How Liberty High could permanently change Iowa City's sports landscape

Kim Williams couldn’t believe it actually happened.

She'd heard talk of a new high school in North Liberty since her son, Kaleb, was in first grade in 2008. Nothing happened back then.

So Kaleb was bound for Iowa City West, an across-the-board high school sports powerhouse. But it's also a school with too many cars for parking spots, too many butts for classroom seats and too much talent for roster spots.

"We were planning on having it be a tough road (athletically) for him," Kim said.

Then, in January 2015, the middle of Kaleb’s eighth-grade year at North Central Junior High, the Iowa City Community School Board voted to open Liberty High in North Liberty for the 2017-18 school year.

A lifelong Trojan suddenly became a Liberty Bolt.

"I had a lot of West stuff, so I didn’t really wear that anymore," laughed Kaleb, one of about 600 would-be Trojans attending Liberty next year.

Sending northern Coralville and North Liberty youngsters to West made sense when the school opened in 1968. But today, those cities are growing rapidly, and West is bursting at the seams with 2,100 students. With Liberty opening, the area's student population will eventually be spread across two schools. That means smaller classes and more kids involved in the fine arts and sports.

"We’ll have 50 percent more kids busy. That’s a really good thing," Liberty principal Scott Kibby said. "More opportunity for skill development and all those things. The best way to get better at all that stuff — yes, practice is important — but the best way to get better is to play."

Liberty will alter the high school athletics landscape, too.

"There will definitely be a change," said Traevis Buchanan, West's top returning wide receiver. "West High won’t be winning every single game, like basketball."

West, which has won 53 state team titles — 47 of those have come since 2000 and 20 since 2010 — immediately loses nearly 30 percent of its enrollment. City High, currently at 1,700 students, is mostly unscathed. Perhaps more notably, Liberty taps into the blossoming talent pool West has enjoyed sole access to for years.

MORE ON THE WEST/LIBERTY SPLIT

• Lessons learned from when Ankeny turned one high school into two
• Everything you need to know about Liberty High's sports rollout

City athletics director Terry Coleman said the hope is that, in five or six years, all three schools will have about 1,500 to 1,600 students.

"Does it make things different? Yes," Trojans athletic director Craig Huegel said. "Will it make the levels of success we’ve achieved in the past different? Sure. We may not have as many trophies. We may not win as many state titles. Ultimately, though, I think we have talented kids that are still going to be very competitive."

How soon will we see change? And what might the new balance of athletic power be down the road?

Short-term effects

You’ll see one effect from Liberty's addition almost immediately.

Take it from Buchanan, who grew up playing baseball and started for Northwest Junior High’s basketball team.

The rising senior doesn't play either of those sports at West.

"I know so many kids that love basketball, but they just know there’s no point in going out," Buchanan said, "because they’d never get any playing time. They just play rec ball."

He continued: "(Liberty opening is) going to make so many more opportunities for kids to play sports and have fun, especially at Liberty these first few years, when they get their team going. I know there’s a lot of kids going over there now that used to play sports, that don’t play sports anymore because they came to West High. And I’m sure they wish Liberty was built when they came to West High."

In terms of any competitive effect, though, don’t expect much difference early.

West’s rising juniors and seniors who live in the Liberty area were given a choice to stay at West, and the overwhelming majority — particularly among student-athletes — chose to do so. Liberty will have about 90 juniors and 30 seniors next year, and roughly 675 students overall.

So there will be growing pains. The Lightning, or Bolts as most call themselves, will compete independently next year, likely in Class 3A for boys and 4A for girls. At first, they'll rely on mostly sophomores and freshmen for varsity basketball, wrestling, baseball, volleyball, softball, soccer, golf, cross country and track and field. Football won't begin varsity competition until 2018, and the Bolts will share tennis, swimming and bowling teams with West.

They'll join the Mississippi Valley Conference in 2018-19 (with about 850 students from full freshman, sophomore and junior classes, alongside a truncated senior class). And they'll have a full complement of classes (1,100 to 1,150 students) when they're projected to begin 4A/5A play in 2019-20. A bond issue this fall could give Liberty 500 more classroom seats, which would eventually bump enrollment closer to between 1,500 and 1,600.

The Liberty addition won't be as tense as the Ankeny/Ankeny Centennial split in 2013, when rising juniors and seniors in Centennial's area weren't given a choice to stay at the original school.Liberty ran five freshman teams this year (football, baseball, softball, boys' basketball, and volleyball) to avoid separating teammates next year.

But there's always emotional collateral when one school becomes two.

Kaleb Williams played Liberty freshmen football; he competes for West in wrestling and track.

"I talk to (teammates) and they ask me questions like, 'Can’t you just come to West next year?' Or, 'Could you just wrestle for us next year?'" Williams said. "And I feel really bad because I’m going to miss them."

"It’s going to be really difficult," added Ben Houselog, a Liberty-bound freshman at West who played Bolts football/basketball and runs for the Trojans in track. "We don’t really talk about it. We just enjoy the time that we have together."

Both agreed the excitement to build a legacy at Liberty overshadows any sadness related to leaving West.

"I don’t even want a summer break," Houselog said. "I just want to go straight to Liberty."

Long-term effects

For the most part, the Trojans lately have owned the City-West rivalry. They’re 69-23 against City in major head-to-head team competition since the 2010-11 season (football, volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball and softball). And they're 312-73 against Cedar Rapids schools in those same sports during the same span.

That dominance could fade when Liberty gets four full classes in 2019 — and when West's talent pool is halved.

"I don’t think it’ll be like, 'Oh West High plays Cedar Rapids Kennedy or Jeff or Wash — yeah they’re going to win,'" Buchanan said. "No, it’ll actually be like, 'Oh, this is going to be a good game.'"

Then, two questions follow: How will Liberty compare with West after 2019? And will mostly unaffected City become the area's top dog?

For the first question: Because they'll essentially be two parts of the current West, the Trojans and Bolts should be pretty even in athletics down the line. Some evidence: West freshmen boys' basketball went 18-0 this year; Liberty went 16-2.

The answer also depends on luck of the draw. It just so happens that this year, a good chunk of West's top student-athletes would've gone to Liberty had the school already existed. Buchanan would have. So would his quarterback, Evan Flitz. Same goes for Michigan football commit Oliver Martin, Creighton basketball commit Rachael Saunders, Northwestern soccer commit Regan Steigleder, Iowa-bound Connor McCaffery, Patrick McCaffery and Iowa State football commit Alex Kleinow.

Going back a little further, Ally Disterhoft would’ve been a Bolt, too.

"(Liberty has) the potential to be somewhat of a powerhouse," said Saunders, whose sister will be a freshman there next year. "Because, not only are they getting a lot of kids now, but the area is actually still really developing, and there’s going to be a lot of people moving here and a lot more kids filing into Liberty."

Thirteen of West's 19 varsity head coaches responded to a Press-Citizen survey regarding the impact of Liberty athletics. Nine answered "Yes" to the question: "Are you worried the opening of Liberty will hurt the talent level of your team in the coming years?"

As for City, Coleman doesn’t see the Little Hawks suddenly dominating the area. He doesn't see West falling off dramatically, either. He thinks the West/Liberty split will unfold similarly to that of Ankeny and Centennial, when Ankeny became two schools that might not have matched the original's dominance but were still in the top tier in athletics. 

"I think it’s just going to provide more opportunities for kids to be involved," Coleman said, "and not necessarily put us, as the school that’s maybe losing fewer kids, at a competitive advantage in any way.

"The folks over on the west side and in the north — they might have a different perspective on that."

Huegel said West’s athletic goals "will remain the same." He hopes adding Liberty will encourage more high schoolers in the area to become multisport athletes.

Matthew Bain covers preps, recruiting and the Hawkeyes for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Des Moines Register and HawkCentral. Contact him at mbain@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewBain_.