After not fielding a football team last season, the Chalker program is taking the first step toward a full-time return to the gridiron.

While the Wildcats won’t be playing a varsity schedule, that’s at least another season away, the seeds are planted in what is an attempt to fully revive the suspended program.

Coach Justin Kren took the job last season in hopes of playing a full varsity schedule. That wasn’t in the cards, and the Wildcats had to sit the season out.

It was a numbers game and by September, Chalker was sitting at under 10 kids. There was no feasible way the Wildcats could make it happen.

Over the last year, Kren has been going over every option to keep the program alive. After a discussion with the administration, they decided the best course of action is to play a junior varsity schedule while putting a heavy focus on developing the middle school program.

For the next few years, Chalker football will be considered a “club” sport at the school.

“Numbers weren’t really strong enough,” Kren said. “We don’t really have a whole lot in high school right now, so we sat down with the school, (superintendent Rocco) Nero and (school principal Robert) Kujala, and we talked about going club. Seeing as that’s about the only option where we would be able to get enough numbers turned out for a season.

“After we talked with them, I sat down with our school board president. We talked about it and decided this is the route we were going to go, try and get numbers built back up and see where it takes us.”

This past season, they got the first step underway, joining in a co-op with nearby Windham at the middle school level. Kren was heavily involved and hopes year two delivers more of the same.

“It was a great success,” Kren said. “The boys reacted well to it.”

To Kren, keeping a football program at the school is just as much about the school itself as it is the football program. Without football, families that have a son who wants to play football will have to go to another district, taking any siblings with them. The more that happens, the school gets smaller and smaller as those families leave the community.

“A lot of it’s trying to keep the kids here that we have,” he said. “If we don’t have football, you’re not just going to lose (the boys). Parents aren’t going to take their boys somewhere else to go play football and leave their daughters (at Chalker). You’re going to lose families. You’re not going to be sitting there taking one kid to one school and one to another.

“(We’re) just trying to keep the option here, keeping them excited about playing here, giving them the opportunity to play here and hopefully they stay around and they want to be here.”

On the schedule for the Wildcats are the junior varsity squads for teams like Kennedy, Mathews and Pymatuning Valley, and they will also take on Howland’s freshman team.

Currently, Chalker has 17 kids, which is still a small roster, but is a stark improvement over last year. Being a club team and not OHSAA certified, there’s an added benefit.

Also on the roster this year are kids from Bloomfield and Bristol.

As the second year of a multi-year plan goes underway, the Wildcats still have an uphill battle to climb, but the future looks to be a lot brighter for the program than it was a year ago.