These are interesting times at Cedar Valley Christian School in southeast Cedar Rapids.

The Huskies have joined the Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) and the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) for the first time this year, and they've begun a new eight-man football program under Coach Ed Betsworth.

Here's something else that's new: The Metro Sports Report has added Cedar Valley Christian to its regular lineup of Metro schools, which means we'll provide full coverage of the Huskies on our website as we proceed through the school year.

The full coverage of Cedar Valley Christian begins Monday, Aug. 1. The Huskies join Jefferson, Kennedy, Linn-Mar, Marion, Prairie, Washington and Xavier in our lineup and will be treated the same as the other seven Metro
schools.

Welcome, Cedar Valley Christian. We're glad to have you as part of the team.

How to find coverage

You'll find it's easy to navigate our website and locate the stories you want. It all starts by going to www.MetroSportsReport.com, which you probably already did to find this story. That got you to our home page,
which is like the front page of a newspaper with stories about all the schools and all the teams.

Now take a look at the top of our home page and you'll find the eight Metro schools, listed in alphabetical order from left to right. Simply double-click on your favorite school -- in this case, CVC for Cedar Valley Christian -- and you'll go straight to the school's home page, where you'll find more information about the Huskies.

Now look near the top of the Cedar Valley Christian home page. You'll see a listing for "Select A Team," which is your path to each varsity sport. Click on the little box next to "Select A Team" and you'll get a dropdown box with all the teams. Click on the sport you want and you'll find an entire page that's devoted to that team.

CVC sports programs

Cedar Valley Christian will have eight-man football, girls volleyball, boys basketball, girls basketball and boys soccer this school year and might add girls soccer. We'll start adding stories to the football and volleyball pages this month, then we'll begin adding basketball stories in November and soccer stories in the spring.

The Metro Sports Report has been writing stories for several months about Cedar Valley Christian and its big new plans. We were the first media outlet to report that Cedar Valley Christian had been accepted into the IHSAA and IGHSAU, and we were the first to report that the Huskies were starting an eight-man football program.

Now that Cedar Valley Christian is part of our regular lineup, we'll intensity our efforts to bring you the latest news as we report on all the teams. We'll have regular game stories, feature stories, pictures and occasional columns, all intended to keep you informed about your favorite teams.

Advantages for CVC

Stephanie Hodge, the athletics director at Cedar Valley Christian, said there were two reasons the school decided to leave the Northern Illinois Christian Conference and join the IHSAA/IGHSAU. One reason was travel and costs. The other was competition.

"We were playing a lot of games in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin," she said. "And we belonged to a conference where some of those schools were not going to continue being part of the conference. So we were going to lose some games. Also, the competition factor diminished quite a bit in the last three to four years."

Cedar Valley Christian School has about 250 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, with about 80 students at the high school level. Hodge said she thinks joining the IHSAA and IGHSAU will help enrollment, because it will give the school more visibility and more attractive schedules.

"We believe it will grow our school over time," she said.

Hodge said Cedar Valley Christian students, parents, teachers, coaches and administrators are looking forward to the new school year and the new direction they're taking in sports.

"We're excited," she said.