Is it time for private schools to have theyre own playoffs in football

• Delphosfan

  Bigdogg;590691 wrote:Not at all. St. Henry has no open enrollment and Marion and Coldwater get very few net open enrollment kids. They also have to take all kids that walk in their doors. Nobody has a problem with their success, as a mater of fact they should be admired for it. I think that the majority of people on here see that the playing field is not level and there needs to be some tweaking with the current system. If there would have been a multiplier in effect this year, I suspect St. Johns was good enough to win D-5 as I am sure the Youngstown all-stars would have moved up also.

  How many open enrollment kids are at Marion Local and Coldwater? You obviously know the answer. Then again, they don't need many. They just limit the number who can come and skim the cream off the top of the adjacent districts and only take the great athletes. Maybe Coldwater's the reason Fort Recovery, Celina and Parkway struggle in football.
• NNN

  

  I'll give you an example of how a split system has basically ruined Tennessee high school football.
  
  The TSSAA has a split like so:
  Privates that offer any type of scholarship or financial aid, go to Division II
  Privates that don't offer those, go to Division I and take a multiplier
  Publics, go to Division I
  
  Privates in Division II, raise hell about the massive disparities in enrollment.
  Division II privates with small enrollments, go to one side and large enrollments to the other
  
  Division I, start splitting. Then start complaining about disparities in enrollment, then about application of the multiplier. Keep splitting. Then start setting parameters for playing up or down.
  
  What you have left:
  Division 1A - 42 schools
  Division 2A - 39 schools
  Division 3A - 54 schools
  Division 4A - 53 schools
  Division 5A - 59 schools
  Division 6A - 55 schools
  Division IIA - 22 schools
  Division IIAA - 12 schools
  
  336 schools, 8 state championships. But surely....surely everything is equal, right?
  
  Here are the scores from this year's title games:
  42-7, 28-21, 41-6, 56-14, 28-7, 56-28, 23-21, 60-12
  
  This is a state that allows spring football, and yet the caliber of high school ball is largely inferior. Most of the D-1 players who come out of Tennessee are recruited based on raw athleticism and not based on polished skill. Tennessee produces few NFL players, and the ones who are actually pretty good went to UT during its heyday of 1995-2001 and received excellent coaching (Patrick Willis being the notable exception; he went to Ole Miss).
  
  If you want to be the best, beat the best. I'm having a hell of a time wrapping my mind around a coach who would be forced to say, "Guys, no excuses, 100% effort, and accept nothing less than excellence. Now let's get ready for our separate playoffs!"
• etak

  sirclovis;590806 wrote:My private school absolutley, positively, without a doubt never handed out an athletic scholarship. As with almost all private schools you either get scholarships based on knowledge and merit or you have to fork up the thousands of dollars private education is worth. I'm not saying there isn't abuse within the system, because there obiviously is in both private and a public schools, I'm just saying that the vast majority of private schools NEVER hand out some sort of "scholarship". I mean a lot of people bash many private school's facilities because they are not up to par with public HS's, can't you see that these private schools don't have the money to just throw around?

  
  Yup - agreed. I think that if they had that kind of cash they'd spend it on the parochial/public teacher salary disparity.
• Alma_Parker

  NNN;591003 wrote:I'll give you an example of how a split system has basically ruined Tennessee: ...
  
  What you have left:
  Division 1A - 42 schools
  Division 2A - 39 schools
  Division 3A - 54 schools
  Division 4A - 53 schools
  Division 5A - 59 schools
  Division 6A - 55 schools
  Division IIA - 22 schools
  Division IIAA - 12 schools
  
  336 schools, 8 state championships. But surely....surely everything is equal, right?
  
  Here are the scores from this year's title games:
  42-7, 28-21, 41-6, 56-14, 28-7, 56-28, 23-21, 60-12
  
  
  If you want to be the best, beat the best. I'm having a hell of a time wrapping my mind around a coach who would be forced to say, "Guys, no excuses, 100% effort, and accept nothing less than excellence. Now let's get ready for our separate playoffs!"

  
  Nice fact-burst, NNN. Even better than trying to project for these guys what would happen is to show them a real example. Expect either a long chilly quiet period from skank and BeNice now or perhaps they'll start calling you names. Or maybe they'll start trying to tweak the Tennessee system to get even more (and smaller) classes so that they can be sure to get a plastic trophy. Agree on how hard it is to get the mind around, but the goal here is to make a "state championship" slightly less impressive than today's conference champsionship. To the leftists (on this issue) on here it's not about Ohio Football and what has made it pretty great, it's about a "title" in their home school, period.
• fish82

  

  sherm03;590768 wrote:While personally I don't have a problem with the multiplier idea...I don't think it's as fair of an idea as everyone makes it out to be. Like I've pointed out, there are a number of private schools in the lower divisions that never sniff the playoffs. So I don't think it's necessarily fair to force those teams to move up 1 or 2 divisions just because Mooney, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic do well on a consistent basis.
  
  I feel that the best option is to give the schools...both private and public...a choice. Give all the schools who do well every year a chance to voluntarily "play up." That means, teams like Mentor Lake Catholic, Lake, Mooney, Steubenville, Alter, Ironton, Ursuline, Coldwater, DSJ, St. Henry could all voluntarily move up into tougher competition without penalizing the teams who struggle every year. Not only that...but it also doesn't penalize a school just for being private.
  
  It's a way to generate a more competitive spirit among the teams that constantly do well.
  
  But the haters don't like that idea. They want ALL the evil private schools moved up or out. They want the lower level divisions wide open for the MAC to take every single championship.

  Well said. The multiplier is a fail from the start, for the reasons you stated. It continues to amaze me how the "kick 'em out" crowd refuses to see that we're not talking about "the private schools," but in fact about 5-7 highly successful private schools.
  
  The "play up" concept is the only thing that stands a chance to appease the juice box crowd, while not completely screwing the Rosecrans' of the world.
• 1_beast

  

  Perhaps, at that point...The "Rosecrans' " of the world would need to "lift harder", "practice harder" , "get better coaching" , yada, yada, yada, etc. Practice what you preach!
• tsst_fballfan

  

  Al Bundy;590342 wrote:We could just go to 700 divisions. It is pretty clear that you grew up in a world where everyone was just given trophies instead of having to earn them. Enjoy your juice box.

  Have you read a single damn post or are you too busy on the couch with your hand in your pants Al?
  
  
  
  I have only advocated equivalent guidelines. I also voted not to separate on the poll and stated so in posting. While privates continue advocating no change we like the advantage! The double speak is humorous. While calling folks whiners and crybabys out one side of the mouth they cry and whine how unfair it would be to lump all privates together in any changes made.
  
  Of course I can understand why the schools reaping the most advantage would not want enrollment changes mandated. If Ursuline had to operate by the same laws as area publics they would be failing state standards and installing metal detectors too. :shrugs: It's much easier to brag how great you are when you control, to the very last kid, who attends.
• sherm03

  

  1_beast;591101 wrote:Perhaps, at that point...The "Rosecrans' " of the world would need to "lift harder", "practice harder" , "get better coaching" , yada, yada, yada, etc. Practice what you preach!

  
  They probably should. But you guys want a multiplier under the guise that it "levels out the playing field." Teams like Purcell Marian, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rosecrans, and Youngstown Christian are never in the playoffs, and haven't even come close in a long time.
  
  You guys scream and yell and complain and point to this "fairness" argument...but in the same breath want something enacted that is not fair to those bottom feeder private schools. So call this multiplier what it is: a way for you to clear out the best teams in the lower divisions so public schools can win more championships (despite the FACT that public schools have won more championships in D4-D6 since 1972...but I digress).
  
  I would still think you guys are morons...but at least I would respect you a little more if you said, "we want the multiplier because Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic are just too good." Don't hide behind this argument that a multiplier makes things fair and balanced across the board.
  
  As I've said before, I don't care about a multiplier. I think Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic would all still make the playoffs and win championships if they were up a division. I also think that Purcell Marian, Youngstown Christian, and St. Thomas Aquinas will still be sitting at home come playoff time whether they are in D6 (like they are now) or in D5. But I'm not going around banging pots and pans together yelling about "fairness" and "equality". Sports aren't fair. Sometimes people have advantages over you that you have to overcome to get a W. Good programs overcome those advantages.
  
  So to the OHSAA, I would like to say...please enact a multiplier and name it the "Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, Newark Catholic Rule"...because that's what it comes down to. The juice-box drinkers just want the tough teams moved out, and they do so behind the "smoke and mirrors" argument of fairness.
• sherm03

  

  tsst_fballfan;591106 wrote:Have you read a single damn post or are you too busy on the couch with your hand in your pants Al?
  
  
  
  I have only advocated equivalent guidelines. I also voted not to separate on the poll and stated so in posting. While privates continue advocating no change we like the advantage! The double speak is humorous. While calling folks whiners and crybabys out one side of the mouth they cry and whine how unfair it would be to lump all privates together in any changes made.
  
  Of course I can understand why the schools reaping the most advantage would not want enrollment changes mandated. If Ursuline had to operate by the same laws as area publics they would be failing state standards and installing metal detectors too. :shrugs: It's much easier to brag how great you are when you control, to the very last kid, who attends.

  
  Did you miss all my posts about a voluntary play up option? Did you miss my posts about not caring about a multiplier? Did you look past the point I made about how many private schools would see a play up option as a challenge and would take it?
  
  The bottom line is...a multiplier isn't fair to all the private schools. Yet, people tout it as a way to make things fair for everyone. And the private supporters are the ones talking out of both sides of their mouths? Give me a break.
• Viking

  A complicated system that includes free/reduced lunch population, open enrollment, and winning tradition will all be factors in the new alignment. The changes will be made this summer. My guess is that Mooney will be D II and Ursuline will be D IV. I could see Mooney staying in D III and Ursuline joining them there.
• Bigdogg

  Delphosfan;590850 wrote:How many open enrollment kids are at Marion Local and Coldwater? You obviously know the answer. Then again, they don't need many. They just limit the number who can come and skim the cream off the top of the adjacent districts and only take the great athletes. Maybe Coldwater's the reason Fort Recovery, Celina and Parkway struggle in football.

  
  I know that Celina has a net loss and Van Wert has a net loss of open enrollment students. I have been looking for the others on the ODE website but have not found it yet. It is not very common at all for students in Mercer County to open enroll at other schools. Coldwater has a pretty good player from Celina on the football team, Celina has two pretty good players from Ft. recovery on their basketball team. I do not recall any other high profile athletes ever changing schools in the last 25 years. As a matter of fact, I understand that Curtis Enis wanted to transfer to St. Henry when he was in high school and was told no thank you.
  
  If you want to know the total open enrollment numbers, feel free to contact the schools. It is public information and they are required to provide that to you, unlike the privates who do not have to give you any information.
• fish82

  

  1_beast;591101 wrote:Perhaps, at that point...The "Rosecrans' " of the world would need to "lift harder", "practice harder" , "get better coaching" , yada, yada, yada, etc. Practice what you preach!

  But Rosecrans already has the "parochial advantage." They should be winning D6 every year already. Analogy fail. Sorry.
• Bigdogg

  sherm03;591108 wrote:They probably should. But you guys want a multiplier under the guise that it "levels out the playing field." Teams like Purcell Marian, St. Thomas Aquinas, Rosecrans, and Youngstown Christian are never in the playoffs, and haven't even come close in a long time.
  
  You guys scream and yell and complain and point to this "fairness" argument...but in the same breath want something enacted that is not fair to those bottom feeder private schools. So call this multiplier what it is: a way for you to clear out the best teams in the lower divisions so public schools can win more championships (despite the FACT that public schools have won more championships in D4-D6 since 1972...but I digress).
  
  I would still think you guys are morons...but at least I would respect you a little more if you said, "we want the multiplier because Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic are just too good." Don't hide behind this argument that a multiplier makes things fair and balanced across the board.
  
  As I've said before, I don't care about a multiplier. I think Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic would all still make the playoffs and win championships if they were up a division. I also think that Purcell Marian, Youngstown Christian, and St. Thomas Aquinas will still be sitting at home come playoff time whether they are in D6 (like they are now) or in D5. But I'm not going around banging pots and pans together yelling about "fairness" and "equality". Sports aren't fair. Sometimes people have advantages over you that you have to overcome to get a W. Good programs overcome those advantages.
  
  So to the OHSAA, I would like to say...please enact a multiplier and name it the "Mooney, Alter, Ursuline, DSJ, Newark Catholic Rule"...because that's what it comes down to. The juice-box drinkers just want the tough teams moved out, and they do so behind the "smoke and mirrors" argument of fairness.

  
  You obviously don't want change because either you know you have advantages or your reading comprehension needs to improve. Nobody is singling out the private schools. Most of the problems reside in the urban city's with recruiting from both the public and the privates. Attendance zones and a multiplier would only be fair if it is used for both public and private schools.
• 1_beast

  

  We can give the "Rosecrans' of the world" a juicebox.
• tsst_fballfan

  

  sherm03;591111 wrote:Did you miss all my posts about a voluntary play up option? Did you miss my posts about not caring about a multiplier? Did you look past the point I made about how many private schools would see a play up option as a challenge and would take it?
  
  The bottom line is...a multiplier isn't fair to all the private schools. Yet, people tout it as a way to make things fair for everyone. And the private supporters are the ones talking out of both sides of their mouths? Give me a break.

  The only multiplier I even pseudo supported was the one proposed earlier in the thread by Sykotyk because it was based on any school getting students outside their assigned area. I have not advocated any rule imposed on privates only. In fact I have spent the entire time on the thread advocating the SAME guidelines for all.
  
  Yes I saw your post about 'voluntary' play up. As long as privates continue to control their own guidelines it's acceptable right?
  

  sherm03;591111 wrote: ... isn't fair to all the private schools ...

  The exact same thing private supporters have been berating public supporters about on this thread. Doublespeak!
  
  Just tell them their not good enough, give them their own division and trophy, tell them to lift more, tell them to train harder, tell them to pray together, etc... And if that doesn't work give them a juice box!
• Sykotyk

  

  Pointing out that a state gives out 8 championships to 330+ schools is a little misleading. Only two states give out fewer championships per number of participants than Ohio (Pennsylvania, 4 for 500+ and California, 5 for 1000~). Wyoming has five champions for only 62 schools. One for every 12.4 schools. Even if you take out the 8 schools playing 6 man, that's 4 titles for 54 teams, or 1 for every 13.5 schools.
  
  See how fun it is to play with numbers?
  
  Ohio is becoming more and more of a statistical oddity in championship breakdown. I have no issue with publics and privates in the same setup. But to call a 142 student public equal to a 142 student private is disingenuous at best, and ignorant at worst. Of those 142 students in the private school, what percentage do you think excel at academics? How many "want" to be at school? How many like participating in sports? Extracurriculars? Now, out of that 142 student public school, those same parameters? How many potheads? How many delinquents? How many drop outs? How many who scrape by with a 1.0 GPA and then go onto flipping burgers at Mickey Ds? And now, those same numbers for the private?
  
  It's easy to sit back and say 'a student is a student is a student', but there's a huge disparity in the amount of 'dead weight' the public school has pumping up their enrollment number that the private school just doesn't have to concern themselves with. And, additionally, a private school does not need to deal with a delinquent student for long before punting them back to the public school system. The public school has no such easy avenue. Expulsion is time-consuming and damn near impossible. The school must use their funds, by law, to try and educate the worst of the worst. The ne'er-do-wells, the delinquents, the downtrodden, the special needs, etc.
  
  They have to. By law, they have to. The private is not required by law. They get the cream of the crop. The students who WANT to be there. The students who will excel and make their school look like a shining example of academia. While public school's GPA and standardized test scores are going to be dragged down by the student who thinks it's clever to fill in 'None of the Above' for every answer. And there's nothing the public school can do about it.
  
  Give a public school with 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND the dead weight against a private school of 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND their meager amount of potential dead weight, and then we have closer to a fair fight.
  
  Private schools do not take advantage of their position. They do not have to recruit. They enjoy the advantage simply by existing.
  
  Sykotyk
• sirclovis

  Sykotyk;591145 wrote:Pointing out that a state gives out 8 championships to 330+ schools is a little misleading. Only two states give out fewer championships per number of participants than Ohio (Pennsylvania, 4 for 500+ and California, 5 for 1000~). Wyoming has five champions for only 62 schools. One for every 12.4 schools. Even if you take out the 8 schools playing 6 man, that's 4 titles for 54 teams, or 1 for every 13.5 schools.
  
  See how fun it is to play with numbers?
  
  Ohio is becoming more and more of a statistical oddity in championship breakdown. I have no issue with publics and privates in the same setup. But to call a 142 student public equal to a 142 student private is disingenuous at best, and ignorant at worst. Of those 142 students in the private school, what percentage do you think excel at academics? How many "want" to be at school? How many like participating in sports? Extracurriculars? Now, out of that 142 student public school, those same parameters? How many potheads? How many delinquents? How many drop outs? How many who scrape by with a 1.0 GPA and then go onto flipping burgers at Mickey Ds? And now, those same numbers for the private?
  
  It's easy to sit back and say 'a student is a student is a student', but there's a huge disparity in the amount of 'dead weight' the public school has pumping up their enrollment number that the private school just doesn't have to concern themselves with. And, additionally, a private school does not need to deal with a delinquent student for long before punting them back to the public school system. The public school has no such easy avenue. Expulsion is time-consuming and damn near impossible. The school must use their funds, by law, to try and educate the worst of the worst. The ne'er-do-wells, the delinquents, the downtrodden, the special needs, etc.
  
  They have to. By law, they have to. The private is not required by law. They get the cream of the crop. The students who WANT to be there. The students who will excel and make their school look like a shining example of academia. While public school's GPA and standardized test scores are going to be dragged down by the student who thinks it's clever to fill in 'None of the Above' for every answer. And there's nothing the public school can do about it.
  
  Give a public school with 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND the dead weight against a private school of 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND their meager amount of potential dead weight, and then we have closer to a fair fight.
  
  Private schools do not take advantage of their position. They do not have to recruit. They enjoy the advantage simply by existing.
  
  Sykotyk

  
  I definitely agree with your post in regards of academics and private schools vs. publics schools but what is your the point? People with higher GPA's or who have a greater desire to do well in school play sports better? If that was the case then a lot more "nerds" would be great at sports. I mean typical athletes are not stellar when it comes to academics, so wouldn't you think that many of those kids trying to achieve great GPA's and do well in school are, in a way, bogging down private schools as well. I am not saying that it is equal, I am just saying that you have to look at it both ways.
  
  Private schools are not created to be powerhouses in football or other sports. Their sole purpose is to be an alternative form of school education for kids.
• tsst_fballfan

  

  sirclovis;591184 wrote:I definitely agree with your post in regards of academics and private schools vs. publics schools but what is your the point? People with higher GPA's or who have a greater desire to do well in school play sports better? If that was the case then a lot more "nerds" would be great at sports. I mean typical athletes are not stellar when it comes to academics, so wouldn't you think that many of those kids trying to achieve great GPA's and do well in school are, in a way, bogging down private schools as well. I am not saying that it is equal, I am just saying that you have to look at it both ways.
  
  Private schools are not created to be powerhouse's in football or other sports. Their sole purpose is to be an alternative form of school education for kids.

  Good question. Wonder what Mr Clark's or Mr Turner's GPAs were at Ursuline?
• Alma_Parker

  fish82;591126 wrote:But Rosecrans already has the "parochial advantage." They should be winning D6 every year already. Analogy fail. Sorry.

  
  Right. And neither Kenton nor Ironton nor Orvillle nor Versailles were actually any good at all this year, as they have a built-in and permanent disadvantage. And further, Shaker Heights can't be winning all those Merit Scholarships.
• Alma_Parker

  tsst_fballfan;591195 wrote:Good question. Wonder what Mr Clark's or Mr Turner's GPAs were at Ursuline?

  
  A small sample size won't tell you much. But as for the prior question from sirclovis, I would guess, and it's only a guess, that "trying harder" does correlate considerably to success in athletics and GPA correlates but far less so. (Athletics is often a 'substitute good' for academics in our particular culture, so more success at the former allows a bit less attention to the latter, but i would suspect this effect only partially dampens the generally-positive correlation of GPA to success at a variety of other things. Finally, there is a least a bit of causality here; if you assume GPA is a decent proxy for general intelligence (imperfect) and then assume that general intelligence is helpful at football (at least in a few of the 20 or so roles).
• Alma_Parker

  Sykotyk;591145 wrote:Pointing out that a state gives out 8 championships to 330+ schools is a little misleading. Only two states give out fewer championships per number of participants than Ohio (Pennsylvania, 4 for 500+ and California, 5 for 1000~). Wyoming has five champions for only 62 schools. One for every 12.4 schools. Even if you take out the 8 schools playing 6 man, that's 4 titles for 54 teams, or 1 for every 13.5 schools.
  
  See how fun it is to play with numbers?
  
  Ohio is becoming more and more of a statistical oddity in championship breakdown. I have no issue with publics and privates in the same setup. But to call a 142 student public equal to a 142 student private is disingenuous at best, and ignorant at worst. Of those 142 students in the private school, what percentage do you think excel at academics? How many "want" to be at school? How many like participating in sports? Extracurriculars? Now, out of that 142 student public school, those same parameters? How many potheads? How many delinquents? How many drop outs? How many who scrape by with a 1.0 GPA and then go onto flipping burgers at Mickey Ds? And now, those same numbers for the private?
  
  
  Sykotyk

  
  Tangentially enough, as a fan of great football in Ohio (independent of all this stuff about whether we shold give Massillon a special division and force other excellent public schools to play in it), I'd say that given the choice of looking (on football) more like Cali and Penn versus Tenn and Wyoming, I'd vote for the former. Generally speaking, fewer folks with trophies, each a lot more proud of them is OK by me.
• NNN

  

  Sykotyk;591145 wrote:Pointing out that a state gives out 8 championships to 330+ schools is a little misleading. Only two states give out fewer championships per number of participants than Ohio (Pennsylvania, 4 for 500+ and California, 5 for 1000~). Wyoming has five champions for only 62 schools. One for every 12.4 schools. Even if you take out the 8 schools playing 6 man, that's 4 titles for 54 teams, or 1 for every 13.5 schools.
  
  See how fun it is to play with numbers?

  Funny you mention this. The five states that are generally regarded as the best for high school ball are Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, and Florida. Ohio has ~720 schools and six champions, Pennsylvania 4 for ~500, California 5 for ~1,000, Florida has 8 for another huge number (I'm still trying to find the exact one), and Texas has 12 for another massive number that I can't find.
  

  Ohio is becoming more and more of a statistical oddity in championship breakdown. I have no issue with publics and privates in the same setup. But to call a 142 student public equal to a 142 student private is disingenuous at best, and ignorant at worst. Of those 142 students in the private school, what percentage do you think excel at academics? How many "want" to be at school? How many like participating in sports? Extracurriculars? Now, out of that 142 student public school, those same parameters? How many potheads? How many delinquents? How many drop outs? How many who scrape by with a 1.0 GPA and then go onto flipping burgers at Mickey Ds? And now, those same numbers for the private?
  
  It's easy to sit back and say 'a student is a student is a student', but there's a huge disparity in the amount of 'dead weight' the public school has pumping up their enrollment number that the private school just doesn't have to concern themselves with. And, additionally, a private school does not need to deal with a delinquent student for long before punting them back to the public school system. The public school has no such easy avenue. Expulsion is time-consuming and damn near impossible. The school must use their funds, by law, to try and educate the worst of the worst. The ne'er-do-wells, the delinquents, the downtrodden, the special needs, etc.

  ....and the freakishly athletic. You make it sound like there's a correlation between classroom conduct or academic excellence and athletic prowess. How many private schools are willing to tolerate criminal behavior outside of the classroom from anyone, and how many are willing to let it slide if the kid happens to play football or basketball? How many tolerate disruptive conduct, academic negligence, and outright stupidity just because a kid can play football? We hear all the time about what a huge disadvantage Notre Dame is at in football because of their academic standards...how many private schools in Ohio REALLY are willing to risk their reputation to win a few games?
  

  They have to. By law, they have to. The private is not required by law. They get the cream of the crop. The students who WANT to be there. The students who will excel and make their school look like a shining example of academia. While public school's GPA and standardized test scores are going to be dragged down by the student who thinks it's clever to fill in 'None of the Above' for every answer. And there's nothing the public school can do about it.

  Key word: students. You've provided the parameters for having a good student body that gets academic scholarships, which has nothing to do with whether they can play football. Private schools have plenty of academic achievers who couldn't run without tripping over their own feet, and public schools has plenty of would-be dropouts who could be All-Ohio without being able to pass a private school's remedial English class. I'm of the opinion that there's no way to actually account for these differences.
  

  Give a public school with 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND the dead weight against a private school of 142 students who want to be there, want to participate, want to be educated, want to advance, want to make something of themselves AND their meager amount of potential dead weight, and then we have closer to a fair fight.

  And public schools have plenty of boneheads. I mentioned Andy Katzenmoyer. Remember a guy named Chuck Jones? He was a defensive tackle at Chillicothe...all-conference, All-Ohio, All-American, All-Time All-Ohio. I knew one of his old teachers fairly well, and the Chuck Jones stories he had were both funny and sad. His pathetic academic performance and effort sure never caused him to miss a game, and it never caused a college team to back off of recruiting him.
  

  Private schools do not take advantage of their position. They do not have to recruit. They enjoy the advantage simply by existing.

  
  Want to hear about the advantages that the CCL has? I figure that, out of five teams in the conference, two won a state championship this year and one always contends, so....
  Bishop Ready - doesn't have their own field, so they play an inordinate number of road games and Saturday games at neutral fields. Usually plays the non-OHSAA Columbus Crusaders as well as at least one non-Ohio opponent every year.
  Hartley - Located in one of the most dilapidated and dangerous areas of central Ohio; I never go into that area unarmed. In the middle of an area spanning a few square miles that could be totally razed, which would do much to improve the area.
  Watterson - Doesn't have their own field; home games are played at the field of the long-closed Columbus North HS. Draws primarily from wealthier areas, meaning that their competition for kids isn't the other CCL schools, it's the Dublin schools, the Hilliard schools, and Upper Arlington.
  DeSales - Located directly across from Brookhaven, and draws from the two poorest feeder schools in the diocese (St. Matthias and St. James the Less).
  St. Charles - From an academic standpoint, they try to be closer to Columbus Academy than the other CCL schools. Tuition is staggeringly expensive, and despite this, their football field was actually the outfield of the baseball diamond. It's the only place where winning the coin toss to start was a huge advantage, because rather than taking the wind, you could take the sun and have your opponents blinded by the end of the first quarter.
  
  You also forget a very important advantage that publics have that privates do not. The average public school kid, by the time he hits 9th grade, has been playing football with his new teammates for a number of years. Not only that, they've been playing in the same systems, with the same terminology, and with the same way of doing things. The average private school kid, by the time he hits 9th grade, has to learn entirely new systems and terminology, entirely new ways of playing positions, and also has to set aside the mutual negative feelings that have developed over the previous 8 years for the kids who are now his teammates.
• Alma_Parker

  Bigdogg;591132 wrote:You obviously don't want change because either you know you have advantages or your reading comprehension needs to improve. Nobody is singling out the private schools. Most of the problems reside in the urban city's with recruiting from both the public and the privates. Attendance zones and a multiplier would only be fair if it is used for both public and private schools.

  
  come on, dogg, lot's of time's when scolding somebodies comprehension without basis, its'' good to try plural's that are more standardified. number and verb agreements are also important and is good while you're at the fancy book-learnin'
  
  i mean seriously, sherm is nothing if not articulate; feel free to disagree, as he's up to the fight. but attack, please, neither his perspicacity nor his perspicuity, as both are exemplary!
• Bigdogg

  Alma_Parker;591404 wrote:come on, dogg, lot's of time's when scolding somebodies comprehension without basis, its'' good to try plural's that are more standardified. number and verb agreements are also important and is good while you're at the fancy book-learnin'
  
  i mean seriously, sherm is nothing if not articulate; feel free to disagree, as he's up to the fight. but attack, please, neither his perspicacity nor his perspicuity, as both are exemplary!

  
  It always makes me smile when people bring out the grammar police. Is that your rebuttal? How sad. The queens English and typing were never my strong suits, yet I am doing well for myself. you want me to have my secretary type out my thoughts?
• sherm03

  

  Bigdogg;591132 wrote:You obviously don't want change because either you know you have advantages or your reading comprehension needs to improve. Nobody is singling out the private schools. Most of the problems reside in the urban city's with recruiting from both the public and the privates. Attendance zones and a multiplier would only be fair if it is used for both public and private schools.

  tsst_fballfan;591143 wrote: The exact same thing private supporters have been berating public supporters about on this thread. Doublespeak!
  
  Just tell them their not good enough, give them their own division and trophy, tell them to lift more, tell them to train harder, tell them to pray together, etc... And if that doesn't work give them a juice box!

  First of all, I am not the one with a reading comprehension problem. People aren't singling out private schools? Maybe you or sykotyk are not singling out the private schools...but go ahead and re-read some of skank's, thinthick's, and be nice's posts. That's all they are doing is singling out private schools...calling for them to move up or out because they "cheat" and "recruit" and steal the players that belong to the public schools. I'm sorry for the confusion...my post should not have been directed at you, but rather at the people who are completely anti-private schools.
  
  Secondly, it is not doublespeak. Like I have said before, I don't care about a multiplier. I think if you move the schools that are complained about the most up, they will still do well and be perennial playoff teams. My point in bringing up those private schools and saying that it's not fair to move them up is because the people who advocate a multiplier do so under the guise that it is a fair thing to do to level out the playing field. I am merely pointing out that it isn't a fair solution. It's a solution that affects all the private schools. The better schools will continue to do well. The others will continue to do the same. And the only people that would benefit would be D6 public schools. D5 will still have to face DSJ and Newark Catholic who will still be state champion contenders every year; D4 will still have to face Ursuline who will still be state champion contenders; D3 will have to face Alter who will still be state champion contenders; D2 will have to face Mooney who will still be state champion contenders.
  
  I never said I disliked sykotyk's proposal. But let me take it a step further...
  Any student coming into a private school from a private feeder school would count as 1. A student coming into a private school from a public grade school would count for 1.5, or 2...or whatever. Likewise, a student going from a public grade school to a public high school would count as 1...and a student coming from a private feeder school to a public high school would count for 1.5, or 2. Why is it OK to count a kid as more than 1 who went to St. Charles grade school in Boardman and then went on to go to Mooney? Why is that student considered property of the Boardman school district just because he lives in Boardman? If you want a fair multiplier, base it on where the kid graduates 8th grade...not where he lives or the population of the city/town.
  
  Will someone who advocates a multiplier please answer the question that when one is enacted, and the best private schools continue to win...what do you propose would be next? Increase the multiplier? I'm interested to see what these people feel should happen 5-10 years down the road when Mooney, Ursuline, DSJ, and Newark Catholic continue to win in their new divisions.