When Williamsburg Community School District decided to shut down its football program and join Juniata Valley in a co-operative agreement, it could have been a case of subtraction by addition.

Juniata Valley has been the Blue Pirates’ most-heated rival for decades, and the neighboring schools still were going to go at it tooth and nail in every other boys’ sport.

Instead, though, the players put aside their natural enmity. Not only that, they thrived as a team, combining to form one of Valley’s best-ever teams with a Williamsburg student-athlete leading the charge at quarterback. The...