Editorial

Cattle Trail Tournament successful idea

Friday, December 9, 2005

Even now, five years after holding their first event, the founding members of the Cattle Trail sports group have fun talking about how the area high school association came up with its name.

"It was a spur-of-the-moment thing," said Dave Hendricks, superintendent of the Southwest Public School District. "I was superintendent at Arapahoe at the time. While looking at a state road map, I noticed it included a reference to the cattle trails in Southwest Nebraska. 'How appropriate,' I thought, especially since I was heading to Benkelman to talk with the Dundy County superintendent, Dallas Watkins, who is known among area administrators as the 'cattle baron' of Southwest Nebraska."

Dr. Watkins broke up in laughter when he first heard the suggestion. But the more area coaches and administrators tossed the idea around, the more they liked it.

And so, in early 2000, the Cattle Trail Cartel was born. Although the 'cartel' part of the title is not used as frequently today, it was part of Hendricks' original suggestion. "We were not exclusively a tournament nor a conference, so I thought cartel fit because it means 'a group united for a common cause,'" he said.

The Cattle Trail group formed because of scheduling difficulties for some of the schools in the area. "After the NSAA took over scheduling of football, it made it more difficult for small schools to schedule other sports, including volleyball and basketball. The Cattle Trail group was an attempt to address that problem," Hendricks said.

The first Cattle Trail event was a cross country invitational at Arapahoe in the fall of 2000. The next spring a Cattle Trail golf meet took place, and then the group of D-1 and D-2 schools launched the Cattle Trail basketball invitational in McCook. The tournament -- which matches eight boys and eight girls teams -- takes place the second week of the season at the McCook High School gymnasium.

"It works well," says Jim Kent, the Dundy County High School principal and basketball coach, "because that is the week McCook teams are at the Topside Tipoff Classic in Goodland, Kan."

The 2005 Cattle Trail Invitational is now in progress, with teams from Arapahoe, Dundy County, Hayes Center, Hitchcock County, Maywood, Medicine Valley and Southwest in Nebraska and Grinnell in Kansas taking part.

The semifinals will be Friday, followed by the championship games Saturday night. Come out and enjoy the action. Because of several scheduling trailblazers, this region now has an exciting new venue for high school sports events.

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