Baxter completes transition to Bolts

BAXTER — The only piece of the CMB Raiders era left around the campus at Baxter Community Schools is a small Raiders logo on the sidewalk in front of one of the entrances to the school.

Out are the black, silver and white CMB uniforms. They have been replaced with purple, black and silver. The Bolts are here to stay, and the school’s transition to their new athletic era is almost complete.

The only thing left to do is begin competition without their former teammates at Collins-Maxwell and in a new league — the Iowa Star Conference.

“We have one more Bolts sign to get up in the West gym but for the most part, we have transitioned to the Bolts everywhere else,” Baxter Activities Director Lori Fricke said last week before fall sports practices officially began.

Fricke served as the activities director for CMB, spending time at both high schools over the last few seasons. Her CMB title went to just Baxter on July 31.

Fricke played for CMB. She was a coach for several Raider programs. And her husband Todd was instrumental in starting the brand. So it was tough for her personally to discard all of her Raider gear.

“It was hard, but it’s just something we have to do,” said Fricke in her new purple Baxter Bolts T-Shirt.

While some may still be struggling with the transition and the student-athletes have yet to play games as Bolts, Baxter High School Principal and football coach Rob Luther saw the end of the road coming before it happened. He began the transition process before most.

“I was ahead of the curve. I saw this coming well before the change happened so I have been doing a lot of things behind the scenes to make this happen longer than some,” Luther said. “To me, I was ready to roll much earlier. It’s now up to the kids to become more active and go out for sports.

“We’ll catch the fever. I can’t wait for school to start. There is purple all over the building. It looks awesome. It’s always great when somethings new but we have to keep the momentum.”

But what about the CMB Raiders’ shield that remains on the sidewalk in front of the school.

“I would assume we would try to get that off, but I am not really sure,” Fricke said. “I haven’t paid that close of attention to it. I haven’t noticed it.”

Fricke said Baxter will attempt to play every sport it had during its time at CMB. In the fall, the Bolts will have football, cross country and volleyball.

Luther remains the football coach, Scott Ranck will guide the Bolts volleyball team and Dennis Vaughn takes over the cross country program.

The two basketball coaches in the winter are familiar faces to the community. The girls team will be coached by Eric Padget and the boys program is headed up by Zach Hasselbrink, who also is on Luther’s football staff.

Fricke said Richard Beeler, another football assistant coach, was hired to be the Bolts’ first wrestling coach. Beeler was the strength and conditioning coach at Greene County last year.

In the spring, Baxter will offer boys and girls track and boys and girls golf. The soccer programs will stay as CMB but will be based in Collins-Maxwell.

Josh Russell is the Baxter boys’ track coach, but a coach has not yet been hired to take over the girls track program.

Fricke said Hasselbrink will be the golf coach, but Baxter still plans on sharing with Colfax-Mingo if both schools can reach a sharing agreement.

The Bolts plan to have both baseball and softball in the summer. No coaches have been hired in either program though.

The final CMB baseball team had less than 15 players, but Fricke said enough players have told the administration they plan on playing baseball this upcoming season.

“We did surveys with the kids to see who plans to play what sport,” Fricke said. “Those don’t always mean everything, but it helps us gauge interest.”

Building momentum in the fall

The Bolts are expected to be very competitive in cross country as the team includes four runners from last year’s CMB team which finished fifth in Class 2A.

The football team won’t be playing for a district title or a postseason berth, but the Bolts can build momentum in their football program with a strong first season.

The volleyball team joins the Iowa Star Conference’s South Division where Don Bosco won the division at 5-0. The best record overall was GMG, which finished 16-10. The Bolts could come in and compete for a title right away.

“I know we’ll have success in cross country,” Luther said. “I would think volleyball and football will have their fair share of success, too. We need to get the kids and community behind us as much as possible.”

Playing in the Iowa Star may eliminate levels of play in certain sports. CMB was able to play freshman, JV and varsity games in most of the team sports. That is almost certain to change in the smaller league.

But that’s the only thing that changes on the surface for the Bolts from an athletics standpoint.

“Once we lose the fact that our teammates and friends from past years aren’t with us, the games are the same,” Luther said. “The sports are the same, but instead of going to Roland-Story we are going to North Tama and instead of North Polk we are going to Colo-NESCO. That’s really the only difference. We may not play as many levels in each sport, but we have great coaches on our staff and great kids in both the boys and girls programs.”

Playing Collins-Maxwell

The Bolts and Collins-Maxwell’s Spartans were both added to the Iowa Star Conference in the offseason. So not only did the two schools discontinue their athletic sharing agreement, both will now have to play each other in every sport moving forward.

“The kids are accepting of it, but they are still hurting. It’s hard and it may be hard for a while,” Fricke said about not playing for CMB anymore. “We are, at this point, just trying to get in the groove of being Bolts. There will be conversations about playing our former partners when the games start. We aren’t avoiding the conversation. We just have a lot of work to do before the games start.”

Luther thinks most of the emotions when it comes to athletics are gone, except when the game being played is against Collins-Maxwell. That is the biggest reason the long-time football coach wanted to face the Spartans on the gridiron this season.

“The emotions the kids will have from now on happen when we play Collins-Maxwell. Those nights will be very emotional,” Luther said. “I pushed for the game with Collins-Maxwell because we didn’t want to go an entire year before we play them. We know we are going to be in the same district. I wanted to get that emotional first game out of the way and over with, especially since we aren’t in a district yet. That would have helped us both move forward. Now, football is going to be the last thing that we play each other in. I would have rather it be the first thing to play both as a coach and an administrator.”

Transitioning to eight-player football

The goal posts have been moved. The field has been shrunk. The Bolts are ready for the transition to the eight-player game.

The field is now 80 yards, and the field is about 12-14 yards skinnier from sideline to sideline.

The Bolts will be seen for the first time this season in a scrimmage on Aug. 18 at Colo-NESCO. Baxter opens the regular season at West Central Maynard on Aug. 25. The first home game is Sept. 8 against English Valleys.

“Football is football and that is how we are approaching it, but some are struggling with it,” Fricke said. “They think the game is going to change a lot.”

There are two districts in 2017 that will play with seven teams, but the Iowa High School Athletic Association denied multiple appeals from Baxter to join one of those leagues in an off districting year.

The Bolts have a full nine-game schedule and three homes games in 2017, but they will not be eligible for the postseason.

“The state turned down both appeals from us,” Fricke said. “Basically, they weren’t going to penalize those other teams and force them to travel. They told us we could schedule whoever we wanted to, but they wouldn’t place us in a district even though most of our games are coming out of one of those seven-team districts.

“They’ll play for the love of the game for one year, but it will sting at the end of the season if they do well and then can’t play in the playoffs. It will be hard for the seniors. They won’t get another chance.”