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Ensworth has been a K-8 school up until the 2004-05 school year when they added a freshmen class. They have made plans to add one class per year to the high school. Give Ensworth and Ricky Bowers 5 years and they will compete for a state championship. Their facilities and coaching staff may be better than any school in the state and with a few more athletes they will be very strong. With David Pack the admissions director and Ricky Bowers as the AD this school will soon become the BA of the 80's.

Riverdale will do just fine. To say that people from Tennessee could not name 4 teams from Ohio is probably not true. We all remember the great teams of Moeller and Coach Jerry Faust. The Cincinnati Catholic League is still very good and most of the teams in that league could finish in the top 10 of D1-5A.

You can go to www.tbca.org and get all of the information on the Sun Belt Series.

bud, My guess is that MBA will make an announcement soon about a new athletic facility. They purchased the entire street & homes behind the school and are in the process of tearing the homes down. Let's remember that most of those homes cost 400,000+ and they are being demolished. If I were a gambling man I would put the money on Baylor and Mr. Hannah to build a facility that most D1 college teams would like to have. With an endowment pushing 200 million, Baylor can do anything that they want. With the money that some of the D2 schools have it is very difficult for Notre Dame, Catholic, BGA, and Father Ryan to compete. They simply do not have the financial resources to keep up.

The best facilities in Tennessee would be MBA, McCallie & Baylor. With Rutledge (MBA) and John Hannah (Baylor) being former players for Coach Bryant at Alabama and playing numerous years in the NFL you can bet you sweet cheeks that they will only get bigger and better. The question is will all of the other schools have the resources and desire to keep up.

It looks like Team Tennessee is now 5-0 in the Sun Belt Series. This is a great event that the Tennessee Baseball Coaches Associaton participates in.

It depends on the level that you are going to play. At the high D1 (SEC, ACC, Big 12, etc...) you better have some speed. MIF need to run no more than 6.8 during their junior year of high school.

What is the real ulterior motive of the public school folks for not wanting the home school children on their team. 1. We would think that the private school people would say that it is an unfair advantage but they don't seem to give a rip what the public schools do. 2. Could it be that the public schools are worried that more students would become home schooled and the publics would loose some type of grant money from the federal government? 3. Would Johnny & Janes parents be worried that their little angels may loose their position due to more competition. The excuses that the public schools are throwing up for defense of this issue is pure ludicrous and does not hold water. This whole thing stinks like a big cow pile of manure that is going to cost the tax payers of Tennessee alot of money.

I don't know what the problem at Beech is but they have a big one. They had very little talent on the varsity last season and the freshmen looked really bad in the only game that I saw them play.

enall, The only problem that I see with a court battle is $$$$$$$$$$$$$. Our tax dollars will pay to defend the public schools regardless of the outcome and those same tax dollars (plus are much larger %) will pay the home school students and their families if the public schools loose. It looks like a big waiste of money that could be avoided but when did politicians ever care about spending the publics dollar?

USA TODAY has a big article in the sports sections today about home schooled athletes. It claims that we have 1.1 million home schooled children in the USA as of now. The numbers are rising but that is really a small % of student/athletes that we are talking about. What is the "hidden agenda" of the public school people? Do the private school people care if the home schooled students play for the public school that they are zoned to?

Yes, the invitations went out last week.

Everyone needs to understand that this is a BUSINESS decision. These are some questions that the Morris family has to answer. 1. What type of bonus and contract will he be offered as a 3rd round selection 2. Will his chances to be drafted in the 1st or 2nd round be higher if he attends Motlow for 2 years. 3. Does he want to risk injury by playing in college 4. If he does have problems with his mechanics, would he be better off signing and going to rookie ball. 5. How many 1st or 2nd round picks has Motlow ever had and do they know how to get him to the next level. 6. Would he be better off going to a top 10 D1 program?

Didn't the Majors boys do pretty well in high school playing a little class A school.

I don't know the financial loss for backing out of a contract but it used to be about 500.00 but that was several years ago. Maybe the standard contract today needs to have a 5 or 10 grand buyout clause. I have heard of this happening several times in the last few years. This just shows the type of leadership that our tax dollars are paying for..

It sounds like a great idea. I could even live with 3 divisions in football and have all of the private schools play in AA or AAA to give the rual schools what they are looking for. However, I would have a 10 week season and the 1st game would be the Friday before Labor Day. We start the season much too early in Tennessee. Let's get back to where a state championship means something and the bowl games that support charities are an accomplishment for teams.

Have any public schools considered playing in D2? Would Riverdale, Maryville, Oak Ridge, Lincoln County, Germantown, etc... ever consider this?

There are really only 3 reasons to go Juco. 1. You are a great talent and could not come to terms with the team that drafted you. Go the juco route and you can be drafted again after 2 seasons. 2. You have poor grades and cannot get into the D1, D2, or D3 school of your choice. 3. The player is a late bloomer (physical) and needs some time for their body and athletic ability to catch up to everyone else.

Don't be shocked if the Anderson boy's coach both football and basketball.

lazarus, Where do the public schools in Tennessee get the money to pay their dues? Unless they are getting the dues money from one of "Big John Fords" secret campaign funds in a Memphis district (with which he does not live) the dues money is coming from your, mine, Johnny, Buddy, Kendra, etc... tax dollars. The public schools should have the best of all worlds: They get the tax revenues from students that do not attend the public schools. If all of those students decided to attend the public school the % of money per student spending would be down by a large margin and everyones taxes would have to be raised by a large % to cover the additional cost.

catsbakr, The AAA schools are the ones that created D1 & D2 and now you want to talk about a big fish in a little pond. While I agree that AAA is of better quality than D-2 on the diamond why not put them back together and see how those big fish do in a big pond? I think that you would find that the better programs would compete quite nicely.

David Some of your plan is good but parts of it are off base: 1. Yes, the 2 teams that play for a championship should play a best 2 of 3 series starting with 2 games on Friday (this will not happen because the T$$AA will not be willing to spend the extra money) 2. No, the championship games should not be played with the current format on Saturday so that people can throw their ace. Coaches know the format going into the tournament and need to plan accordingly. It didn't seem to hurt the Lea kid from Houston but I would not have thrown him after using him on Tuesday. Coaches need to understand that a 3 man rotation will not win a state championship, they probably need 6 players that can throw strikes to give them a chance. 3. Several schools have graduation on the Saturday evening after Spring Fling and the various school boards do not seem to be willing to change the dates due to athletic events. Kids do need to participate in all of the graduation exercises and if you want to make 99.9% of the mothers mad just tell them that little Johnny will be playing baseball and will not walk at graduation. You can't beat city hall and don't even think of picking a fight with baseball moms.

Who are the starting pitchers & where do they fall in their teams rotation?

I have also heard that the 3 starting outfielders & shortstop are not playing for different reasons. Outfield: 1 signed with the Vols for football Outfield: 1 signed a golf scholarship Shortstop: signed a golf scholarship Outfield: decided to focus on senior year of football and is being looked at by several SEC schools How good would David Lipscomp be if those athletes were on the team?

This will be a money decision. Each family has a $$$ figure that they feel is worthy of their son signing and it is different for each family. For some it may be 10 grand and for others it could be 1 million, it just depends on the family situation.