Our main goal is to ensure that we’re filling a full team and it also gives our kids the chance to practice with and compete against different people, which creates a more competitive environment.”

Rich Harvey

ROCHELLE — Rochelle Township High School has formed a new tennis co-op with Oregon High School for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 calendar years. The two-year pilot program was approved during the RTHS Board of Education’s monthly meeting on Monday evening.

Under the new co-op, which will carry the RTHS name and branding, OHS athletes will travel to and compete at the RTHS tennis courts and as members of the RTHS boys and girls tennis teams. RTHS athletic director Rich Harvey said on Tuesday that the co-op will allow RTHS to increase its numbers, which have diminished slightly over the last few seasons. The boys team has graduated 19 seniors over the last two years, while the girls team has graduated 18 seniors.

“We’re going to share athletes with Oregon and it will all be run through Rochelle,” Harvey said. “Oregon athletes will have the same opportunities as our kids as far as participating and earning spots on the team. It’s a good opportunity for us because our numbers have shrunk a little bit. We had an influx of kids during the pandemic, but we’ve graduated a lot of those kids and we want to ensure our lineups are full so we can compete in meets and in conference events.”

The new tennis co-op will be the first co-op for RTHS athletics. Harvey said that discussions to form a co-op with OHS have been ongoing for the last few years, with OHS athletic director Mike Lawton and RTHS head boys coach Kristy Eckardt, who also coaches girls basketball at OHS, playing a role in those discussions. Harvey said that under the new co-op, OHS athletes will follow the RTHS code of conduct and fall under the RTHS eligibility requirements.

“It’s something that we’ve been discussing with our coaches for a couple of years now,” Harvey said. “We saw an opportunity to go ahead and make this co-op work. It was a mutual agreement and I’ve been working with Mr. Lawton. We chose Oregon because of the geographical location and we think they’ll send over a couple of kids in both boys and girls tennis. Our main goal is to ensure that we’re filling a full team and it also gives our kids the chance to practice with and compete against different people, which creates a more competitive environment.”

Harvey said that both RTHS and OHS will evaluate the co-op after two years and decide whether or not the co-op should continue. Harvey also said that RTHS is not currently looking into additional co-op arrangements with other high schools for any other athletic programs.

“We think the co-op should run as smoothly as a normal season,” Harvey said. “Our coaches really connect with the kids and they like to see the kids take part in the sport because they promote the sport quite a bit. It’s a good opportunity for them to teach more kids the sport.”

Forming a co-op requires that an application be submitted to the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) before the deadline for that season. The deadline for applications to form co-ops during the fall season is Aug. 1. Additional documents that are required for submission include letters from the presidents of each conference the cooperating high schools belong to as well as a signed copy of the intergovernmental agreement between the two cooperating high schools.

“I’ve done tennis camps in Oregon for many years and there’s always been interest from this community,” Eckardt said. “I first spoke with the ADs at Oregon and Rochelle to see whether or not this could happen and I’m really excited that it did. Tennis is a game that we want people to learn and play their whole lives. Having more kids involved in the sport will be great and having more kids involved means there will be more competition and kids making each other better.”