rick7425

Lot's of interesting stuff on here. In all these examples where TSSAA did this or Ronnie Carter did that, I wonder how many folks have actually read what was submitted to TSSAA with the hardship requests, been present at the Board of Control meetings where hardship rulings were appealed, or sat in on the private deliberations of the Board of Control so one might understand why the Board members ruled as they did. TSSAA is a not-for-profit association of member schools. The schools elect the members of the Legislative Council. Through their Legislative Council, the schools make their own rules -- including the transfer rules and the hardship rule (which has four requirements that must be met). The schools have decided collectively that they think school shopping for athletic purposes and recruiting for athletics should be discouraged, and the transfer rules serve these purposes. The transfer rules also help maintain stability within school athletic programs, which helps keep competition fair among the member schools. It is easy to pick out an example here or an example there where the result of the rule doesn't seem fair, but that is the nature of rules. If the schools decide they want different rules, they can change the rules.

Maybe my point wasn't clear. I have no doubt that FRA strives to excel in everything it does, including athletics. I'm sure every coach and every player wants to beat every opponent in every sport -- that is the nature of athletic competition. But I'm talking about the overall school mission and philosophy. I think the school leaders have a healthy perspective on the role of interscholastic sports as an extracurricular activity that can be of benefit to students but should not be the driving force of the school. While I know that coaches and players enjoy the thrill of winning TSSAA championships, I don't think the school makes critical decisions, including those about which kids to admit or not admit, based on athletics.

I think some people who favor a split or multiplier do so because they can rationalize their way into increasing their chances to win. And unfortunately, I think some DII school folks who favor a complete split do so for the selfish reason that they would like the DI privates forced to DII to increase the size of DII (regardless of what those DI schools want). As for advantages and disadvantages, I agree that an isolated rural school is bound by the limits of its population. On the other side of that equation, a private shool in an urban area is bound by the limits of its tuition cost, by its academic admission standards, and by the ready availability of other school options. Same old refrain I know, but I believe schools at either end of the spectrum have advantages and disadvantages when it comes to athletic competition. You can take a given school and pick out advantages and disadvantages all day long. In the end, I don't believe they can fairly be generalized into an overall private school advantage in athletics.

My original point was not that small privates enjoy inherent advantages. My point all along has been that there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the public/private equation. Do I think there can be an advantage in athletics for a private school that makes admissions decisions based on athletic ability or prowess? Sure. And that advantage can be magnified if that school gives financial aid. But I think the underlying flaw in most of these broad assertions that all private schools have "advantages" is that they are based on the assumption that athletics drives the admissions decisions. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but I think private schools where that happens are the exception, not the rule. Unfortunately, I think it is the exceptions that people try to generalize about in order to support their arguments about "advantages" that private schools have. As for FRA in particular, I think you have to be careful what conclusions you draw based on isolated examples of success achieved over the last 17 years, the fact that a few students over that time turned out to be exceptional athletes, or the competitive desires that are inherent in sports. The conclusion that I draw from those facts, based on my familiarity with FRA, is that through good coaching, hard work, and commitment by kids, FRA did as well as it could athletically with the students it had -- which should be the objective of any school's athletic program.

Again, if Private School A is not making admissions decisions based on athletic prowess, what difference does it make what geographic area the kids come from?

I'm sure I posted this hypothetical somewhere before, but it seems to bear repeating. If "Private School A" has 400 kids grades 9-12 (all of whom must satisfy the admissions standards and must pay tuition); and "Public School B" has 400 kids grades 9-12 (all of whom live in its geographic zone), what exactly is Private School A's advantage? I know there has been some mention of the larger pool of potential students, but isn't there also an assumption at work here that the DI privates make admissions decisions based on athletic prowess? If that assumption is inaccurate, then what difference does the larger pool make in terms of athletics?

Actually, I think it would be more fair to characterize FRA as a non-denominational Christian school. FRA has taken off as a school as well. It has acquired property, built new buildings and academic facilities, increased its enrollment. It has benefited from the growth of Brentwood, with families that want the benefits of a Christian education or a smaller school setting rather than the larger public middle and high schools. I suspect that FRA has also benefited from BA's athletic emphasis and success by providing an area alternative where academics are seen as the primary thrust and where an "average" athlete is going to have a better chance to participate. While trying to win is certainly an important part of athletic competition, I don't think FRA is driven in its school mission by a need to win TSSAA championships. FRA wants to be competitive for the benefit of its students and its "community," but I don't think the leaders of the school aspire to have the school seen as an elite athletic power. As far as why FRA stays in DI, I suspect that has to do with maintaining traditional rivalries, keeping athletic travel expense and student time away from school within reason, and trying to keep athletic competition in a healthy perspective relative to the school's primary academic mission. I don't really see how it would benefit FRA at all to move to DII.

The tuition at FRA may be higher than some of the other privates mentioned, but FRA is also geographically situated near the Oak Hill and Brentwood communities where per capita income of those families most likely to choose the school also tend to be higher. And I haven't checked, but I suspect the tuition at CPA -- which has had a very competitive football program for some time -- is fairly comparable to FRA's tuition. With that said, I agree that tuition, particularly for DI privates (no need-based financial aid for varsity athletes), does limit the number of prospective student-athletes just as geographic zones create those limits for public schools. My questions still remain. If the "advantage" of the DI privates -- whatever it is -- is so clear, then why hasn't it translated into greater success for FRA on the football field and the basketball court? And is that "advantage" the explanation for FRA's success in boys' cross country, or could it be that that success comes from a good coach and some committed kids who work really hard to be a part of carrying on a tradition of success? It is much too easy to just say that there are always exceptions. That's another generalization. These are contrasts in levels of success within a single school, where the theoretical private school "advantage" should not change from one sport to the next. As for soccer, I believe that the differences in programs across the state are primarily based on geography -- schools in urban areas, whether private or public, have the advantage of kids who are already schooled in soccer through youth programs that are far more developed than they are in urban areas. And since in the smaller classifications the private schools will tend to be from those urban areas while the public schools tend to be from rural areas, there has been more private school success. That, I believe, is an urban/rural issue, not a public/private issue. I suspet that in the larger enrollment classifications as well, the more successful soccer programs tend to be from urban areas.

I'm having a really hard time with all these generalizations about "advantages" and "disadvantages." It seems much too convenient to look only at a particular school that wins championships in a particular sport and then extrapolate that into these generalizations. FRA is a small private school in an urban area. Seemingly it should enjoy whatever "advantages" the small DI privates supposedly have. Nonetheless, FRA football this century has been a study in futility -- even when it was coached by the same guy who just won a Division II state championship at MBA. The boys' basketball team made it to the state tournament once this century with a group of seniors who had played together since middle school, and promptly lost in the first round to a rural public school. The girls' basketball team made it to the state tournament once this century and lost in the first round to York, from the rural Fentress County area. If FRA has all these "advantages," why have they not enjoyed more success in football and basketball? Admittedly FRA has been very successful this century in boys' cross country and girls' soccer. If that success is because of all their private school "advantages," why haven't those "advantages" translated into such success in all other sports? Could it be that success comes from a combination of coaching, commitment, tradition, luck, talent, hard work, and any number of the other factors? And could it be that some programs simply find that right combination while others do not?

Private schools have more money.... No, wait, public schools get tax dollars and don't have to depend on private contributions.... Yeah, but private schools don't have to take undesirable students.... Well, on the other hand a learning disabled student who is a good athlete can't get into a private school.... Now, we all know that private schools don't have to deal with students who just don't care.... But then again, private schools get lots of spoiled kids who don't think they have to listen to anyone.... Ah yes, but you know very well that the poor kids at public schools don't have a chance to better themselves athletically in great facilities.... True, but what about the prevalence of couch-potato video game junkies among the private school students.... Still, none of that matters because private schools can be selective about who they admit.... But without financial aid, a private school isn't even in the running for a kid whose family can't aford the tuition.... Bottom line, some private schools may recruit.... And so may some public schools.... Yeah, I think I've got this "advantage" thing all figured out.

I'm not sure that's correct. Several of the starters on the A/AA state champion team from FRA were not club players. On the other hand, I would agree that girls' soccer has been played longer as a mainstream sport in metropolitan areas than in rural areas, and most of the small private schools will tend to be in metropolitan areas. So those schools may be more likely to have experienced soccer players among their female students than schools in rural areas (large or small). This more than anything may explain why a team like FRA struggled against AAA teams from metropolitan areas, where girls' soccer programs tend to be stronger and where because of the size of the student body the AAA team would tend to have a greater number of experienced players to choose from. I think the distinction you see in A/AA girls' soccer is primarily a function of the fact that girls' soccer is a more significant youth sport in the urban areas where private schools are located. That means the girls that play at the high school level are more likely to have some valuable experience and not enter the game as near novices. It also means that the schools themselves dedicate more attention to the sport. This, I believe, is why six of the eight A/AA girls' soccer teams in the TSSAA state tournament came from Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga (the other two were from Jackson). I think it has a lot more to do with how much youth soccer is played in the areas where these schools are located than it does with whether the schools are public or private. This distinction may dissipate over time as girls' soccer becomes more prominent in rural areas as it has been for years in urban areas.

Are you serious??? Do you really think (incorrectly) Ronnie Carter is a Goodpasture alum??? FYI, Ronnie Carter does not make classification decisions. Those decisions are made by the TSSAA Board of Control, currently comprised of nine public school principals. I somehow doubt that they are just looking out for Goodpasture and other private schools.

Why do you suppose private schools have been successful in recent years in Division I A/AA girls soccer? And how successful do you think those girls soccer teams would have been in Division I AAA?

What is the reason for classifying by school population? Is it because larger schools have more kids to pick from and therefore are likely to have more quality athletes or a greater frequency of outstanding athletes? Is this based on "objective and verifiable criteria," or is it just opinion? Hypothetically, let's assume there are two zoned public schools, one with 300 students and the other with 600. If the line for classification based on school population fell between these two numbers, I take it you would view that as legitimate based on objective criteria. Now let's assume we have two schools, one public with 300 zoned students, another private with 300 students. Because the private school is not limited by a geographic zone, it has 600 qualified applicants for its 300 spots. And in our hypothetical, the private school considers athletic ability or potential when evaluating applicants. Might not that private school's number of quality athletes and frequency of outstanding athletes tend to be more like that of a 600-student zoned public school than a 300-student zoned public school? If that is true, then for athletic competition, wouldn't separating these two 300 student schools be just as appropriate as separating the a 300 student zoned public school from a 600 student zoned public school, based on "school population"? And if that same private school gives financial aid and thereby broadens its pool of academically qualified potential students because those who otherwise could not afford it may now apply, and it thereby increases its number of qualified applicants to 750, might not its number of quality athletes and frequency of outstanding athletes then be more akin to the zoned public school that has 750 students? Before you jump to any conclusions, understand that I am not a part of the "anti-private crowd" as you call it. I have a child who is a private school graduate and another who is currently a private school student-athlete. I don't like Division II, I don't like the Division I multiplier, and I profoundly hope there will not be a split. But I recognize that there are legitimate arguments to be made on all sides of these issues. I am not inclined to be dismissive of opinions that differ from mine based on an "objective/subjective" distinction that I am not sure really exists. I prefer to look at all sides fairly, and I hope those responsible for making the ultimate decisions for TSSAA -- people who by and large try to do the right thing and deserve a good deal more respect than they get on these message boards -- will do the same.

brbb: I don't disagree that admission requirements may limit the pool of potential applicants at a given private school, just as tuition does so. As a consequence of these factors, there will be some students, and hence some student-athletes, who simply are not candidates for private school admission. But selective admission is a different concept. The typical private school has more qualified applicants than it has spots to fill each year. So it chooses which of those applicants it will admit. If the school decides to factor athletic ability into those choices, then it is likely to have a better pool of athletes than it would have with a random draw from among those applicants. Public schools do not have the opportunity to make those choices. That is why I say that selective admission can be a competitive advantage if the private school considers athletic ability in these decisions.

Baldcoach: Perhaps I wasn't clear on what I mean by "selective admission." All I am saying is that most private schools, including those in Division I, get more applicants than they have spaces for. Accordingly, there is some selection that occurs. What the criteria is on which that selection is based may vary from school to school. I'm not suggesting that every school, or any particular school for that matter, uses athletic ability as a part of the criteria. All I am saying is that if a private school wants to do that, it has the ability to do that. Once again, as I said earlier, I think whatever minimal competitive "advantage" that may be versus a public school is offset by the tuition factor. That's why I think it is entirely appropriate to keep the public schools and the Division I private schools together.

Yes, public schools have the advantage of being the de facto home for student-athletes unless parents pay extra to get them into private schools. Private schools have the advantage of selective admission. I personally think that to the extent these "advantages" affect athletic competition, they tend to offset one another. But financial aid is an added factor in determining the competitive balance, because it broadens the pool of potential private school applicants by removing the tuition barrier. The point of my post was that the private schools themselves apparently believed this long ago when they developed the old "quota rule." No crying here. Just a little realism.

Mine tend to be that way. That's another reason I probably ought to stay out of these discussions.

Antwan: I was having an earlier exchange on this board with Big Red Big Blue, and Bighurt's statement was seemingly pertinent to that. Some of the folks who continue to criticize TSSAA for the creation of Division II insist that financial aid does not provide advantages in athletics, it only provides a means for those of lesser means to attend private schools. But if it is recognized that financial aid does make a competitive difference between private schools because it broadens the pool of potential applicants, then it surely makes a difference between the Division II school and a public school that has no ability to admit students on a selective basis.

An interesting reminder that the "level playing field" issue as it relates to financial aid is not just a public/private issue.

I think this is just a difference in semantics. The concept remains the same. It is not an economic issue. It is not that public schools want the poor kids and don't want private schools to get them. It is not a geographic issue in the sense of square miles, county lines, or state lines. These are all just different ways of identifying the root problem as some public school people see it, namely that private schools can draw from a larger pool of potential students than a zoned public school can. And when the barrier of tuition is reduced or eliminated, the pool of potential students for private schools becomes larger still. Once that pool is enlarged, in the view of some it becomes easier for that private school to fill its rolls with more gifted athletes. Whether you discuss it in terms of geography, economics, enrollment, or whatever, the issue is all about how enlarging a school's pool of potential athletes affects competition. The concern about how financial aid affects athletic competition is not one that emanated solely from the public schools. Before there was Division II, there was the "quota rule," which limited the number of financial aid recipients who could participate for a given school in each sport. The public schools in TSSAA had nothing to do with development of the "quota rule." The "quota rule" was developed by private school leaders out of concern that some of the larger and more expensive private schools could use financial aid to attract gifted athletes who would otherwise attend smaller and less expensive private schools. In the mid-1990s, there were more forces at work that pushed TSSAA toward the creation of Division II than just the dissatisfaction of some public school folks (the folks who were actually pushing then for total separation of public and private schools). Another force was what had been a fairly consistent push for several years by some private school leaders to do away with financial aid quotas (the late headmaster at MBA, whose name I cannot now recall, was very articulate in his support for this). I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with people on the different sides of this debate. But people are so passionate about this that they sometimes overlook the facts or distort the other side's positions, and I really hate to see that sort of exchange driving the wedge deeper. That's why I've jumped in here to try to clarify a couple of points as I see them. You know, I really don't think the kids who play care nearly as much about this stuff as we adults do. None of them want to get their brains beat out game after game, but as long as they feel like they have a chance to be competitive, and as long as they have some good rivalry games on the schedule, I don't think the kids care too much who they play from one game to the next.

brbb: It doesn't necessarily require compromising admissions standards. That was part of my point. A private school can admit athletically gifted kids with greater than random frequency simply by considering athletic ability as a part of the decisions it makes when choosing from among the qualified applicants it has. A zoned public school, on the other hand, doesn't get to make those choices (I agree that it is different in a magnet school or an open-zoned public school, as someone else suggested). Again, this ability to choose is offset to some extent by the limits of tuition -- some families can't afford private school, so those kids won't be in the applicant pool at Division I private schools. But those kids can be in the applicant pool at Division II schools.

brbb: The amount of attention this website gets, and the enthusiasm for high school sports reflected here, is evidence enough of how much difference it makes to some people. There is no reason to believe that high school sports enthusiasts are never among those involved in making private school admissions decisions. I do believe that there are occasions -- and I can only speculate about where and how frequently they occur -- when choices between multiple students seeking admission to a private school are made in part based on athletic promise (I suspect these choices are less frequent at schools that start at the kindergarten or elementary level, since most of their students are admitted long before athletic promise can be judged). That is not to say that the kids are not qualified academically, but if athletic promise goes into the decision, then the private school with 300 kids may have a greater frequency of promising athletes than the school whose 300 kids are determined without regard to athletic promise or ability (e.g., by geographic zone). The phenomenon that I'm describing is not "recruiting." It does not mean that students who are admitted at the schools are not academically qualified. I'm not indicting private schools or Division II schools, and I'm not suggesting that anyone is doing anything wrong. I'm simply recognizing that there are opportunities for a private school to use its selective admissions process to increase the frequency of high-caliber athletes among its students from what it might be if athletics were disregarded in the decision-making process. Your suggestion that I may be making "conclusions about the population that is eligible for financial aid as compared with the population that isn't" is unfair. The issue as I see it has nothing to do with a comparison of those who are or are not eligible for aid. The issue has to do with the size of the applicant pool that can be used by a school that chooses to consider athletic ability or promise in its selective admissions decisions. A zoned public school cannot make selective admissions decisions. A private school can. That may be a competitive "advantage" if the private school considers athletic ability in its decisions. But the cost of attending a private school puts some limits on that "advantage" because it limits the applicant pool. Financial aid, on the other hand, reduces or eliminates the tuition-based limits on the applicant pool. If the private school can use financial aid to open its doors to more families that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the tuition, its pool of potential students, and therefore its pool of potential promising athletes, increases. If the pool is larger, and if athletics-based decisions are made from the qualified applicants in that pool, then the school may have a greater frequency of gifted athletes in its student body as compared to either another school with a randomly selected student body of the same size or a school with selectively admitted students from the smaller pool of those families who can afford tuition. Does this difference warrant separation? I personally don't think so. Does it warrant some sort of adjustment when classifying schools? I don't think the Division I multiplier has been effective, but perhaps an enrollment multiplier for Division II schools might be sensible. I don't profess to have all the right answers. But in the debate, I don't think it makes sense to be dismissive about differences between schools that have selective admissions and offer financial aid and those that do not.

brbb: I am generally very wary of generalizations. At the same time, I think it is naive to think that no Division II school ever uses financial aid in a way that enables it to improve its athletic program. Private schools typically get many more applicants than they have places for. Forget about recruiting. Do you not believe that when choosing between two applicants, athletic talent never matters -- even at those schools where the athletic director and head football coach also happens to be a member of the admissions committee? I don't intend to suggest that these sorts of sports-based decisions get made at all Division II schools; but I believe they do get made at some schools. I'm not saying that financial aid is the reason Division II schools have outperformed their peers. I'm not so sure it is even true that Division II schools have outperformed their peers in such a general way. I do think there are a few examples of Division II schools that have fairly consistently outperformed public schools that are much larger and seemingly have a much larger pool of kids to draw from. But financial aid increases the size of the pool from which those Division II schools can draw as well, which is why the admission choices that get made through the use of financial aid can be important. Most of us accept the fairness of classifying schools based on enrollment, on the theory that a larger school has a larger pool of students and, with that, a greater likelihood or frequency of gifted athletes. While private schools don't necessarily have such a large pool of students, they have a larger pool of potential students than a public school with a geographically defined zone. If a private school makes admission decisions based on athletic promise or ability, then its larger pool of potential students can enhance its ability to develop a greater concentration of gifted athletes in a relatively small student body. However, the cost of attending the school creates some limits on that pool of potential students, limits that the public schools do not have. I personally think these respective advantages and disadvantages in athletics growing out of differences in the pool of potential or actual students tend to balance each other out. With financial aid, however, the economic limitations on the larger pool of potential private school students can be reduced or even eliminated in some cases. The extent to which that reduction or elimination of economic limitations on attendance may affect athletic competition again depends to some degree on the extent to which the school factors athletic ability or promise into its admission decisions. I don't believe admission decisions at Division II schools are usually made based on athletic ability or promise, but I wouldn't say that it never happens. Do I believe financial aid alters the ability to compete fairly to such an extent that it requires some adjustment? I don't really know whether I believe that or not. But it seems logical to me that financial aid could be a factor that affects competitive fairness to some extent, if for no other reason than its enlargement of the pool of potential students for a school.

Ah, the challenge. I have no difficulty agreeing that dramatic differences in enrollment can be such a significant factor. Beyond that, I'm not sure what I would say is so significant that it disturbs my concept of a "level playing field." Perhaps when one looks at how well Division II schools do in some sports against Division I counterparts with much larger enrollment, one might conclude that the provision of need-based financial aid to student-athletes is such a significant factor. It is certainly a more significant factor now than it was before Division II was created, because the "quota rule" was eliminated in Division II. When you look across all the different sports, I'm not sure I see the rural/urban distinction as one that prevents a "level playing field." Of course, you may find certain phenomena like the dominance of south Nashville and Williamson County, Chattanooga, and Knoxville in girls' soccer. But I think this is less a function of urban/rural distinction and more a product of the fact that youth soccer programs in those areas have been in place much longer and are more a part of the local fabric. I personally don't see the Division I private schools as having such a significant advantage over small public schools as to warrant concern about a "level playing field." Admittedly some private schools have newer or more elaborate facilities and perhaps better financial support for athletics through their booster programs. But I don't know that these differences produce marked competitive advantages. Of course families can choose to pay tuition to send their children to such schools with attractive facilities, but I think most parents make educational choices for their children for reasons other than athletics. I also think that if parents are committed to making a sports-based choice for their child, they can do so at the public school level as well by sending a child to an out-of-zone school in or before the 9th grade or by moving into the zone of the school of choice. For this same reason, I don't really see the magnet school difference as one that requires particular attention to keep the playing field "level." You know, we can always find some advantage that we believe the "other guy" has. But in the broad number of instances, I just don't believe there are very many of those advantages that rise to the level of requiring some correction to create a "level playing field."