Cheers to Bearcats

The root word of cooperative (as in “sports cooperative”) is cooperation, defined as “the  act of working together with someone” usually with a common, mutually beneficial goal. That spirit of cooperation and give and take for the benefit of both parties has been on display recently in the crafting and creation of the H&H Sports Coop between the Hampton and Heartland school districts that is being launched now and will be fully realized when the middle and high school sports season begins this fall. 
As smaller school districts with intense hometown pride, both Hampton and Heartland have loyal fan bases and a commitment to keeping their schools the healthy and vital part of the community they are. The Hampton Hawks fly high in academics and in organizations like FFA and they foster healthy relationships between students and staff through their innovative Hawk Families program. 
The Heartland Huskies, just 12 miles away in Henderson, are similar, with strong community support and active student groups. In the latest Nebraska Department of Education assessment, Heartland High School received the highest rating of “Excellent” for its academics.  
However, both districts were seeing a decline in the number of students participating in sports teams, making it difficult, especially in the lower grades, to even field a team, much less have enough team members to scrimmage against each other in practice.
A sports coop makes solid sense for the two schools and will give them an opportunity for stronger teams, more opportunties for students in lower grades, competitive practices and the chance to compete at a higher level. 
At the same time, both schools, which are pillars of their communities, are being diligent about maintaining their individual identities. While the school boards wisely decided to give the staff and students a deciding voice in choosing the mascot for the new teams (students in grades 7-11 voted from among four candidates chosen by staff from both schools to call the coop teams the Bearcats) the Hawks will continue to be the Hawks and the Huskies at Heartland will remain Huskies for everything else. Aside from the new team uniforms, those attending games in the schools’ gyms won’t notice much change. 
In addition, the teams from the two school boards who negotiated the 100-plus page document that sets out the perimeters of the cooperative have worked hard to keep things fair even to the point of having those currently coaching at the two schools be on equal footing and apply and interview to coach the coop teams. 
We, of course, don’t know everything that has gone into crafting this partnership between the Hawks and the Huskies, and we’re sure there has been angst and disagreements along the way. However, the important thing is that the leadership of these two neighboring districts have put differences aside and done the hard work to do something that is in the best interest of their students. 
And for that we say, “Hats off to H&H!” Go Bearcats!
-- Ron Burtz