Hannibal and other North Central Missouri Conference schools considering options as league folds

HANNIBAL, Mo. —  With the future of North Central Missouri Conference members now in doubt, the remaining five schools now turn their attention to finding new homes.

In a joint press release Thursday, Hannibal Public Schools, Kirksville School District, Marshall Public Schools, Mexico Public Schools, and Moberly School District announced the NCMC will dissolve after the 2025-26 school year.

“Ultimately, we wanted the conference to expand and everybody to stay in the conference, but unfortunately that didn’t happen, so we have to move on and provide the best opportunities for our student-athletes,” Hannibal Athletics/Activities Director Clint Graham said.

The wheels are already turning.

“I’ve already been on the phone with some schools talking and putting out some feelers,” Graham said.

Graham noted that a major challenge for schools like Hannibal and Kirksville will be their location combined with their size. Both schools have enrollments of over 800 students — Kirksville at 808 and Hannibal at 1,052 — and are located in rural communities.

“It’s tough because of Hannibal’s location,” Graham said. “You have conferences down in St. Louis like the GAC (Gateway Athletic Conference) and the CMAC (Central Missouri Activities Conference). Those are quality conferences, but (all the schools in the conference) are right around each other. Travel is a big hurdle that we have to cross to entice other schools to let us join and for them to come to Hannibal on a weeknight, for contests, those kinds of things.”

Every school in the CMAC is at least an hour and a half from Hannibal, and Pirates athletic teams would have to travel nearly three hours (approximately 2 hours, 49 minutes) for contests at Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia.

As for the GAC, the closest school in terms of driving time is Troy Buchanan at 1 hour, and Washington is the furthest away at 1 hour, 50 minutes.

“If they’re interested in us joining the conference, travel is going to be one of the big discussion points, how we can make that work,” Graham said.

While Hannibal and Kirksville’s locations could cause some more logistical headaches for them than other schools, Moberly football coach Cody McDowell said Moberly’s location about 30 miles north of Columbia likely will not be as large of an issue.

“We’re in a little better situation because of our location,” McDowell said. “Hannibal and Kirksville are outliers because of their location and the size of their school in comparison to the schools around them.”

A major selling point will be facilities, and Graham is confident Hannibal’s would appeal to other conferences and schools.

“We’re making improvements to Porter Stadium and we have our Veterans Sports Complex, an all-turf facility,” Graham said. “We have one of the best gyms in the area, as well. We have top-notch facilities all the way around.”

CMAC President and Capital City Activities Director Robert Ndessokia said the conference and Hannibal have been in touch, lending some truth to the theory that the CMAC could be a viable fit for Hannibal.

“Hannibal has reached out to us a few times,” Ndessokia said. “It is on our agenda for our next CMAC meeting (Nov. 13).”

Meanwhile, GAC President and Washington Activities Director Bill Deckelman said the conference has not considered adding any NCMC schools.

“At this point we have not had any discussions about adding any additional schools due to the NCMC dissolving,” Deckelman said. “Schools would have to go through a formal process to be considered.”

No matter where Hannibal, Kirksville, Moberly, Mexico, or Marshall go, there is no time to waste. The NCMC dissolving in 2026 means those gaps in the schedule for each sport in 2026 and 2027 have to be filled.

“We’re working already on seeing what we can do about that scheduling,” Hannibal football coach Jeff Gschwender said. “That could turn into a not very fun process, but unless those other teams find a conference, they’re all going to be in the same boat.”

Scheduling taking place in two-year increments makes finding a home as quickly as possible paramount.

“If you’ve got a group of schools that are in your conference that you know can eat up and fill a bulk of your schedule, it makes a lot of things a lot easier on our administration,” McDowell said. “That alleviates a lot of headaches and problems just so we have competition for these kids to be in.”

With Helias Catholic leaving the NCMC to become a founding member of the CMAC in 2020 and Fulton announcing it would be joining the Tri-County Conference beginning with the 2026-27 school year, the writing was on the wall.

“We’ve kind of seen it for a while,” Gschwender said.

With the decision to dissolve the NCMC now final, the house hunting has begun. Each school’s final destination remains to be seen, but the best fit for one may not be such for the others.

“It’ll be interesting,” McDowell said. “It’s hard to say who goes where. It’s just going to come down to what works for everybody involved.”