Hey everybody! This is Ben Wolford, editor and publisher of this here newspaper. I'll keep this email as short as possible.

First, I want to welcome all the new subscribers to our community. Everyone here is joining us at the ground level, which makes each of you an important player in the future of local news in Summit County.

Some of you remember signing up for a different publication we launched a while back covering Akron. Well, since then, Akron got a newsroom called Signal that's doing excellent work. You should follow them if you're interested in city coverage.

But Signal isn't covering Summit County suburbs. In fact, nobody's looking at eastern Summit County on a regular basis at all (not since the old weekly papers like the Falls News-Press got shut down).

So we pivoted, and here we are! Today we're formally launching The Summiteer. If you haven't already, you should read the background on our company and our mission. 

By the way, if you're not interested anymore, just click that unsubscribe button. You can always come back later. Otherwise, thanks for being here and let me explain what's coming next:

I'll be in touch with more later, but in the meantime, here's a news story by Tom Hardesty that didn't fit in this issue about Cuyahoga Falls and Tallmadge athletics rejoining their former league. See you soon!

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What’s old is new again: The athletic programs at Cuyahoga Falls and Tallmadge are back in the Metro.

Only this time, the two schools are joining the Metro Athletic Conference, not the now-defunct Metro League, of which the Black Tigers and Blue Devils were longtime members together decades ago. Cuyahoga Falls will begin play in the Metro Athletic Conference in the 2026-27 school year, while Tallmadge has yet to finalize its entry timeline. The two schools currently play in the Suburban League’s American Conference

Kent Roosevelt is also leaving the Suburban League for the MAC.

The moves are part of a shakeup that started back in July when Coventry announced it was leaving the MAC to join the Principals Athletic Conference – a league that it, too, had played in long ago. In the ensuing weeks, a reported 10 schools sent a letter of interest to apply for admission to the MAC. At the end of that process, Cuyahoga Falls and Tallmadge were publicly announced as new future members of the MAC on Oct. 17, with Roosevelt having formally announced its league switch one day earlier.

When the MAC is fully realigned, it will be a 10-team league with Cuyahoga Falls, Tallmadge, Woodridge, Springfield, Kent Roosevelt, Streetsboro, Field, Ravenna, Cloverleaf and Norton.

“We feel our athletic teams will be more competitive in the Metro Athletic Conference,” Cuyahoga Falls school board President Anthony Gomez said. “Our district is shrinking in size. In terms of competitiveness, we have Walsh Jesuit, we have CVCA … they’re all right in our backyard, and they all certainly try to take our very good athletes away from us. We want to give our athletes the best opportunities to shine. We felt changing conferences was the best opportunity.”

The revamped Metro Athletic Conference means Cuyahoga Falls and Woodridge will be competing against one another in a league setting.

“So we’ll have a cross-city rivalry, which we think will be exciting,” Gomez said, adding that the new stadium in the new 612 building complex at the corner of Portage Trail and 13th Street will be an added bonus. The stadium will include a football field, soccer field and a track.

Tallmadge’s decision to jump leagues, meanwhile, was precipitated by the moves of Cuyahoga Falls and Kent Roosevelt to exit the Suburban League and join the MAC.

“The decision to accept the invitation to join the Metro is fully driven by what best serves our student-athletes,” Tallmadge Superintendent Steve Wood said. “The departures of two key competitors from the Suburban League, coupled with an invitation to join a league with proximity, similar-sized schools and comparable programs, created an opportunity that was too good to pass up.”

As the smallest school in the Suburban League, Tallmadge has competed well in most sports over the years and had not been looking to make a move. However, the shifting landscape forced consideration of what served the school’s athletic program best in the long term.

“With Cuyahoga Falls and Kent going, we asked where does that leave us?” Tallmadge Athletic Director Bill Johnson said. “The Metro is a good, competitive league for us in every sport. We are not just looking at football, basketball, softball or baseball. We feel that across all sports, it gives us the best chance to compete. The proximity of the Metro schools for travel is an added bonus.”

In terms of enrollment, Cuyahoga Falls will be the largest school in the Metro Athletic Conference, followed by Kent Roosevelt and Tallmadge. Woodridge will be the smallest.

Tallmadge’s transition timeline from the Suburban League to the Metro Athletic Conference is still being finalized as present scheduling commitments, usually given 2 years in advance, are under review.

Cuyahoga Falls has been a member of the Suburban League since 2015, while Tallmadge’s membership in the Suburban dates back to 1990.