Medford parents upset about athletic programs
It’s been no secret that Medford athletics has become the black sheep of Steele County’s four high school programs, and last week, local parents brought their frustrations to the district’s school board.
Multiple community members shared a host of concerns, providing testimonials, anecdotes, and even some ideas for change.
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” said Medford’s Naomi Sanow. “I made a big group chat with a bunch of parents, and I said, ‘Listen, I’m going to speak at the school board meeting in a couple days. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but I would love anybody to show up just to support.’”
The tipping point has been watching another season of struggles for fall sports teams. But the Tigers have not fielded a winning team in years–including all of 2025.
In the 2024-25 school year alone, Medford had three teams finish seasons without a single win: football (0-9), girls basketball (0-27), and boys basketball (0-27.)
The football team is currently riding a three-season winless streak that spans over 1,000 days.
Meanwhile, Medford volleyball just wrapped its 2025 season with a 6-19 overall record, marking its fourth consecutive losing year–a far cry from the program that went to state as recently as 2019 and placed as the Class A state runner-up in 2018.
Medford’s Corey Samora talked about how his son felt when asked about the idea of playing football at Medford.
“My son that left the district did so mainly because of lacrosse… but I asked him to take lacrosse out of it, ‘Would you want to stay and play football at Medford?’ He said, ‘Dad, no. I don’t want to go out and get killed every week on the field.’”
While it would be easy to point fingers and make accusations, the community members’ intentions were not to place blame.
“I want to start by saying how much I appreciate all of our coaches and staff. Coaching takes dedication, long hours, and a genuine commitment to kids — and that commitment does not go unnoticed. My goal tonight isn’t to criticize anyone, but to advocate for our student-athletes and the strength of our school’s athletic programs,” said Sanow in her opening remarks to the board.
Some of the parents’ key points of concern were the need for a focused athletics director – a role currently handled by the school’s dean of students – as well as coach hiring processes, the effect of losing on student athletes, and community support.
According to Sanow, the constant losses affect the athletes not only on the fields and courts, but in their day-to-day lives in the community as well.
“People are still showing up, but numbers have decreased greatly in our stands,” Sanow said. “I’ve put together a softener salt fundraiser where our football boys deliver into the houses in our community. A few of them felt pretty bad when they would go into a handful of homes and would be greeted by community members saying, ‘Rough season last year,’ or ‘Not doing too well this year…’ I feel like we get a lack of community support in fundraisers as well. I always say that we’re like Owatonna’s broke cousin over here.”
While multiple speakers took a stand, Sanow was unsure how the group’s message was received by the board.
“Jessica (Grayson) and John (Anhorn) spoke to us at the beginning and end of the meeting, but to be quite honest, when all five of us went up to speak, nobody said, ‘Thank you’ or anything. When Jen Ford spoke afterward, everyone thanked her for her speech… That’s the feel I got in the room at that time,” said Sanow.
It remains to be seen what effect the speakers had on the board, but one thing is for certain: It won’t be the last time school officials hear from the group.
“We’re planning on being back next week,” said Sanow.
According to her, the hopes for the next meeting are to provide more solutions-based ideas and addressing problems head-on. She mentioned that the group wants to work together with the school board and the athletics programs to find solutions, rather than only express concerns.