WINTHROP — Pride. Tradition. The name on the front of the uniform.

Football coaches consistently use those elements, tangible and intangible, to motivate their teams each autumn.

It’s all well and good, but when the number of uniforms and the number of listening ears continues to dwindle year after year, it becomes idle chatter.

Which is why it’s hard to find anybody associated with Winthrop High School and Monmouth Academy who isn’t excited that the two schools will join forces as a co-operative gridiron program.

“We’re pumped. We’re very excited,” coach Joel Stoneton said. “It’s safe to say that both groups of kids are very excited. They’ve been wanting to do this for a while.”

The Maine Principals Association approved the proposal Friday.

Both school boards already had given their blessing to the venture, which was discussed for several years in light of Winthrop’s declining enrollment. The schools previously reached a tentative agreement in June 2011 to merge the programs.

In the current academic and athletic year, the neighboring schools reported a combined 472 students. Winthrop’s half of the equation will shrink again in 2013-14.

“If you look at the new numbers, Boothbay I think has 213 (students), then it’s us, and then Monmouth is the next lowest if you wanted to put them in there by themselves,” Stoneton said. “It kind of only made sense that we would get together eventually.”

Winthrop/Monmouth will compete in Class D, assuming that the MPA’s four-class proposal is accepted by the membership in the spring.

Winthrop won the Class C state title in 2000 and its most recent Western Maine championship in 2008, but low numbers and injuries hampered the Ramblers in recent seasons. They missed the regional playoffs each of the past two years.

At Monmouth, which disbanded its original varsity program in 1977, a successful youth program and junior varsity high school team have been in place for a decade.

Based on the number of underclassmen who have signed up, the new program will dress 53 players — 32 from Winthrop and 21 from Monmouth.

“I think it’s going to be really exciting. We were in the low 30s last year, and once the injuries hit we were putting some really young kids right in the mix,” Stoneton said. “With our numbers now, we’re excited about being able to have actual personnel sets.”

Some of Winthrop’s football tradition already has been transplanted into the Monmouth feeder system.

Norm Thombs, who guided the Ramblers to their 2000 state title, has coached the Mustangs’ developmental program. Stoneton was one of his assistants at Winthrop.

“I know he wants to help with the transition. One thing I’m excited about is that I know Norm is a good football coach. I don’t have to worry about whether or not they’ve been trained in the game of football. He gets it,” Stoneton said. “People talk about they’ve been a ‘club team,’ but I don’t see it that way. They know how to play the game.”

Winthrop and Monmouth were anxious to see how the MPA realignment would impact their plans.

When it was determined that the collaborative effort would still fall within the smallest of the proposed four classes, the movement forged ahead in earnest.

“I felt that it would have been very difficult in our first year as a co-op to go up against teams like Leavitt, Mountain Valley and Wells,” Stoneton said. “The teams in our league already are very good.”

Stoneton praised the work of Winthrop athletic director Dwayne Conway, Monmouth principal Rick Amero and Monmouth AD Lucas Turner in putting the programs together.

Even though the two schools are located roughly six miles apart, Winthrop and Monmouth have never been intense athletic rivals.

They played in different leagues until Monmouth joined the Mountain Valley Conference 10 years ago.

“Maybe in basketball it’s a little bit of a rivalry where they’ve been beating up on each other a little bit, but on the football side I don’t see any animosity,” Stoneton said.

There have been two other active co-operative varsity football programs in Maine: Madison/Carrabec and Calais/Woodland. The practice is common in ice hockey.

School consolidations have prompted such combinations in the tri-county region, as well. Rumford and Mexico got together as Mountain Valley High School in 1989, and more recently Jay and Livermore Falls — bitter football rivals for more than 70 years — became teammates at Spruce Mountain High School.

Stoneton doesn’t expect politics to be a problem.

“My job as a football coach is to win games,” he said. “I don’t care what town they’re from or what their last name is. I just want us to win.”

The team will practice and play games at Winthrop’s Maxwell Field. Other details, such as team colors and a nickname, remain open for discussion.

Stoneton hopes to have an organizational meeting “before everybody gets tied up with spring sports,” he said.

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