we have to beat consistently to be the top dog — the premier program — in the eyes of Albany.

“And I didn’t come here to be second. Period.”

And while that’s the most frustrating part for Knapp, he suspects it will be the same for others at Sherwood.

Gruhl, meanwhile, says he doesn’t expect much fallout from Deerfield’s fans considering that for the last few years, their main rival has been the likes of First Presbyterian Day, Stratford Academy and Tattnall Square — not Sherwood.

“Who knows what will happen in two years when we have a chance to renew this thing,” Gruhl said. “They may get comfortable in their new classification and never want to play us again. People might think that’s stupid for two in-city schools to not play each other, but the fact remains: We’re two different athletic programs going in two different directions right now.”

And to Gruhl’s final point, Bowers couldn’t agree more.

“The way I understand it is that 10 years ago, Sherwood beat Deerfield in some sports and were successful against them at times,” Bowers said. “But coming from (Kansas City) where we had 40 schools, with two or three big, in-town rivalries, this is new to me — having just two that now won’t play each other. We may have a similar mission statement, but we are two different schools in two different points of existence, and we have to continue to worry about us and nobody else.

“And the first way to do that is to realize where we are and what we need to do to improve to make a better, stronger school — whether athletics, or otherwise — in the future.”

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