By Kaelyn Dimartino ’25
Derby High School offers a total of twelve sports. Compared to other schools in the area, this is a relatively small amount, but even though Derby does not have as many sports as other schools do, there is still an opportunity to play some of the other sports through playing on combined teams.
DHS has fall, winter, and spring sports. Starting in the fall DHS offers, boy’s and girl’s cross country, boy’s and girl’s soccer, football, cheerleading, and girl’s volleyball. In the winter, DHS offers, girl’s and boy’s basketball, girl’s and boy’s indoor track, wrestling, and cheerleading. Lastly, DHS spring sports are baseball, softball, and girl’s and boy’s outdoor track. All of these sports are great, and Derby High School encourages students to join them, but what about the sports that Derby High School does not have?
Since Derby High School has a small population of students, it is harder to have as many sports as other schools nearby. The Athletic Director Jen Moffat stated, “I think there’s definitely always a possibility [to have more sports with other schools], however with such a small student body the more sports you add the more students you pull away from other sports.” For example, this year Derby High School added a girl’s volleyball team to the fall sports category which did not take away many students from other fall sports. It was successful, but there is still a concern that adding more sports can take away students from the sports Derby High School already has. So if adding new sports at Derby High School will be an issue, then what about the students that want to play the sports Derby does not offer?
Moffat stated, “So the way that it works, if it’s an individual sport such as cross country, track, and wrestling those are individualized. You still score team points, so you can do what’s called a team of one, so you could run basically by yourself and be a part of their team, but you wouldn’t score points for them. So, if you offer sports in any way shape or form even if it’s not the sport you’re interested in you can’t just join someone elses team. It has to be an individual sport, not a team sport.” The CIAC stands for Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. Unfortunately, if Derby does not offer a team sport a student is interested in then, they have a very slight chance of playing it.
There is technically one alternative way of playing the sports a student may want, but that is only if the student goes to a magnet school and lives in a town that has a public school with lots of different sports. Moffat stated, “Say you live in Derby and you attend a magnet school that does not offer any athletics; then you can come and do sports with us here at Derby High School, because you are still a Derby resident who goes to a school that doesn’t offer athletics.” The only way a student could play a team sport with another school is if the school the student goes to does not offer any sports at all.
There is also something a student can do called a co-op, which can be very helpful for schools who are small and do not have enough students to make up one team. A co-op is when two or more things combine. In this case, it would be the sports teams. Moffat also stated, “So you have to put in an application to be approved by the board, as long as your league does not object. So our league is the NVL league, if they don’t object to us combining then it goes to the CIAC, they gave us the yes or the no, right now we are in our 1 year original co-op with Oxford and Holy Cross for wrestling, and now we are in our second year of our renewal which was two years.” For example, the wrestling team consists of Derby, Oxford, and Holy Cross. Without the co-op, none of those schools would actually have a wrestling team. The major rule with the co-op is that the schools have to keep the same amount of students on the team; not more and not less.
The track team at Derby is also a little bit different too. The head track Coach Matt Nicolari stated, “So, our track team allows three boys and three girls from Ansonia who are interested in running for both indoor and outdoor seasons to compete with us. They compete for Ansonia, but because Ansonia does not have their own track program, they are coached by me and the other assistant track coaches at whatever event we figure out is best for them.” Ansonia has been training at our facility and been coached at our facility for a few years now. Nicolari also stated, “The biggest thing is they are essentially part of our team even though they compete for Ansonia they follow our team rules, they follow the expectations we set for the team. For example if they were to think that they only need to show up half the time, no the expectation is they gotta be there everyday just like everybody else.” Nicolari expressed that he is so happy to be coaching Ansonia along with Derby and cheers on both schools.
Derby High School is very fortunate to have the sports they do already have because of the small population of students. Even though Derby High School wants all students to play the sports they want to play, it might just not be possible, because of all the rules and restrictions that come into play.
RULES ACCORDING TO THE CIAC:
- “Students who attend a public school of choice that offers a sports program, regardless of how limited, will only be allowed to participate in athletics at the school they attend. Students attending a choice school must meet the same eligibility requirements as all other student athletes.”
- Home schooled students cannot participate in school sports. “Participation on a CIAC school’s interscholastic team is extended only to student-athletes whose program is under the direct supervision of a CIAC member school. Homeschooled students are not eligible to participate on CIAC schools’ interscholastic teams.”
- “When a CIAC Member school does not have a sufficient number of participants to offer a sport program they may merge with any number of other CIAC Member Schools who also do not have a sufficient number of participants PROVIDED no one school is above the maximum determined limit required to field a team OR if the total number of participants from all the schools involved is more than double the maximum determined limit to field a team (i.e. football, grades 9-12 cannot be higher than 64).”
- “The Co-operative Team Committee does not have the authority to approve a co-op when the number exceed the maximum determined limit or to extend an existing co-op whose numbers exceed the maximum determined limit.”
- “Co-operative teams must agree to a NO-CUT policy.”
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