This is a period of unparalleled growth in Maine high school football. You’ve probably read that once or twice.

It’s also a time of economic malaise, suffocating educational budgets and school consolidation. Somebody likely brought that to your attention, too.

Perhaps nobody within a 50-mile radius of the Downtown Lew sees the convergence of those two worlds more clearly than Monmouth Academy football coach Norm Thombs.

Thombs has shepherded the flock of students, parents and boosters for the last five years as Monmouth attempts to revive varsity football for the first time since the 1970s.

With more than 100 kids playing the sport from the elementary to high school level and a middle school program building off an undefeated season, it has been widely assumed that the Mustangs will enter the Class C division of the Campbell Conference in 2011.

Even the Maine Principals’ Association, in its ongoing attempt to hash out the feasibility of a fourth enrollment classification, placed Monmouth on its proposed Western C ladder for next fall.

The man in charge only wishes it were that easy.

“That’s the $64,000 question. I wish you could answer that for me,” Thombs said when asked if the Mustangs’ gridiron dreams are ready to graduate. “The honest answer is that there is a lot of financial stuff to work out. Things are getting really tough.”

As a club sport, Monmouth football has been 100 percent privately funded. Thombs estimated the annual costs of running the program between $8,000 and $10,000.

Factor in the proposed move to prime time and that total increases to $15,000 next year. While Monmouth-based Sports Fields has successfully restored the dormant sod at the fairgrounds, there are no goalposts and no scoreboard.

“We need a lot of upgrades. It’s constant fundraising,” Thombs said. “The kids have to pay to play, and we’ve found that a lot of families struggle with that. And transportation is so expensive. Every time we get on the bus to go to Mountain Valley or Greely or wherever, the football program gets a bill.”

Those costs presumably would filter into the school budget if football were approved as a varsity sport.

School board approval is no longer a given, either.

Had the move taken place two years ago, Thombs believes that the Monmouth board would have welcomed the sport. Now, the pros and cons must be heard by a consolidated RSU 2 committee that includes Hallowell, Farmingdale, Richmond and Dresden.

“Our window is getting shorter and shorter,” Thombs said. “We need to make some decisions by January.”

Participation should not be a problem. Only four of Thombs’ current 34 players are seniors.

When Sacopee Valley, Freeport and Camden Hills all elevated to varsity status last year, a developmental league was left vacant, with Monmouth and Telstar as the only teams standing.

Buckfield also has fielded a club team since Dirigo revived its varsity program and dissolved their cooperative effort in 2004.

Most Class C teams in the Campbell Conference, leery of playing their freshmen and sophomore junior varsity players against the upstarts’ seniors, have resolved no longer to play developmental teams.

That left the Mustangs with a seven-game schedule featuring Telstar and the JVs from Class A Mt. Ararat, Class B Leavitt, Mountain Valley, Greely and Falmouth and Class C Maranacook.

Monmouth routed Greely, 36-8, on Tuesday for its third win in five tries this fall.

“It’s been very interesting to watch that from this side of it. Taking a team that’s a new team and trying to get it to varsity status and the roadblocks we’ve encountered, it’s been very eye-opening,” said Thombs, who coached Winthrop to a Class C championship in 2000.

“We start every year and we don’t have a schedule. I look at a team like Sacopee Valley (0-15 in Class C to date) and I wonder if a few of us shouldn’t have stayed in the developmental league for two or three more years and if that would have been better for us. Then everyone could see exactly where they’re at. It’s hard to get a true picture right now. Leavitt and Mountain Valley are great competition, but they’re still not Leavitt and Mountain Valley’s varsity.”

As for the kids under his watch, however, Thombs said nobody seems to notice the difference.

“I feel good about the fact that 34 kids in the high school are playing football. A lot of them wouldn’t be doing anything else,” Thombs said. “To those kids it’s very important. They’re practicing two hours every day and playing real high school football.”

Not to mention raising real money, while fighting the real and ongoing battle to make the experience a permanent one in their community.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist who was born at the wrong time. He graduated from Monmouth Academy in 1990.

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