lazarus

"Which numbers? Is it winning percentage? Is it overall records? Is it State championships? Some combo?" all of the above. i make my living interpreting data, i wish it was all this easy. i've looked at it forwards, backwards, and upside down. i've taken new looks way past the point i'd have told a paying client to go find someone else (because this is for fun & no one will be blaming when they screw up by denying reality). privates as a group have advantages over publics as a group. it isnt even close.

"I think there might be a few red flags thrown up that Mr. Carter would probably check into. You don't think they already do this?" actually, it seems there is no investigative branch of the tssaa. they arent monitoring anything, they arent seeking out violations... and they have said as much. they respond when things are reported, and that is it. and you know where the vast majority of reported violations come from? within the school being reported, by jealous parents. ya'll invest far too much emotion on these periodic accusations of cheating. i dont think you see anyone credible, who has invested any effort into trying to understand the issues, that chalks it up to "cheating privates".

tssaa lists white hose heritage as a public and clarksville ac as a private... are you certain?

can anyone outpick our indigenous friend? 17 games: alcoa at CAK Austin East at Knox Cathoholic boy buchanan at marion co grace x at unaka howard at notre dame no greene at kings ac temple at lookout valley clay co at FCS lipscum at page fairview at ezell hardly moore co at columbia ac mt juliet x at monterey NCS at cascade wayne co at zion white hose heritage at clarksville ac manasses at fayette ac peabawdy at USJ as always, corrections solicited my pix: alcoa AE BB unaka howard no greene temple FCS DL EH More Co Monterey cascade wane co WHH fayette peabody yep i just took the publix 11-6 whoops, i almost fogot a tiebreaker: total points scored by CPA and DCA i say 52 (it worked for indian last week)

"What about the DI private schools that were multiplied in all sports even those where they don't dominate?" i know where you are coming from. cpa's fingerprint is a lot more like riverdale's than farragut's. there are a lot of people who didnt really get a fair shake, but what sort of results can we expect from a one-size-fits-all solution? tssaa looks to be pretty inflexible toward any idea that includes splitting classes... once burned, twice shy, i suppose. tssaa looked pretty foolish when they let BA do it, so their secondary programs could be "competitive" and it turned out that by "competitive" BA meant facing opponents they could run roughshod over with half an effort. i suppose we arent going to see a merit system any time soon, but the idea has already made some encroachments across the country. i believe its day will come. how long has it been since size classifications was a radical idea? how long since the first multiplier?

"The multiplier and Div II were created for Football." hi boiled, that (i believe) would be classified as opinion. and probably has validity insofar as football is the big dog and the focus of the most interest.... however, i do not believe those things would have happened without the body of evidence supplied by the other sports. ps. i was proud to see how well ya'll rebounded. i know it aint the same as winning, but it has to make next friday something to look forward to. (i bet there isnt anything ya'll would rather do than play CPA just one more time this season!)

"funny post laz! try these in 4a" three schools results dont really constitute an analysis that proves much (except in this case, that closed zones are certainly not the kiss of death) normally i wouldnt have wasted the time, but i just couldnt help myself... when i saw the schools diesel named i worried that everyone would think he was a plant. anyway, it is too time consuming to sit and try to figure the results of schools piecemeal, and i am not about to try and do anything thorough (unless diesel can produce a list of schools and their zoning regulations) but how about a different look. lets take the 3 most "dominant" of the open zone schools. (since the other was a sample size of 3) the schools that are being put forth as examples of open zone "dominance" if the open zones are translating to the same sort of "advantage" that is postulated for privates, then the open zoners should also be dominant across the whole range of sports as are the privates.... maryville, riverdale, and trousdale. those seem to be the ones that everyone is using as examples. so how did those schools' overall athletic programs do last year... well, not horrible. but not nearly as well as farragut, bearden, and west. maryville and trousdale had football titles, but none of the 3 schools produced any other team championship or runner up. in addition, they combined for a whopping 1 individual state title, maryville had a wrestler that won at 171 pounds. none of those schools had a team in state championship competition in: boys or girls basketball, softball, girls soccer, boys or girls golf, volleyball, boys cross country, nor boys or girls tennis. here is how the teams and individuals they did send fared: maryville: #67 individual girls cross country #97 individual boys cross country #69 individual boys golf wrestling team lost in round 1 of dual meet 171 lb individual state champion girls track team # 9 in state #2 in girls HJ #3 & #7 girls 300 h #4 girls LJ state champion football trousdale: baseball team won 1 game in the losers bracket state champion football Riverdale: #22 individual boys cc #12 individual boys golf #101 individual girls cc, 19th place team girls cc boys soccer team lost in round 1 45th place in boys track #8 in boys LJ #8 in boys shot put 49th place in girls track #7 in girls shot put football team lost in semifinals each of those schools has one exceptional program. beyond that, they are at best average. maybe no one is crying out to multiply the open zone schools (assuming they can even be accurately identified) because it would be embarrassing to multiply someone who is not actually dominating?

the results of week 1: bailer 28 ER 10 CAK 38 Union Co 20 Hixson 20 No Dames 3 K cath 51 squawya 6 ma callie 33 rivendell 27 no green 26 no grace 13 spitt 19 boy buchanan 14 BA 36 ravingwood 35 DCA 42 Stoned memorial 0 eagleville 22 silverdell 18 EH 20 mt p 17 lipscum 31 green briers 6 waltertown 31 NCS 3 arlington 27 FACES 0 CBHS 38 carver 6 ECS 35 overtone 8 fate ac 47 HR&B 0 trinity 35 wee carroll 8 temple 39 squashie 19 and we left out k webb-powell won by k-webb 21-14 giving privates a record of 14-6 on the week. the yearly mark is up to 26-9. the bad news is, for at least one week we all have to listen to the indian. he ended in a 3-way tie at 16-3, but his tiebreaker of 56 was the closest to the actual livingstoned academy + york institute total of 62. (i did terrible on the tiebreaker, but i was thinking trouserdale would be up for a shutout after last week, and just got some bad info on the yorkies) standings: indian 16-3 tendev 16-3 bleed so 16-3 RRR 14-5 stupor steve 14-5 lazyRus 14-5 and thank goodness for the oh-so-confident flayed pattern who kept me out of last with his 13-6 the bracket buster was NCS-waltertown, missed by everyone, but equally surprising was bold coach's boys from buchanan, taking spittsburg to the wire. that might be a real heads-up for those with CPA on their schedule!

“Bearden Farragut West those are just the ones in my area. There are many, many more.” gracias senor. let me remind you, you picked the teams. (besides which, as I understand it, the closed zones in these schools fall in the kinda, sorta, maybe category... just like all the rest) since I am not so smart, i like to rely on numbers. please permit me to share a few; in the 2005-2006 school year those three schools fielded 3 state championship teams: AAA baseball (farragut), AAA boys soccer (bearden), and AAA girls track (knox west) and a pair of runnersup: AAA girls golf and AAA girls tennis (both farragut) to go with 10 individual state championships. in football bearden finished 3rd in their region, but was knocked out in the 1st round of the playoffs... by farragut who was runnersup in their region and advanced to the quarterfinals. in boys basketball bearden lost in the 1st round of the state (and struggled to a 34-5 record) in the boys cross country state meet knox west had the #5 individual, while the farragut team finished 7th and bearden 10th. in girls cross country knox west again had the # 5, as well as the #7 individuals and the team finished 8th. farragut was 9th. in volleyball farragut lost in the 1st round of the state tournament. in boys soccer, farragut lost in the quarterfinals to go with bearden's championship. in tennis bearden took the boys doubles championship, and knox west and farragut had runnersup in boys singles and girls singles respectively, along with farragut's team runnerup. boys golf state tournament. knox west had the #7 individual and finshed 7th as a team. in girls golf, farragut's runnerup finish was led by the #10 individual. in wrestling, the state 215 pound champion was from farragut. in AAA track and field bearden finshed 3rd as a team among the boys and had individual titles in the 300 hurdles, 4x400 relay, shot put, and discus. knox west's girls track team championship was led by titles in the 100 hurdles, 200, 400,and the 4x200 relay. at least one of those three schools were represented in every state championship competition of the 2005-2006 school year, with the exception of girls soccer, girls softball, and girls basketball. and how about having a dominant program in one of the "big 3" sports? well good old farragut has played in 6 of the last 8 AAA baseball championship games (and won 3 of them).the year before that streak began, they lost in the quarterfinals. if you could pull away from your self-pity for a moment, you would also find that they are hated (by losers) and frequently accused of cheating. privates have no monopoly on any of that. it comes with being good. in girls AAA track, your chosen trio of schools have established quite a record as well. in team competition over the past 9 years: 2006-knox west 1 2005-knox west 3, bearden 5 2004-bearden 6 2003-farragut t3, bearden t3 2002-farragut 5 2001-farragut 2 2000-farragut 1 1999-farragut 5 1998-knox west 2, farragut 4 why is there no outcry about closed and open zones? because it is not an issue. the only way to make it sound that way is to cherry-pick a handful of "statistics". it has been a pleasure.

what can i say, i aint got all that much education, so i need you to explain it out real good for me. now, i can see that if you have to have a "good" reason, then no one could just make something up to get an athlete thru the process. and i am sure there arent any schools that would stand for such a thing, anyway. you still havent told me who the closed zone schools are tho, how can i tell if they are being abused, if i dont know who they are?

just like having sex a few times doesnt keep you from being a virgin. i'm back.

"open zone" schools might win so many games for the same reason that schools with telephones win so many games... it is an all-inclusive set. who are the public schools that are NOT open zone? are there any public schools with absolutely no students that would qualify as out of zone? it all made so much sense until i started trying to think of schools that dont have any allowance for out of zone students... and could not think of even one. maybe they exist, but who are they?

as i understand it, holding someone back in the 8th grade would not result in an extra year of eligibility, that a player has 6 years eligibility, beginning with the 7th grade and then time is up. i do know that there are parents who hold kids back in the 6th grade for athletic purposes, and there at least used to be schools who encouraged selected kids to "redshirt" or repeat the 6th grade. i do not believe that is a private school issue at all. it simply would not fly with very many (if any) private parents, regardless of whther coaches wanted to do it. but i know of some public schools that used to do it. our school also has plenty of kids who get held back in elementary school, for the same reasons as the others have mentioned. (hey guys-common ground!) sometimes kids get held back more than once. occasionally it is an issue of concern that a kid might lose eligibility his senior year due to being too old. there is a greater danger that kid will fail to graduate without sports to keep him in school. believe it or not, getting our kids to stick with it and graduate is a big concern. some years ago, i did some numbers on it and found that being held back in elementary school is a significant positive factor in athletic success in high school. it does make sense. the 13 or 14 year old playing among 12's when they hit the 7th grade has probably the biggest physical advantage, due to maturation, that they will ever enjoy. in addition, they have probably been exposed to a higher level of play in any rec-league situation. the more advanced kid will naturally get more playing time and more experience, building on that initial advantage. before you ask, that advantage is in terms of the probability of making a high school team and starting, within the population of their school. i did not look at it in terms of winning championships (grin) nor did i get any numbers from privates. and i am not even about to try to find that old work.

"At the jamboree one of the linemen for Whitwell asked one of our linemen how many studs we had recruited this year...he didn't think that up himself...his parents and coaches have said it so much he just assumes it is true." your problem is, you just dont recognize praise when you hear it. do you think riverdale doesnt hear that kind of stuff, or maryville, or any of those other teams that were mentioned? that's human nature, that is how humans are. you know what i dont like to hear? "your team is 'well coached'" "your guys play hard" "ya'll dont give up" one of the first things i tell my guys when starting out with a sad-sack team is that we are thru being a loveable punching bag. if getting beat 82-0 and having people tell you you "tried hard" doesnt crawl all over you, you need to do some soul searching. being accused of cheating is a goal. thats how you know you are where you want to be. tell me this; do you have the respect of good coaches? do good teams look forward to playing you? (discounting playoff nonsense) hey, that's as good as it gets. who cares what the doofuses have to say? but now, if having everyone love you is important, you know how to achieve that. i think you've been there before.

"Now what is the difference?" while your emotions seem to be running high, i am at a loss to understand what it is you are looking for. the difference is what is the common bond? what "group" do these schools belong to that is winning a disproportionate amount? if you are simply calling for teams that win a lot to be reclassed, that would be called a merit system. i (and a lot of others) would love to see a merit system. if it is because of the proverbial "open zones", i am still waiting to discover the first public school that doesnt have "out of zone" kids. so i suppose that the open zone schools already have a multiplier... that would be 1.0. maybe if a school exists that doesnt take ANY out of zone kids, they could cry out to have a multiplier of 0.8? what is the common thread that you want to see everyone all tore up about? we know that selection of schools is currently having a lot of success (in at least one sport), but what is it that defines them as a group, besides having winning programs?

how can i pass up an opportunity like that? unfortunately we lost a week already, altho i understand the privates have jumped out to a 12-3 lead. 19 games this week: baylor at east ridge boyd buchanan at spittsburg hixson at notre dame knox catholic at sequoyah no greene at grace X riverdale at mccallie temple at sequatchie union co at CAK BA at ravenwould eagleville at silverdale sleazell harding at mt pleasant greenbrier at david lipscum NCS at watertown CBHS at george carver FACS at arlington hollow rock & bruceton at fayette ac mem overton at ECS trinity X at west carroll stone memorial at DCA tiebreaker- combined points scored by livingston academy and york institute corrections to the list are solicited. not much time, so you better get your picks in... who is truly the most knowledgable private-public debater? my picks: baylor spitts notre dame knox cath grace riverdale sequatchie CAK BA eagleville sleazell lipscum NCS CBHS arlington fayette ECS trinity X DCA (privates 14-5) total points: 16

"The premise was that there are public school teams with dominate records that far eclipse any private school's dominance...yet no one ever attacks them as having some sort of advantage." they dont? you could have fooled me. admittedly, the dominant teams are more often accused of cheating (not that the private schools get any of that) but i do not know of any dominant program whose weaker opponents dont call on all manner of "advantages" as an excuse. and as far as eclipsing any private school's dominance, i believe BA went for 20+ years before D-II was formed without ever losing a district/region game in football. "many fewer open zoned or magnets." now the magnets are a new kind of animal. they began as "geek" schools, but the new thing seems to be specific sport magnets. and they are drawing plenty of attention. as for "open zoned" some form of open zone seems to be the prevailing structure for public school systems. the oddity would be the school that is truly closed zone... if there are any at all.

might be that the lack of response was due to the lack of a premise to respond to. listing a few dominant programs doesnt say much, i think we are all aware that dominant programs are a part of sports. it might have been that the premise was supposed to be that the poor private schools are singled out, but self pity isnt much of a premise, and criticism is part of being dominant. if brentwood academy's football teams have an edge on shelbyville's girls basketball teams for detractors, it hasnt been obvious to me. now that we finally have something of a premise, "open zone schools have an advantage", there is something to respond to. the data is a little skimpy, barely enough to call the "advantage" a reasonable possibility. feel free to perform a more substantial analysis. intuitively, it is hard to see how open zones could fail to be a potential advantage. you have to have the horses, and the larger the pool, the more horses there will be. all that remains is to draw a disproportionate number of those horses from the overall pool into your individual population. again, we all seem to agree that athletes are drawn to successful programs, so there seems to be little argument that open zone schools have a better chance to create a powerhouse. but here is the rub. if your premise is that open zone schools have "advantages", by extension all schools would have inherent advantages, or disadvantages, based on their method of filling their enrollment. and there is significant (i would consider it conclusive) data collected that indicates that privates have the largest advantages of all. again, i would welcome a set of data demonstrating that all open zone schools have a winning record against all privates. good luck.

"We currently have Hindu, Protestant, and Catholic kids enrolled. So I'm thinking they could find a way to live with a few prayers in the publics." the hindu surprises me less than the catholic. arent there any catholic schools in chattanooga? and i thought you were a protestant school, altho i have to confess that i dont know what, if any, denomination you are connected to? and sure, i agree that people could find a way to live with a few prayers in public schools. those you listed obviously agree with you. but you know as well as i do that there are plenty of people who are very particular about what religious ideas their kids are exposed to. for that matter, do you get to pick the prayer that everyone has to "find a way to live with" or do i? or maybe we could go with the mormons, or heck, how about the hindus?

balled coach, we agree on many points on public schools. we dont on one. no one yet has told me what we'd do with the buddist kids in our community if we taught christianity in public schools, nor the jewish or moslem kids, and even out here in the boonies we have kids whose families are not christian. much less what we'd do about the christian families who would not be flexible in the least about what version of christianity was taught. to be honest, i am not entirely comfortable with schools teaching religion. we are fighting a war against people trained in schools that teach religious ideology. that said, i'd like to see central offices drastically shrunk, if not disbanded. i would like to see the federal & state government's regulatory role eliminated. government does nothing well, and the higher up the chain you go, the worse they do in micromanaging local affairs. but it it is the "private crowd" that i hear crying for the feds to step in and "make schools accountable". the whole mainstreaming thing is out of control. it sounds nice, but parents who are well informed about their "rights" demand and receive an unconscionable percentage of our limited resources. but the people who might bring pressure to bear to address these sort of issues are gone. they have taken their kids to private schools and are content to criticize the mess they left behind. i am with you, in that you have every right to do what you think is right for your family. but i am with t-gen in that your opinions on public schools are much like those people in the bleachers that criticize coaches. they might know something about football, but they arent there in practice every day. lastly, t-gen's comment on diversity made me laugh. my kids were surprised when they found out that not everyone's house was a way station for international athletes. they thought everyone might have poles in the basement one week and hungarians the next. they thought it was pretty much a requirement for adults to be able to drink shots of vodka with russians, down brews with germans, or dicuss excrutiating details with swiss, and that your vocabulary had to include "food", "water", and "bathroom" in at least 5 languages. we got diversity down cold! i reckon he was right tho, it was an education in itself.

please read the thread on handling heat. it would be a good place to link that article you have on hyponatremia.

"I understand Camden players have to carry large cups with them all day at school and are required to drink a certain # of glasses of water during classes." THAT IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PRACTICE. forcing fluids, especially plain water, can lead to hyponatremia (low blood sodium) which will kill an athlete. if you are thirsty, drink, but do not force fluids. getting plenty of salt is important during this hot training. if you crave salty food, eat it. it would be a good idea to have salty food (such as potato chips or salted nuts) available at practice. unfortunately, most coaches, and even many medical personnel (including the ill-informed person who taught the "sports first aid" course for acep) are NOT up to date on sports medicine regarding heat, fluids, and electrolytes. hyponatremia is a suspect in many deaths which have been attributed to heat in the past. forcing fluids is NOT good, it is dangerous. coaches: if a player is gaining weight during practice (for those who bring out scales) if their fingers are swollen if they have a headache that player needs salt, NOT FLUIDS. if a player becomes agitated and confused (may not know their own name) they need medical attention immediately. if you have a player with those symptoms, DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO BE GIVEN A NORMAL SALINE IV. 3% saline is called for in that situation, normal saline will kill your player.

"I believe in america thats two touchdowns for 6 points a peice and adds up to 13" rascal, not in all of america, probably just in mcewen. for the rest of us 6 + 6 = 12 not only that, 6 x 2 = 12. if you need an assist with your math, i am sure erin's math department would be glad to assign you a tutor. of course, if you will be staying in mcewen after graduation, i am sure your math skills are adequate.

i think gleason's chances to repeat last year's good start depend in great part on how many of the players are hanging out in front of the school in the evenings with the "gleason litterary society" i just hope dover has someplace equally as productive for their kids to hang out.

"just so we're clear, the dII schools cannot "offer" financial aid." i apologize for any distress caused by my poor choice of words. i said offer because school personnel brought the subject up, rather than us approaching the school. my intended point was that the amount and availability was not contingent on athletic ability.