Last year the school board rejected a proposal for middle school teams because the district was facing financial troubles. As a temporary fix, the Winchester Youth Baseball League sponsored teams that allowed Clark Middle students to play as the Clark County Eagles, and Conkwright Middle students as the Clark County Cougars.
The Eagles and Cougars are not school teams, Roe said, but they play other middle school teams in the region. Roe said the teams' 185 players are required to abide by the same rules and academic guidelines as school teams in their conference.
Conkwright Middle Principal Luke Wright said Wednesday that his school is in support of making the team official.
"Most of the schools in the conference have baseball teams," he said. "Baseball is an American sport, and you can field a lot of different players. I'm all about giving our kids more extracurricular activities to participate in, and baseball is a great one."
Conkwright teacher Ken Howard told the board that the proposal has been in the works for a long time, and that the teams would be funded by the schools and booster organizations.
Tryouts would start in February, and games would begin mid-March. Each school would have both seventh- and eighth-grade teams.
"We want the middle schools and the district to have ownership of all athletic programs that their students participate in," he said. "This is about recognizing and implementing a school team, just like we have basketball, football, soccer."
Roe said his main concern was that coaches William Tubbs and Eric Pasley will not be able to lead the teams during the upcoming season. He said he hopes both sides can reach an amicable agreement before next Thursday's school board meeting.
"For what we did last year, we felt that we should have at least a little bit of input," he said. "We want it to be a school-supported team. We were just being shut out of the process."
