Miami Valley Conference will try to make expansion decision this week

The Miami Valley Conference might have an answer on expansion this week.

The MVC athletic directors had their monthly meeting last Friday and discussed the applications of Roger Bacon and Purcell Marian to the 12-school prep conference, and they won’t wait long to meet again.

Seven Hills athletic director Brian Phelps, the MVC president, said the ADs will gather again Thursday morning at Seven Hills to give full attention to the matter.

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“We have vowed to get some kind of finality to this either way,” Phelps said.

The MVC principals do the actual voting, and that won’t happen Thursday regardless of the AD vote. But Phelps said the athletic directors are speaking for their schools, so their decision should be the direction they go.

Conference bylaws stipulate a 75 percent vote for new members.

“If we have a yes vote with the ADs, we will expedite the principals making an official vote,” Phelps said. “If we have a no vote, it would be a no vote for this current situation at this time, but not a forever vote.”

He noted that bringing in Norwood and Miami Valley Christian Academy, new MVC members in the 2017-18 school year, was hardly an overnight thing.

“If the vote is no, Purcell and Roger Bacon may say, ‘Hey, this was our one chance, we’re not interested anymore,’ ” Phelps said. “But it was seven years of conversation for Norwood and three for Miami Valley Christian, so it would almost be unprecedented if they came to us and six months later we were approving two new schools.”

He said last Friday’s meeting included “good discussions, a lot of what-ifs.”

Purcell and Bacon are looking to leave the Greater Catholic League Coed Division because of travel and competitiveness (especially in football) concerns. They are committed to the league for the 2018-19 school year.