Commentary: Fixing Benton Harbor’s Conference Issue
Dave Wolf – WSJM Sports Director
As the United States gets ready to celebrate it’s 249th year of independence from Great Britain, the Benton Harbor Athletic Department prepares for it’s first year of independence from the Lakeland Conference. However the Tigers aren’t exactly celebrating.
Early this year, Benton Harbor was notified by the four other members of the Lakeland Conference; Berrien Springs, Brandywine, Buchanan, and Dowagiac, that the Tigers membership in the league would end at the conclusion of the 2025 school year.
Putting aside the list of reasons given by the other four schools for now, this forces Benton Harbor back into the status of an independent school. Something they were most recently as from 2016-2021. The Tigers were members of the SMAC from 1985 to 2015, and even before that, they were a member of the Lake Michigan Athletic Conference from 1960-1984. But now for the second time, Benton Harbor has no conference affiliation.
If there is going to be a solution for the Tigers athletic department, there are a lot of things that need to happen before we can start considering a new home for them.
One of the reasons cited by the Lakeland schools was a competitive imbalance in some sports as well as the lack lower level teams, like JV and freshman squads. Benton Harbor is not alone with the struggles to field lower level teams, and that goes for every sport. There are schools all over Michigan that have this issues, but for Benton Harbor it involved football. A Class B team with the enrollment number of Benton Harbor should be able to field a varsity and a junior varsity program. One key reason for a JV team is you would be able to keep younger and sometimes underdeveloped and unexperienced players away from the Friday Night Lights and playing against larger and more experienced upperclassmen in game action. Some places it can’t be helped, like in Class D or 8-man games. But generally, schools that Benton Harbor would like up against have a distinct and clear advantage, just by having more upperclassmen on the field. But with Benton Harbor, the small roster size limits the Tigers to a varsity only program and what players they can find are thrust into a varsity game against Seniors and Juniors every game.
And that’s not just for football. Benton Harbor has struggled to field underclassmen teams in almost every other sport, and it’s pretty safe to say that boys basketball was not one of them.
However, that is part of the problem, conferences, including the Lakeland have other sports that need to fill out a schedule. Schools don’t like having their JV and freshman teams sit idle while the varsity teams play. Developing and gaining experience are just one part of sub-varsity sports.
Fielding teams that could fill a conference slate in a number of sports was an issue for Benton Harbor, not just the sub varsity level, but varsity as well. In particular, the four remaining Lakeland schools have soccer programs. Benton Harbor hasn’t had soccer since the early 2010’s, but they are thriving sports at the other Lakeland schools. But even traditional sports like wrestling, volleyball, baseball, and softball are often gasping for air in the Tigers sports system.
New athletic director Danny Jennings previously has said that he will not be looking for a new conference home for the school and instead wants to work on building up the athletic program, and getting more and more students involved, and when those programs could be sustained, they would then seek a new conference home.
That being said, I love to play the “What If” game. Let’s forward the calendar a few years and what if Benton Harbor gets the overall athletic program to a sustainable and competitive level and they wanted to find a new home for those teams? Here’s my solutions.
One, they could take a run at reapplying to the Lakeland Conference. It’s been done before, Kalamazoo Loy Norrix and Gull Lake stepped away from the SMAC, at least in football for 4 years, which allowed their programs a chance to settle themselves and build themselves back up before heading back into the league. However, this is not a guarantee of success. I mentioned those two SMAC schools. Loy Norrix was able to turn things around and went 6-3 this season and made the playoffs. Gull Lake went 0-9 and allowed over 40 points in 7 of their 9 losses and were shut out four times, including their first four games, a 57-0 loss to St. Joe at home was a part of that.
Option 2. Stay as an independent
There is nothing that says the Tigers must join an athletic conference. Conferences generally are there to fill schedules, when and if the Tigers bring back the athletic program to the level where they can fulfill the needs of their opponents by having the ability to field varsity and sub varsity dates, it’s fine.
Option 3. The mixed conference.
I’m not going to even suggest that another area league will open the doors to Benton Harbor’s entire athletic department, because it won’t happen. Yes we all know it would be because of the boys basketball program. So keeping that in mind, I would think a “hybrid” solution could work for the Tigers.
I would split the Tigers various teams in separate conferences. Yes that is a thing, look at swimming, Bridgman is a member of the SAC, the swimming team which is a co-op team is in the same conference as SMAC schools like St. Joe, Portage’s, Kalamazoo.
So first off I would see if Benton Harbor could join the Southwest 10 in football only. The league’s members are split as some play traditional 11 man and some play 8-man football. JV teams are few and far between here, so adding Benton Harbor for football really would benefit all involved.
As for the rest of the sports, with one exception. The only real choice here is the BCS. Again, these are the smallest schools in the area, some of them already play the Tigers in various sports, and these schools are without sub varsity teams. Sports like girls basketball, volleyball, wrestling, baseball, softball, track, and golf could find a good home in the BCS, plus consider the merger of some sports by River Valley and New Buffalo, there are some holes that have opened up and the Tigers could fill that void.
Now the elephant in the room. Boys Basketball…. And the only real option here is to do nothing. Leave the boys basketball program as an independent. Previously, the limited number of non-conference games the Tigers had was almost impeding them. The Tigers are frequent participants in various showcase tournaments, showcase games, marquee events that highlight the Tigers program and the athletes. So why mess with it. Looking ahead to the Tigers 2025-26 schedule they have games against some of their former Lakeland opponents, as well as the longstanding rivalry game with St. Joseph. Here is where the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” applies.
The solution for Benton Harbor isn’t going to be easy, they have to take the first step and get those participation numbers up, and build up those programs. One thing that can’t be overlooked is that the variety and the less specialization of athletes has been shown to build better athletes and even just kids in general. It’s the best place to start and that’s what the Tigers athletic program needs right now, a new start. This won’t be solved overnight, over a summer or in a commentary online.
Danny Jennings is someone who has been in the trenches of the BH athletic program as a coach, he’s also seen how other programs are run while seeing his own kids play at other schools and serving as an MHSAA registered official. He sees it, now he needs to take what he’s seen an apply it.