Along with the trophies for titles, the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference awarded championship pennants through the 2017-18 school year but made a change because some schools have filled their gyms.
According to OVAC Executive Director Dirk DeCoy, the final year the pennants were issued was during the Banquet of Champions in May 2018. Following the 2018-19 school year, all schools were issued a banner with year plates for its OVAC championships won and in what sport because several conference members ran out of space inside their respective facilities.
“To me, the pennants are an OVAC thing. The decision to change it was made before I started this job, but it’s understandable why it needed to happen,” DeCoy explained. “Again, before I took this job, when I thought of the OVAC, I thought about the all-star football game every July, and I thought about those pennants. But some schools have run out of room in their facilities for more pennants because the conference has been around for 80 years.
“So, the conference worked with the athletic directors and coaches, and they came up with the 10-foot wide, 12-foot-tall banners that lists the school’s name, and then it lists all the different sports and the championships,” he described. “We give the schools the appropriate year decal each year so they can put them on the bigger banners.”
The OVAC has 52 member schools competing in the vast majority of the sanctioned sports, and the conference is the largest high school athletic conference of its kind in the United States. There are five divisions in two states, and more than 18,000 student-athletes competed this past year in 14 different sports to win a total of 83 championships.
Some miss the pennants while others have moved on.
“There have been folks who have reiterated that they really like the banners, and others have been thankful we have a new plan to accommodate the schools who have been successful enough in the OVAC to fill their gymnasiums,” DeCoy said. “That’s understandable since the OVAC was founded in 1943, and there have been a lot of championships won since that very first one.
“Every coach and every student-athlete that competes in the OVAC has that goal of winning a conference championship because the season begins, and that’s something we’re all very proud of,” he added. “It means something special, and it always will no matter what.”
A few schools, DeCoy reported, have taken matters into their own hands.
“After we started with the bigger banners in 2019, we have had some schools who won championships have their own pennant made to hang that in their facility,” the executive director said. “Some the schools who have had their own pennants made have encased them, too, and they have them in trophy cases for everyone to see.
“When those student-athletes go back to their alma maters and see the pennants, it’s a big deal. There’s a lot of memories that go with those pennants, and eventually it’ll be the same with the bigger banners, too,” he said. “Right now, a lot of schools will have both, and that’s OK, too.”
