Messenger photo by Britt Kudla: Fort Dodge's Hope Alstott makes a tag on Ames at Rogers Park during an Iowa Alliance Conference game last season.

The expansion and realignment rumor mills are churning again in communities across Iowa.

The seven-member Little Hawkeye Conference recently extended an invitation to seven additional schools as part of a long-term expansion plan. This news could directly impact the Iowa Alliance Conference and Fort Dodge, given Ames is on the LHC’s immediate radar.

Regardless of what Ames decides, the IAC will soon have to address the loss of Waterloo East, which is combining with Waterloo West to form one school in 2028.

No area of the state is immune to the ever-changing landscape of athletics and activities. Some conferences have schools growing exponentially, creating larger gaps between haves and have-nots. Others are clinging to life, thanks in large part to contraction and a shift in where Iowans with families have decided to reside.

Like many schools, Fort Dodge and St. Edmond will have some serious decisions to make moving forward. Will the IAC remain intact, replacing Waterloo East and possibly Ames by bringing others on board? What will the North Central Conference look like down the road, given St. Edmond is now three times smaller than the likes of Webster City, Clear Lake, Algona and Humboldt?

There are currently 33 different athletic and activities conferences in Iowa. The issue with any roster changes for a league is that it typically results in a zero-sum game; Ames, for instance, could leave for the LHC, but that would create a hole in the IAC. If the IAC recruits a replacement, a different conference is adversely impacted. And so on, and so on.

This is happening everywhere. Plenty of schools are actively shopping around and looking for different homes. Some feel the need to upgrade. Others are hoping to find a more competitive, realistic situation. The size and demographics of conference members don’t necessarily have to be taken into consideration, and if they were at one point, it likely happened long ago with now-antiquated enrollment numbers.

I could pitch a rhetorical look at either further realignment or a total overhaul, which my colleague and well-respected Iowa sports journalist Jeff Linder of the Cedar Rapids Gazette did in 2022. It wouldn’t look any better than his well-researched project, though.

There are plenty of ideas, solutions and alternatives for the Dodgers and Gaels, for instance. Both are on an island of sorts, though, given their size and location relative to other schools and the travel it takes to compete.

Finding an exact answer for the future is an arduous task. And most of our area schools likely feel the same way.

Let’s think outside the box for a minute. The best — and fairest — way to handle all of this may be a major change in how we define conference affiliation. And that could result in dismantling the concept altogether.

The Iowa high school football system went to an all-district format in 2012, and a 5A class was added for the state’s largest programs in 2021. This was obviously a culture shock for many traditionalists, but it has helped level the playing field and freshen up rivalries with a blend of old and new.

It’s possibly time to consider the same approach for all sports. This would settle a lot of the uncertainty and moving pieces, take the stress out of the equation for schools scrambling to try and figure out their next move, match like-sized programs together more often, and put a lot of the administrative legwork in the hands of the governing bodies at the IHSAA and IGHSAU offices. Schools would still be able to keep their rivalries and determine scheduling for non-league contests, but district slates and opponents would also be set and rotated in a uniform manner.

Is it a perfect solution? One doesn’t exist. Would it satisfy everyone? Of course not. Would trading in the 33 conferences for district rotations ruffle some old-school feathers? Absolutely.

But could this be the best way to calm an ever-changing environment and give the Iowa high school athletics and activities scene a clearer and more structured gameplan into the future? Quite possibly.

I’m a nostalgic person by nature. I love the tradition and history that comes with Messengerland schools being members of the Twin Lakes Conference or North Central Conference, for instance.

The times are changing, though. Many schools in older counties and communities are facing uncertain futures, and have been for quite some time. We know that story well in our own area.

Implementing a district system for all sports would take both the guesswork and the imbalanced hierarchy of modern high school athletics out of the equation. The IHSAA has done an excellent job of creating football districts based more on equal ground in the present than the old guard of the past, and the rotations rarely get stale.

A cost-benefit analysis of the same model for all sports is worth seriously considering as the best way to calm rocky conference waters from a storm that never seems to relent anymore.

Eric Pratt is Sports Editor at The Messenger. Contact him via email at sports@messengernews.net, or on Twitter @ByEricPratt