St. Cloud's two public high schools could stop fielding separate football teams as soon as the 2027-28 school year. The St. Cloud Area School District is recommending that Apollo and Tech high schools merge their football programs into a single squad, following years of declining participation that administrators say has made it impossible to safely staff varsity, junior varsity, and C-squad rosters at both schools.
District 742 administration will ask the Board of Education to approve combining the two programs beginning with the 2027-28 school year, according to KNSI. The board is scheduled to take up the recommendation at its meeting Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the district administrative office. Per the outlet's report, district administrators determined that current and projected participation numbers cannot sustain separate teams at both schools, and that keeping every athlete at a safe, age-appropriate level of play was the top priority in making the recommendation.
Coaches and staff had already tried recruiting students and building youth programming to reverse the decline before the merger recommendation emerged, the station's report notes. As part of that effort, St. Cloud Area School District Community Education programs have offered youth football activities, according to ISD 742 Community Education.
A Five-Year Path Toward One Brand
The football merger would extend a consolidation strategy District 742 began in July 2021, when it created the St. Cloud Crush co-op brand by merging five Apollo and Tech programs and rebranding six existing joint teams, according to the same KNSI report. The district chose royal blue and orange as official colors and selected the Crush name to honor St. Cloud's granite industry, per WJON. The Crush brand now includes roughly 20 sports, after the district added girls soccer, boys swimming and diving, and boys volleyball during the 2025-26 school year, per the KNSI account.
Even as athletic programs consolidate under one identity, Apollo and Tech will remain separate schools with their own academic traditions, the district's recommendation makes clear. That distinction echoes a clarification St. Cloud School Board Chair Shannon Haws made back in July 2021, when she publicly stated that creating joint athletic programs did not signal any intent to merge Tech and Apollo into a single high school, according to WJON.
Enrollment Math and a Push Down to Class 4A
Combining Apollo and Tech's enrollments would place the merged football program in Class 5A, according to KNSI's reporting. Official Minnesota State High School League directories list Tech High School and Apollo High School, per the Minnesota State High School League. Under the 2025-2027 competitive cycle, football classifications are set by the Minnesota State High School League, according to Bring Me The News.
District 742 plans to petition the MSHSL to compete in Class 4A instead of 5A, following a path both schools have used individually. Tech had already moved to Class 4A after petitioning down from Class 5A in spring 2025, citing low turnout and the share of students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch, per KNSI's report. Apollo, which currently plays in Class 3A, cited the same participation and student-income reasons for its own classification, the outlet notes.
MSHSL enrollment figures are calculated by subtracting 40 percent of free and reduced-price lunch recipients from total 9th-12th grade enrollment, and schools may petition down a class if more than half their students qualify for benefits or if enrollment falls within 10 percent of a class cutoff, according to the Minnesota State High School League. The league's petition deadline falls in September 2026, and the classification process was moved up by the MSHSL this cycle, per KNSI. The league will set football classes and sections for the 2027-29 cycle at a meeting in late November.
Co-Op Teams Have Already Found Success
The Crush framework has already produced postseason breakthroughs in other sports. The St. Cloud Crush girls hockey team, combining players from Apollo, Tech, and Cathedral, reached the MSHSL Class 1A state tournament for the first time in February, finishing with an 18-9-0 record, according to the Star Tribune. The MSHSL also lists boys swimming among the district's co-op sports.
On the field, Apollo's standalone football program has struggled, with a current 0-2 start and an 18-game losing streak since September 2024. Meanwhile, District 742 has provided updates on renovations at Apollo. The football merger is planned for 2027.
