CARROLLTON/NORTH GREENE FOOTBALL coop on the horizon

By Editor | December 31, 2025 |

By Carmen Ensinger

At the December school board meetings of both Carrollton and North Greene former Carrollton teacher and football coach Nick Flowers made a presentation to both boards of the two schools football teams combining and becoming the West Greene County Spartanhawks, complete with a new mascot, and the combined green and blue colors.
The mascot would be the green Carrollton Hawk wearing the blue North Greene Spartan Armor brandishing a sword with the letters WGC and carrying a shield, also emblazoned with a sword with wings.
Flowers made an approximate 15-minute presentation to both schools.
“This is from me and my ideas and thoughts as I have observed and listened to people from the Carrollton and North Greene communities,” he said. “I have had some time away from education and coaching and it has allowed me a lot of time to observe and watch games and really opened up my eyes to the sport of football.”
Flowers said his initial concerns were enrollment numbers at both schools. He gathered enrollment data from the state of Illinois. This data shows that in the year 2000, North Greene had an enrollment of 301 and Carrollton had 280. By 2015, those numbers had dipped down to 257 and 225, respectively. In 2020, North Greene was down to 236 and Carrollton was at 210. However, from 2020 to 2025, the data gets really interesting. In this five-year period, North Greene took an upwards spike to 239, while Carrollton took a downward dip to 168.
All in all, over this 25-year period, North Greene lost a total of 62 students while Carrollton has lost 112.
“We used to say if we could get half of our boys out for football, we were doing good,” Flowers said. “Those days are over because there are a lot more activities for them to choose from. If a school our size can get 30 percent of the boys to go out, we are doing good.”
Ironically, even though they have far less students than North Greene, Carrollton was able to put together a junior varsity team this year, something North Greene wasn’t able to do. In fact, much of the varsity team consisted of freshmen, sophomore and junior players, with just a handful of senior boys on the team.
“Carrollton did play a JV schedule this year and we had some varsity starters that did play down at the JV level,” Flowers said. “The problem is year in and year out being able to provide a competitive culture and safe environment where they are playing at an age-appropriate level where their maturity will dictate the level they are playing at.”
Flowers said it has been more than 10 years since Carrollton has been able to field a freshman team and he has no idea when the last time North Greene was able to put one together.
“So, if we were to combine both school districts, we should be able to put a freshman team on the field to play a freshman schedule,” he said. “We should be able to combine the freshmen with some sophomores and possibly juniors to play the JV schedule and then we should then be able to offer a true varsity schedule.”
Flowers said this would allow the program to focus on player development, give more playing time at the appropriate level and probably result in less injuries.
The one worry that Flowers has if this doesn’t happen is that neither school will be able to stay in the WIVC because they won’t be able to put an 11-man team on the field.
“If we don’t do this, we are guessing year by year if we will be able to stay in the WIVC,” he said. “To be quite honest, I have had parents come up to me and ask me if we can keep putting a team on the field. I’ve had parents from North Greene ask if we can’t put a team on the field where do we send our players.”
It comes down to deciding to be proactive or being forced to be reactive.
“What I worry about more than anything is we have great schools in both communities so let’s share our resources and ideas,” Flowers said. “Losing control of those decisions is the last thing we want. If we wait until we can’t field a team or wait until the State says, ‘well, you must coop as a county; you must consolidate,’ it is out of our control.”
Flowers said there are other programs that could benefit from a coop agreement as well.
“For example, boys and girls track could become a part of the coop in the future,” he said. “Cheer and band-start up as well.”
Flowers said cooping would also help with revenue concerns.
“Currently, both schools are paying for paid budgets and both are taking care of facilities and fields. Those expenses are still there,” he said. “Both have a paid coach and a paid assistant coach so both have two paid stipend positions. I understand we would be working with two bargaining agreements and those could both be kept in place where we would not have to disrupt that. Gate revenue would be combined but we would be potentially doubling gate revenue so we wouldn’t be losing revenue at that point. “
Flowers said there is time to make this happen for next year.
“With the WIVC conference and how things are set up, there is time to make this happen,” he said. “A Carrollton/North Greene coop would be a great fit for the conference. It would make a hole in the WIVC and we have nearby schools such as Southwestern and Rushville who would love to be in the WIVC.”
Flowers said the WIVC would not have to know until the Spring on whether the coop was a go.
Flowers said he looked at both schools’ schedules and worked out two home games at each school with one senior night and one homecoming at each school with the rest being away games.
“I am asking for a follow-up meeting at the beginning of the year,” he said. “As a community member, I really want you to know, as a board, there is a lot of interest in both Carrollton and North Greene in cooping the sport of football and I think you are going to hear more and more people start asking questions on why wait, why not be proactive now instead of reactive later.”