<p><em>Editor’s note: This is the last in a three-part series examining the state of high school football in Johnson County.</em></p>
<p>As Greenwood Christian Academy has grown and the athletic department has continued to mature along with it, there has been increased speculation about one sport in particular.</p>
<p>Would GCA become the last of Johnson County’s high schools to add a football program?</p>
<p>Any formal moves in that direction are on hold as new athletic director Sue Tameling gets her bearings — but the idea was very much on the mind of her predecessor, Dan Carmichael.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]
<p>"I think it’s going to happen," he said in the spring. "I would love it to happen. Would it happen soon? You’ve got to hit the numbers."</p>
<p>The numbers, at this point in time, are still relatively low. According to the IHSAA’s classification figures from a year ago, Greenwood Christian had 180 students in grades 9-12. Only three Indiana high schools with lower enrollments — Traders Point Christian, Indiana School for the Deaf and Rock Creek — will put varsity teams into state tournament play this year.</p>
<p>Traders Point and Rock Creek are entering their first year of IHSAA competition.</p>
<p>Adam Stevenson, the head coach and athletic director at Traders Point, wasn’t around when the school first formed a team in the fall of 2013. He says that had it been up to him, the Knights would not have fielded a varsity team right away.</p>
<p>A school that size — TPC is the smallest football-playing school in Indiana, with just 96 students as of last year — needs to plan well in advance and build gradually as its enrollment trends upward, Stevenson believes.</p>
<p>"To become competitive," he said, "you start at the level that you’re competitive at — which would be, at a school without any foundation or any feeder program, a small Christian school, especially, with limited enrollment, you strategically should start as a junior varsity program and become competitive at the junior varsity level."</p>
<p>Traders Point was 0-17 in its first two seasons before finally getting its first win in August of 2015.</p>
<p>Before his departure, Carmichael’s eventual plan was to build in a fashion similar to what Stevenson suggested. Carmichael’s preference would have been to start with a middle school program and then eventually add a high school team.</p>
<p>During those early years, he said, GCA could set about doing what needs to be done to lay a solid foundation — including building enrollment to a larger number (Carmichael’s target was 300) and adding appropriate facilities.</p>
<p>Denny Towles, who served as GCA’s interim athletic director over the summer and is staying with the school this year in a developmental role, is also advocating for patience.</p>
<p>"Let’s make sure that when we do start, we have a quality product. And I’m not talking quality that we’re going to win or lose, but people will know we are serious about what we are doing."</p>
<p>Tameling — who has been an administrator at a couple of different Christian schools while football programs were being set up, says that getting the student body to a larger size is a key factor. She doesn’t want a football program being built up at the expense of other Cougar teams.</p>
<p>GCA has won three sectional championships in boys soccer over the past five seasons; prematurely adding another fall sport could endanger that program’s rapid rise.</p>
<p>"You don’t want to cannibalize your other sports," Tameling said.</p>
<p>What Greenwood Christian does have, just as Traders Point does, is the opportunity to grow at a faster rate because religious schools are not constrained by the same geographic boundaries as public schools.</p>
<p>Because they can pluck kids from anywhere, it could end up impacting the other programs in the area if and when the Cougars do eventually field a team.</p>
<p>"I think it’s inevitable that it would affect all of us," Whiteland coach Darrin Fisher said. "It would affect us and everybody around us."</p>
<p>Fisher believes that part of a coach’s job is to make his or her program attractive enough that athletes want to be a part of that. GCA entering the picture, he says, would just put more pressure on him to make a strong sales pitch.</p>
<p>"If Greenwood Christian starts a program and they’re selling something positive, and that’s what they’ve got to do, more power to them," he said. "It just means I’ve got to do a better job to keep my people here."</p>
<p>Stevenson said that while he would not have jumped into football as quickly as Traders Point Christian did, he understands why a young school that’s still trying to build its numbers would want to offer the sport as soon as it possibly could.</p>
<p>"The popularity of the sport lends itself to a school that wants to grow, the attractiveness of a good football program to a community is still very, very strong," Stevenson said. "I’m sure the visibility for the school was part of it."</p>
<p>"Sometimes you’ve got to know that you’re kind of fighting the chicken or the egg," Towles added. "Do we have a program and hope to create the kids, the interest in the kids, or do we make sure we have the kids and then create the program?"</p>
<p>Whether Greenwood Christian ends up going that route anytime soon remains to be seen, but it seems clear that Cougar football will exist at some point. The desire to make it happen appears too strong across the board for it not to.</p>
<p>As a concrete plan takes shape over the next year or so, the how and when will come into clearer focus. But for now, it’s clear that the school wants to take its time and do it right.</p>
<p>"It’s not going to be something you’re going to be able to do just halfway and feel like it’s just going to be manna from heaven falling," Towles said. "It’s going to take a lot of networking, it’s going to take a consistent message to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this.’"</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="By the numbers" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>Classified with an enrollment of just 180 students, Greenwood Christian would be one of the state’s smallest football-playing schools if they add the sport in the near future. A look at the smallest IHSAA schools playing football in 2018:</p>
<p><strong>School;Enrollment*</strong></p>
<p>Traders Point Christian;96</p>
<p>Indiana School for the Deaf;115</p>
<p>Rock Creek;137</p>
<p>Frontier;202</p>
<p>Oldenburg Academy;210</p>
<p>South Central;212</p>
<p>South Newton;220</p>
<p>Attica;223</p>
<p>Tri-County;234</p>
<p>North Vermillion;245</p>
<p>* – according to IHSAA classification numbers established in 2017</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]
