MBAalumnus

wow. just wow. Listened to the audio stream on 104.5. Tough day at the office. I'd say that's the best non-TN team faced by TN team other since... BA v. Cincinatti Moeller with Ken Griffey Jr. or BA vs. Pascagoula, MS w/ Terrell Buckley and Shane Matthews just didn't have the talent to slow these guys down. What a buzzsaw that was. may be a tough year for the Big Red. Still, props to Coach Rutlege for scheduling this game. You will never know if you don't try.

Big Red Dog- If you want to dig into your history book further, in 1990 defending KY state champions Warren Central rolled into town for the first of 3 meetings between the two schools...long story short, heavy underdog MBA, playing against several D1 signees while having none of our own, began the season with an OT win. To to echo your point, we have a solid history facing out of state teams at the beginning of the year...

this has to be, on paper, the most talented team MBA has played...maybe ever. Maybe the 1995-1996 BA teams would be up there, but honestly, I don't think Trinity and Bolles are in the same class with these guys. Win or lose, my hat is off to Coach Rutlege and the Byrnes folks for playing this game tonight. Let's get 'em!!! Roll Red!

umm...why would the football coach be telling my parents that my brother needed to repeat 8th grade? the admissions people, okay, I'll buy it. Not the football coach (how could he have seen a transcript? if you have a "transcript" in 8th grade). And don't kid yourself: if MBA didn't ask him to repeat 8th grade, he didn't need to go to 8th grade twice to make it at BA.

I was at BA football camp when CCF told point blank to the parents of some one that if they wanted to play at BA, they had to repeat 8th grade. This individual was in perfect academic standing (MBA didn't ask him to repeat 8th grade) but CCF said he couldn't come out for the team if he didn't repeat 8th grade....so he went to MBA instead...believe it, or not....how do I know? it was my brother...

have to agree with you...it has gone on for years over there. I saw it with my own eyes in the late '80's at BA's football camp. It's a shame because there is no doubt about what an exceptional coach he is, and "this" is going to be a big part of his legacy.

Are you kidding me? Doggone, can Rutlege coach or what?

some names in the mix... "Scooter" Edwards of DCA, 2-time Mr Football, '90-'91 (I think Flemming broke all his records) Joe Campbell, Stratford, late '80's...pretty good career at MTSU... Curtis Alexander...Memphis ? one of Bama's memphis signees Eric Locke, Riverdale...post-hs career clouds what a great hs player he was.

How you doing, Wes? Just realized when I got an email the other day that football season (at least scrimmage season) has arrived and I needed to check things out over here! Should be another fun year...

RRR, thanks for the updates...I'm officially "out of the loop" as my "source" graduated last year...just realized that I planned my family vacation the week of the Trinity game!! I live not far away but I thought it was the weekend before labor day and not 2 weeks before! ugggh! oh well, not reading too much into the score of a scrimmage...don't think it's a coincidence that these 2 coaches have lots of hardware and seek these types of scrimmages year after year...

good to be back here for ball season...all of a sudden it just snuck up on me...how are you, RRR? 35-7!??! yikes! heard about all the injuries in MBA camp...hard to believe how fast everything happens now! when I was playing we would just be starting 2-a-days around now.

again, if we have this advantage in the ability to draw students from outside the immediate vicinity of the school, we are disadvantaged in a way that public schools aren't because our academic requirements are so much harder. Maybe some of you will remember (BigRedBud knows who I am talking about, if he's out there) a very good athlete who game to MBA in the late '80s. He was (from what I hear) a great kid but simply couldn't handle the academics. So he leaves and goes to a local public school (where he has no problems staying eligible) and we end up having to play against him for 3 years.

you're not getting it. The people in your "Tiger Woods" world are sending their kids to private schools in Nashville because they want to play for the best coaches. Hillsboro has in the last few years become a football power, which they weren't for most of the '80s and '90s. Why would these Tiger Woods families (motivated as you claim by athletics alone) not send their kids to the best coach in Ruth County (Rankin)? if they're point of competition is education, then that changes everything; I'm all for it. But we football factories don't much care about readin' riting' and rithmatic.

I think you guys turned out pretty darn good, BigRedDog. You guys have the distinction of going furthest than any MBA team ever made it in the old format. And, with a banged up team, you gave BA a run for their money in the semis...

"Beat?" you are very generous, as there are a lot more colorful words to describe what NE did to MBA. That NE team did a number on MBA that night. I was there. It was Labor Day weekend and if I'm not mistaken, Travis Stephens ran for more than 300 yards. And that was a very good MBA team. NE was robbed in that game vs. BA. Even as a homer, I'll admit that BA and NE were the two best teams in the state that year...

if there was such a person/family that is so warped that they base educational decisions strictly on high school football (as laughable as that sounds, given that it leads to something more for about 1 and 50,000 players), why would they NOT go to Oakland or Riverdale? They have some of the best coaching in the state (in Riverdale's case, maybe the best coach in the state). They churn out D-1 prospects and NFL players, and always compete for championships. That argument makes no sense. What competitive advantage would a private HS in Rutheford County have (in sports)?

you nailed it. Which is why, in my obnoxious way, I'm saying that this system needs to be dramatically overhauled so that quality coaches can move freely within the system. How is it possible that the Ezell Harding head coach, who took a dormant program and turned it into a state champion in a few years (he was an assistant at Nashville Christian not too long ago), be DENIED a prominent head coaching job in metro Nashville? Those schools should have bent over backwards to give him a job!!! A top young mind who--GASP--actually wants to leave a top private program to coach in the metro system and he is told, "sorry, you don't have any seniority so no thanks." It's unreal!!! kicking the private schools out just hides the real problems...a free market solution would have the public schools kicking the privates' rears every year...

Robjim, My take here would be that yes, they would complain, but how could it be taken seriously? I believe that public schools are entitled to complain about playing private schools with similar enrollment #'s, but how could someone be taken seriously if they have 2-3x the enrollement that CPA does and is still losing? I think BA's failure to move to 3A in the mid 80's is what got us here in the first place.

so you're saying that the 1500 kids that walk thru the doors of Riverdale are, on average, better than the 1500 that walk thru the doors of McGavock? Isn't that unfair then? maybe there is something in the water in Murfreesboro...

the TSSAA is cheating everyone if the best response they can come up with to d1 private schools winning 5 of the last 10 championships is "you win; we quit." I guess it's a sad state that this is the best we can expect from our government...

this is to no one in particular, but just how is it that a public school like Riverdale can win championship after championship, and a school with similar enrollment #'s like McGavock can't make it out of the first round of the play-offs (that's an exagerration)? Shouldn't the McGavock community protest that it's unfair that Riverdale gets a good HC in Gary Rankin and they don't? Is there something in the water in Rutheford county?

thank you Bigun. Very good take. First, I'd say CPA will be alongside MBA and BA w/in 5-7 years. David Pack is a fantastic coach (heck, if Jeff Fisher sends his son to play for him, I'd say that's a ringing endorsement). Basically to back up what you're saying, MBA had played Hillsborough, Hillwood, Overton, et al for years and years. Now, we can't even fill a regular season schedule without leaving the state twice. Not only that, but the public schools seem to really delight in denying MBA, BA, regular season games. The TSSAA should step in for all of us and mandate that local teams play us in the regular season without post-season implications. Seriously, to all you CPA supporters: PLEASE encourage Coach Pack and the leadership over there to move up to 2A or 3A. No one could rightly challenge you for beating teams with 2-3x your enrollment (which you will do). Just don't give them the ammo to boot you out by piling up 1A trophies.

good data, RRR. I think that debunks the "they recruit all over the state" argument. I'd say that certainly we have kids from Williamson, Sumner, Cheatam Co's (albeit small #'s), but the point is that they are just normal kids. The kids that come from those regions are there for the academics and in a few cases play sports...they "play sports" like the rest of us, i.e., try out for the team, hope to make it, etc...they certainly aren't a group of ringers piling up stats. what about the 4-5 kids from the late '90s who all went to the Ivy League? Maybe you can fill in details, but I remember reading that Barton Simmons, Jonas Rodriguez, and a few other kids were the best players on the team, were in the MBA chorus, involved in student gov't, and of course were headmaster's list students. I know the group that went to Yale all had successful careers there. That's a remarkable group of kids. I don't want to toot MBA's horn but that group demonstrated how to win the right way...

david, I think you have made a lot of good points actually. Same to VolG. I think the only answer is that there are no easy answers. I think first of all, we shouldn't just knee-jerk into a hasty decision again. We should challenge both sides to gather data and perform due diligence and present their respective arguments...I say again that everyone loses if the best answer we can come up with is "let's kick the private schools out alltogether," without any deeper analysis than "the private schools beat us every year, so let's get rid of the private schools." Why not explore ways to make the public schools better so that they can compete with the private schools?

because we are members of the TSSAA and have paid our $$ (a lot more than have public schools in some situations) and should expect better from this "governing body." But I will never expect anything rational from those people...