What is this select/non-select stuff all about IRT to football playoffs??? I thought they got all this stuff fixed a few years ago?? Is this a good thing??
I remember Tennessee trying this out and pretty much ruined HS football. Basically public schools whining because they can't win and the best way to get them championships is to split the private and public teams in the playoffs and have 2 winners.
The core issue here is recruiting and it's been around forever. The Catholic schools have always done it, but now the most glaring examples are John Curtis and Evangel and even West Monroe, although it's harder for a public school to do it. I've lost touch but I seem to remember an issue several years ago about Evangel even recruiting a player from Dallas. I don't know if the new proposal is good or bad. I tend to lean toward good, but I guess it remains to be seen.
They thought by making the private schools play down to their enrollment that the best players would quit going to curtis and evangel but it didn't work. So now they will play those teams in the regular season but not the playoffs. I can see both sides view to tell you the truth. In Georgia the counties started building these humongous high schools with very large districts so that the public schools would win in the higher classification. But that knocks out hundreds of kids from being able to play sports. One of the giant schools that my friends son goes to had over 100 freshmen go out for the baseball and basketball freshmen teams. To me that is not the answer as sports is the main reason many of these kids make it through high school and it pushes many deserving kids out of sports at a very young age.
You are confusing the issue by focusing on recruiting...it's really about winning at any cost. Recruiting results in wins, as we LSU fans know. Schools like Curtis and Evangel are taking recruiting to the extreme....and that's not right, but taking kids from out of district who want to go to Jesuit or Rummel, for example, isn't insidious. I don't know about the rest of the state, but If Jesuit and Holy Cross are committing recruiting sins, how come they haven't been state champions most years. It's unfair to exclude the catholic schools from competing by putting them in their own league. This is exactly like the Jim Crow league that the LHSAA set up for the black schools during segregation. There is and should never be "separate but equal" leagues based on race and creed. Notice how all these private schools slated for exclusion are Christian !!!
Well recruiting is a big issue but not the only one. Some kids just grow up wanting to go to a certain school or their parents want them to go to a Curtis or St Aug, etc. And they might live many miles away from that school. The public schools have to take only the kids that are in their district and that is the main issue. While maybe not winning a championship in football lately Jesuit has won a bunch in other sports and I'd bet a few dollars that Holy Cross (my school) will win a few in all sports in the near future with their new facilities and school being the keys to getting great athletes from all around the city.
But Recruiting is the core of the issue, Steve, and it can't be brushed aside. The private schools are allowed advantages that give them a decided edge. Either those advantages have to be eliminated or they should play in their own championship series. They aren't being excluded from competing. They will just compete with schools that have to play by the same rules. The unfairness is allowing recruiting schools to take talent from anywhere and pay their tuitions, to compete with public schools restricted to a district. Hyperbole. This issue is not about achieving equality, it is about private schools expecting to retain an unfair upper hand. Here is the fact -- private schools have a built-in advantage which they exploit. How do you propose to address this? We can allow public students to go anywhere they wish, but this has been refused by the courts because of desegregation. Or we can assign districts to the private schools and they could not take athletes from other districts. I don't think either of those will fly. So if you can't make the field level, then you make two leagues. We're talking about a separation based on GREED, not creed. Does the Catholic religion demand that their schools have an unfair advantage over their non-Catholic competitors? I think not. Could they agree to refrain from allowing district-jumping athletes? I think so. Are they interested in fairness or not? Untrue. Is University High a Christian school? Is Baton Rouge Magnet High? Public schools that are not restricted to an attendance district would also be a part of the select championship series.
The private schools that slated for exclusion or not all Christian schools. Make no mistake about it that private schools have a significant advantage because of the fact that they are self reliant and not recieving state funds to operate. I myself went to public school, my kids go to a private school, the reason my kids go to private school are for simply one reason.....because the school I sent my kids to prepare them very well for college. They push them academically. It has nothing to do with sports. Unfortunately that's not always the case a lot of schools go after "great" athletes to make their institution look better sports wise.....make no mistake about it football at even the high school level is a cash cow, these schools are making very good money with their football programs so they build better and better facilities. Donors step in and throw money around to build these facilities to get the best athletes. Unfortunately public schools do not have that advantage. I am a high school official in both football and baseball, and I have heard some of these private schools talk about of they re forced to play seperate from the public schools then what is stoping them from getting their own officials and starting their own thing.....this is just the start of the per verbial "opening of a can of worms" it's going to get very interesting from here on out, in the meeting leading up to the vote....their was a lot of private school coaches and principals that were adimate about standing against this..... These were the schools that voted only for their own agendas. Then there was those that said they don't care their going to go play regardless. My point being its not every private school out there that are only concerned about winning at sports, they are rare but they are out there.
As always, a good dissection and rebuttal by Red. Touche on the hyperbole...if it quacks like a duck...
Double those freshman numbers and you have what it going on all over Texas and has been. However, private schools do not play in public school playoff systems, in fact most of the time, most people can't even tell you who won a private school state championship in anything.
