WPIAL denies Butler request to join District 10 in football

By: Chris Harlan
Tuesday, December 17, 2019 | 9:01 AM

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Mired in a 20-game losing streak, Butler’s football team asked to leave the WPIAL and join District 10, but that request was denied by the WPIAL board Monday.

Letting a school move just one sport to a different PIAA district would set a bad precedent, WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said. Butler wasn’t interested in removing all of its sports teams from the WPIAL.

District 10 mostly includes schools from Mercer, Venango, Crawford, Forest, Warren and Erie counties.

“The board denied that unanimously,” O’Malley said. “That was upon advice from our legal counsel.”

However, it’s possible that Butler could still play District 10 teams this fall while remaining a WPIAL member. The school has until Jan. 3 to request that the WPIAL not issue it a football schedule. The team then could assemble its own independent schedule.

Butler’s administration has debated the football program’s future for weeks. The team recently finished its second consecutive 0-10 season and was outscored 505-132.

The Golden Tornado hasn’t had a winning season since 1997 despite having the third-largest enrollment in the WPIAL behind only North Allegheny and Seneca Valley. The team has had six different coaches in that 23-year span.

In the past decade, Butler’s record is 15-78.

Administrators considered following a route taken by Albert Gallatin, another long-struggling program. Albert Gallatin went 5-3 this fall while playing an independent schedule against opponents mostly from West Virginia, Maryland and the Pittsburgh City League.

That was a significant boost for a program that went 0-10 in 2018 against WPIAL opponents and was outscored 479-46.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

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