News - July 2026 RSS Feed

After several years of struggling with low numbers of participants in athletics and difficulties in finding coaches, Storm Lake St. Mary's will begin sharing all 7-12 sports, except dance team, with Storm Lake Community Schools during the 2026-2027 school year. St. Mary's administration collected feedback from parents through multiple means over the last several months to discuss athletic programming. In the end, the consensus was to seek the sharing agreement for all sports with Storm Lake Community Schools. According to St. Mary's administration, "By embarking on this larger partnership with athletic programming, we can continue to maintain our small, personalized academic setting in a Catholic environment while providing students athletic experiences on a larger scale, heightening the quality of the overall educational experience we can provide." While this certainly was a difficult decision to make with the rich history of Panther athletics, the facts show that now is the right time to move forward with shared athletics. St. Mary's administration said, "We wish to assure everyone that this new partnership is a positive venture for the future of St. Mary’s as it will provide better continuity and predictability for our families and students, as it relates to sports programming and opens the possibility of further enrollment attraction." It's no secret that the high school sports landscape has been changing for some time now. Many small schools that once brought life to towns all across Iowa could no longer survive on their own and had to consolidate with other nearby schools. For example, the Northwest Conference that St. Mary's belonged to from roughly 1997 - 2011 consisted of nine schools all within 45 minutes or so of Storm Lake. As of last school year, Storm Lake St. Mary's and Newell-Fonda were the only two schools left from that conference that had not consolidated with another school. Albert City-Truesdale became part of Sioux Central. Alta and Aurelia merged again. Schaller-Crestland joined Galva-Holstein to become Ridge View. Pomeroy-Palmer joined Pocahontas and Laurens-Marathon to become Pocahontas Area. Sac City merged with Wall Lake View Auburn to become East Sac County. Catholic schools have not been immune to these changes either, as Granville Spalding High School closed after the 2013 school year, and it merged with Gehlen Catholic in LeMars. Beyond school consolidation, athlete participation has been declining for years now across Iowa. Multiple schools have had to cancel varsity seasons in recent years and play JV-only schedules due to low numbers. Even larger schools like Charles City High School, which competes in Class 3A, canceled their varsity girls' basketball season during the '24-'25 school year because of low numbers. Finding coaches has become a major struggle as well. The days when nearly every coach taught in the school are gone. Many coaches now have jobs outside the school system and coach on the side. At St. Mary's in particular, we have had to rely heavily on Buena Vista University students with coaching authorizations to fill our coaching positions in recent years. While that has been a great experience for those BVU students and we appreciate the connections we have with the university, it has been difficult to build any consistency in a program once the coach graduated and moved on. Change is always difficult, but it also provides new opportunities and potential for something even greater. In the current times, this sharing agreement is the best way forward to allow St. Mary's students to have the opportunity to continue to experience high-quality, faith-based academics while also having access to meaningful and enjoyable athletic opportunities. This will also build stronger community-wide connections and relationships that benefits all our students and families in the long-run. St. Mary’s School remains thankful to Storm Lake Community School District administration for their ongoing support and partnership.