Staff file photo / Brian Yauger. Chalker tailback Colt Levensky takes the handoff from Tanner Kelson during last season’s game against the Maryland School for the Deaf. Levensky and Kelson have been major parts of the Wildcats’ 2025 season.

SOUTHINGTON — As enrollment and participation numbers decrease around the state of Ohio, smaller schools have been feeling the squeeze more than ever.

In addition to the regular challenges coaches face in getting their team ready for the season, some have been doing so with the uncertainty of whether or not they’ll have enough players to even start a season, let alone finish it once injuries begin to impact their already thin rosters.

Chalker has been no stranger to those uncertainties.

In 2021, coach Justin Kren took over the program after an 0-5 season the year prior. The 2020 incarnation of the Wildcats started the season with 16 players, not enough for an intrasquad scrimmage. It was going to be an uphill battle. Kren’s first season was shaping up to be the same way.

Due to low numbers, that season never happened. They looked for ways to stay afloat for the year, but nothing stuck and Chalker missed the 2021 season entirely.

“It was rough. It was disappointing,” Kren said. “We did have some kids and stuff like that, but you just didn’t have the numbers all together. (That next year) we decided to go club, and it was one of the best decisions we made. I wish we would have gone club that year, but we didn’t know what we were walking into (in 2021). We didn’t know how many (kids we had.) On paper we looked good, but when time came to show up, there weren’t enough people.”

At a small school, missing just one season could easily lead to more.

In 2022, Kren talked about how keeping the football program alive was about more than just football. Losing the football program permanently would drastically impact the long-term fate of the school district itself. So Kren and his staff made an effort to keep the program alive by any means necessary.

When the options proved to be 8-man or no-man, the choice was pretty simple.

“A lot of it’s trying to keep the kids here that we have,” Kren told the Tribune Chronicle in 2022. “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.”

A year later, the Wildcats were back on the field, but for the next two seasons, football at Chalker was considered a club sport. The upperclassmen on those rosters could have left for other schools and played varsity-level football somewhere else. But they stuck around and helped the Chalker program survive. They may not be on the roster anymore, but their fingerprints are all over this year’s Wildcats team.

“They were the foundation for this,” Kren said. “I told those guys, you guys just stick this out. In a few years, you’re going to see what you built, and it’s nice. They still come around. They come to the games, hang out with these guys, but they’re the ones who started. That’s what I told them. ‘If you guys can see us through, we’re gonna be successful in a few years. Just watch.'”

In 2024, Kren’s fourth season at the helm of the program, Chalker was back to fielding a varsity team, playing a full-time 8-man schedule.

The move has paid off. In the program’s second season since making the switch, Chalker sits at 9-1, the first time since 1980 that the team finished with nine wins, and is now on the doorstep of a state championship. In the 55 years of playing 11-man football, Chalker reached the postseason twice. They’ve matched that in two seasons of 8-man football.

Lynn Groll, commissioner of the Northern 8 Conference, cited Chalker as an example of a team that benefitted from pivoting away from 11-man football for participation numbers issues. While he supports teams playing 11-man if they can competitively field a team, Groll says that Chalker’s success should have schools that are struggling to do so reconsidering their options.

“I think you’re seeing why it’s important for schools like Chalker that are battling numbers to field a football team to go the 8-man route,” Groll said. “Chalker is now playing for a state championship, which I’m sure has its student athletes, staff and its community excited. I’ve witnessed how 8-man football has brought schools and communities together, which they would not have experienced at the 11-man level.

“If a school can play 11-man, we’re all for it. But if 11-man is not an option, then have the conversation about playing 8-man. To me, there’s nothing like high school football, it’s the purest form of the game. The game teaches life lessons like no other sport and it’s the ultimate team sport. … Schools that have never played football also need to take a look at 8-man.”

While the Northern 8, Ohio’s only 8-man football league, is based in Western Ohio and all but three teams are located in the western half of the state, the championship game this season is going to be held at Leetonia High School.

The move was intentional, according to Groll.

“There was a strategic reason for having the game in Leetonia. The conference has wanted to bring more exposure to the 8-man game in the eastern portion of the state, especially with the additions of Chalker and Sebring the past couple of years,” Groll said. “We’re hoping eastern Ohio will see what 8-man football is all about on Saturday night.”

Groll sees the potential in 8-man football in Ohio. While it’s nowhere near as widespread as it is in states like Michigan, Kansas or Nebraska, the sport is gaining interest.

Without naming anyone, Groll mentioned that schools have been considering the move statewide, including schools in northeast Ohio, and hopes that eventually, 8-man football will have its own separate division sanctioned by the OHSAA and the state-spanning conference will be divided geographically.

“Conference members are doing a great job of pitching 8-man football to prospective schools that could join the 8-man game,” Groll said. “As commissioner, I’ve spent time reaching out to prospective schools as well. The Ohio High School Football Coaches Association, which sponsors the state championship game, will also be giving us a chance to speak at their annual clinic in February about the 8-man game and the opportunities for potential new members.

“I think ideally, our conference would have an east and west division to it. There is no high school league in Ohio like ours that is so spread out, which brings travel challenges. Bigger picture, we want to see several 8-man conferences in the state and I want to see Ohio have an 8-man division and the OHSAA to sanction it. That is a common statement from prospective schools that the OHSAA does not endorse it and that is why they won’t make the move. I’m very optimistic that the Buckeye State will have 8-man football statewide very soon.”

Kren shares the optimism, hoping to see an eastern division in the near future. Chalker has invited smaller schools in the area to watch Saturday’s game in hopes that seeing the game up close will persuade interested schools to make the switch themselves.

“It’s actual football. I don’t care what anybody says,” Kren said. “Everybody says, ‘If it’s not 11-man, it’s not football.’ I want you to come out here and tell our kids after they carry the ball 20 times in a night for 200 yards and four touchdowns, and they’re beat up, telling them that’s not real football. It’s the same thing. It’s giving these smaller schools the opportunity to play and not go out against a big school that’s got 40-50 kids. You’re going out there with 18 getting your teeth kicked in every Friday night. Instead, you can compete. We have a few schools that we’ve invited, and I’m hoping it opens their eyes, to show them this is football and hopefully we can get an eastern division over here, and start something big in Ohio.”

The 8-man football state championship game is set for a 6 p.m. start time on Saturday at Leetonia.