Baldcoach

Except my quote is accurate...all metro schools are in effect open zoned. It isn't an assertion of dishonesty, nor is it an assumption of wrongdoing, it is simply the way the system is structured. Any metro school can take any student in the system if they have room, or if that student is a minority, or if the school offers any class that the previous school did not. Surely you see the difference in stating a fact (even if it pulls the rug out from under one of your assumptions about the public/private debate) and making an unsupported insinuation? The kids aren't in anyone's hair...I'm thinking the kids wouldn't care a bit about who played whom if the grown ups would just leave them alone and let them all play like they always have. It's the grown ups behaving like kids that are the problem...they want to take their ball and go home because someone might beat them.

I agree with this. Since the most dominating programs in the state are all public and ALWAYS HAVE BEEN, I say the privates should get a .85 multiplier to even things out. After all, no private has ever had the record of a Riverdale, or Maryville, or Fulton, or Alcoa, or Trousdale (I believe that covers 1a through 5a). Let's even things out by only counting 85% of private school students...or we could multiply all publics by 1.15 for Football. Really though, if we are going to move schools up, or down, or out based on advantages then we have to decide which advantages are bigger and which are smaller...after all, all schools have a different set of advantages and disadvantages. Then we need to come up with a method for classifying every school's advantages/disadvantages, tallying them, and then we can multiply or divide the school to make things fair. There is actually a way to do this fairly...go to a merit system since performance takes into account all advantages and all disadvantages automatically.

Ok, let's take these one at a time...remember the criterion was all privates vs all publics... Do all privates have more teachable students than all publics? I think no one would assert this...there are certainly many publics that have a better student on average than many privates. In fact, the small religious privates don't have more academically capable students than most publics...their admissions process isn't academically selective like the more elite preps. More conducive atmosphere towards learning in class = what, exactly? This argument sounds good but is somewhat vague...what about the classes that makes them a more conducive learning environment translates to the field, and is this true of all privates vs all publics?? Less violence = less team conflict? So all public schools are violent? I would think this advantage applies between plenty of public schools too...there is a range of violence/conflict in public schools. Some of them may have a history of student violence, but I would think that that is a small minority. Greater parental involvement. OK, I think this is an advantage that most privates have over most publics. That is 1. The other three you mentioned could just as easily be advantages of suburban publics or magnets over inner city or very rural publics. My point remains...separating privates as a group is not justifiable on any grounds unless they have insurmountable advantages as a group over publics. I'm still waiting for 3. You won't find them, however, because your assumption for your argument is flawed. All privates are NOT alike, just as all publics are not alike. Now for your question: I answered it already. In Tennessee the publics and privates have always played together. Suddenly people like you want the privates separated. It isn't a matter of privates not wanting to play together, it is a matter of a few very vocal publics being prejudiced against privates because a few privates are almost as good as the best publics. It is discrimination...and your language is word for word the same as was used in the 60s when people discussed racial integration, all you have to do is replace the word "privates" with "black people". "as to why privates are so reluctant to play amongst themselves" "Play in a private division and one will win one every year " "Why are private schools so reluctant to play amongst themselves when it comes to state championships?"

I am not claiming there are no advantages to private school. I am claiming that ATHLETICALLY there aren't 3 advantages that all privates have over all publics. Your argument for similarity only stands if there is actually similarity. Similarity implies that there must be some things in common. I asked for only 3. Can you provide them? If you can't then the argument that privates should have to play in a seperate division because of similar advantages over publics falls apart (as does the argument for a multiplier). After that it's just about prejudice.

Rage, All metro schools are open zoned whether they say so or not. Thus, the vast majority of high school kids in the state attend open zoned schools. The minority are those who attend schools that are not open zoned. Perhaps they should form their own division...after all, it seems they are the ones who are complaining all the time about everyone else. There could be DI which would be all metro, open zoned, and privates, and DII which would be all the non-open zoned schools. That way the schools with similar disadvantages would all be lumped together and out of everyone else's hair so we can get on with playing ball. p.s. Tuition based schools are not open zoned. While their zones are open geographically, they are tightly closed economically. Thus, open zoned publics (the majority) actually draw from a much larger pool than any private.

Let me turn the second one around. Have the privates ever NOT played sports along with the publics? If not, how did they suddenly develop 'marked advantages'? I mean, after all, no one was complaining about the privates in the 70s and early 80s while they were getting clobbered (or winning for that matter). And I don't hear anyone complaining about the vast majority of privates who aren't really good at athletics. What about those guys? Now for your first paragraph. You are just flat wrong. Again you imply that publics are somehow similar in their advantages/disadvantages and privates are too. Terribly wrong...not even in the ballpark wrong. Tell you what, list 3 advantages ALL privates have over ALL publics...just 3. I'm betting you can't do it simply because there are so many differences in the types of publics and the types of privates. But if you can't list at least 3 and sustain your argument then I'm thinking the 'similar options' and 'similar hurdles' parts of your position will suffer badly. Finally, if privates only wanted to 'be involved with public schools when they have marked advantages' the we certainly wouldn't be playing Football. After all, no private has EVER had the kind of dominance that the powerhouse publics have. If anything, we are at a marked disadvantage there.

To add to what Swami says, the TSSAA defines certain sports as minor. They don't have as many divisions as the major sports. Don't get in a tizzy, the term has nothing to do with the kids or effort or talent required to play, it is just a classification.

Open zoned public school, magnet public school, metro public school, or county public school? Are you saying that all pubic schools are the same? All have the same disadvantages and advantages? After all, don't people move into the county to get to the schools there, or put their kids in the magnets for the same reasons? How does that make privates the bad guys?? If you aren't saying all public schools are the same, how can you imply that all privates are the same? Because they plainly are not, but I think you probably don't know that because you don't know much about private schools.

BA is a DII school. Publics don't have to play them. Are you implying that because BA is a 'Football Factory' that all privates are? If not, how does this statement help your arguments?

No, but it is impossible to predict whether 6th grade talent will translate to high school talent...or vice versa. Except for the Athletotron, which is, of course, the machine that gives the privates their advantage as it can predict future great athletes at very young ages.

I was making a play on the term 'open zoned'. Traditionally it means that the school can take anyone from the county that the school is in (sometimes from nearby counties) even if that person is not in the zone that the school pulls from. As long as the school has space and the student can provide transportation they can switch...that is the sense that 'open zoned' is used in for Maryville, the Marion County schools, and others. But the truth is that any metro system is 'open zoned' because of NCLB. If your school doesn't offer a class that you want to take but the great Football school across town just happens to offer it, and if you can find transportation and they have room, you can go...period. Add to that the Magnet schools (which have no zones to start with...) and the fact that many metro systems will let anyone go to any school if they are in the minority and the school isn't full, and you have a bunch of tuition free schools that can get any athletes they want if that is what they want to do. Toss in the fact that it is perfectly legal for a public school coach to go to public middle school games and talk to all the athletes...even schedule meetings at the middle schools in question to talk about their sport, and you begin to see that the arguments that privates can easily get athletes because of their open zone are baseless because publics can get them just as easily with no penalties. Add to that the fact that the rules about undue influence and sitting out a year are NOT aimed at the public schools at all because the way the rules are written there is virtually no way a public school program can violate them, and you begin to see how truly open most public schools in metro areas are. A private school coach, however, who went to a middle school game to watch a nephew or something, has techincally violated the undue influence rules if a parent asks him "what do you think of my kid" and he replies "he's a great athlete, I wish I had him". What a crock... /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> And, of course, the private school has a huge advantage over the open zoned publics in that some of the private's students probably come from 25 miles away instead of 10...the fact that anyone who attends the private pays 7k a year in tuition doesn't figure into the equation somehow...like 100% of the population is able and willing to pay 7k for their kid to go to school...lol /dry.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=" Just remember, 'level playing fields' are about as common as snipes, or perfect machines, or the supermodel who loves kids, cooks, and talks Football with the guys. In reality the call for equality on the athletic field is a smoke screen for the call to punish the privates because they are different and a few are good. If it wasn't, the call would have been made to the great public programs too.

LOL...it would be another way to get a "level playing field" I suppose...of course we would have to do the same thing to the coaches and have some formula to trade good players for bad coaches for it to be truly level. It seems silly but it is the same thought process used for DII and the mulitplier...just carried out to its logical conclusion.

Has anyone looked in to Nashville Hillsboro. They are an open school zone and also co-op with two schools that do not have football in Nashville. Why do they not have the multiplier applied to them. If I remember correctly they have been very succesful for many years. Can you believe it I did not mention Maryville at all this time. The majority of public schools are open zoned in some way. ALL the publics in Hamilton County (and the other metro systems) are open in several ways. The only schools that can't take whatever transfer they want with no penalties are the privates.

Exactly! It is creeping in to our government, our courts (it is the opposite of personal responsibility), and now our sports...sad

There are several states that run merit systems of different sorts. Silverpie had a very elaborate system set up that he posted on another thread one time. I'm for simplicity...If your school is best in region for 2 years running OR has the most playoff wins over a 2 year period you move up. The worst team in the region for the 2 years moves down. Reclassification occurs every 2 years. No school is allowed to move down more than 2 divisions (5a can only go down to 3a, no matter how bad) but a team can continue to move up to the top. Within 6 or 8 years most schools would be hanging about where they are competitive and the 5a championship would really mean something...no more wondering if Riverdale is better than Maryville or Fulton or Alcoa. There would certainly be those who found ways to 'play the system', but that would require throwing games one year in the hopes of getting to an advantageous position in the future. I find it hard to believe anyone would intentionally lose a game to set up a better spot for the next year. If so, they would cheat at any system. I'm thinking that the sheer number of teams playing insures that the vast majority keep the system honest...bad teams lose, good teams win. It is very hard to change those two facts unilaterally in any significant way.

LOL! No, there aren't set zones yet so you can't pirate them...maybe soon...

Who sets the zones? And this is just another way of saying the small privates get multiplied and so do the open zoned publics, right? Because the small privates are going to always have kids from outside their 'zone'...unless it is 60 miles in every direction.

As I said in the post before this one from Clawball...the witch hunt is on. Any difference is bad and gives advantages. Excellence should be punished, not emulated. If you beat us you cheat, go play with the other cheaters.

I agree with this. With reference to your earlier reply about a merit system...yes, smaller schools would be playing larger schools, because number of students is one of the advantages/disadvantages. If a smaller school can compete with larger ones then it must have offsetting advantages. That is the logic behind the multiplier...all privates have so many advantages that they should be forced to compete with schools roughly double their size. I contend that that is arbitrary and discriminatory. Some privates have certain advantages over local publics, some others. Some publics have certain advantages over local privates, some others. The point is that if you are going to classify based on advantages other than student body size (which is a completely objective number) then someone has to subjectively decide which advantages are the best advantages. That decision has always favored the publics and gone against the privates. A merit system treats everyone equally...no subjective decisions about whether increased parental involvement in small privates is greater than that in rural community schools, or whether money available from wealthy donors outweighs money from the government paying for everything, etc. After all, who can't reasonably argue that if anyone needs a multiplier to level the playing field it is the elite public programs...but they are public, so by the current TSSAA logic they don't have advantages. I guess they just win the flip of the coin every time they play other publics... /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> Note that I would be perfectly happy going back to a classification system based on size (objective) or going to one based on merit (objective). I am not happy with arbitrary splits because of nebulous advantages (subjective) or multipliers (subjective). The problem with subjective measurements is that eventually someone comes to power who decides that another subgroup has too many 'advantages', and mutliplies them...then the witch hunt is on. I warned the open zoned and magnet schools when the multiplier came out for the small privates that they were next...just as soon as the non-open publics got beaten by them enough to decide things were unfair. Now we see that being discussed all the time. It won't stop there unless we just stop it all. I forsee all but the worst 20% of the schools in the state having some kind of mutiplier...Urban multipliers, Magnet multipliers, open zoned multipliers, community multipliers, private multipliers, etc.

I agree with several posts...there should be no 'recruiting' rules. I have 2 reasons. The first is that they are extremely 1 sided...against privates. Good rules are not aimed at a subset of any organization...they are equally applicable to all. The second is that as they are currently written they are virtually impossible to enforce. The TSSAA would have to have an agent in every school 24-7 to have any chance of enforcement. So what really happens is that the honest people are put at a disadvantage as they strive to abide by the rules while the dishonest people continue to do what they do and not get caught. Any rule (or set of rules) that punishes honesty and encourages cheaters is NOT a good set of rules. Take all the undue influence rules out. That way, if coach X wants to win badly enough to show up at every little league game in town and talk to parents about athletics his extra commitment is rewarded. If coach Y is a lazy butt and sits at home all day on the weekends he gets what he deserves.

Swami, I am not feeling picked upon at all. I am actually for a merit system rather than a multiplier, which would have landed us in 2a anyway. And, to be honest, 2a is a real challenge, which is one of the things that I think sports should be about. I do believe, however, that if you are going to try to 'equalize' things or create a 'level playing field' that the method should be applied equally to all schools, not just a subset. If only a subset are targeted then what you have is discrimination. Consider, there were 6 small privates in the early 2000's that had really good programs and won state titles...6 out of a hundred or so. We were one. We won 1 title, lost in OT the year before and after. CPA won 2, Ezell 1, DCA 2, and Lipscomb and Goodpasture won 1 or 2 each in 2a or 3a maybe. Compare that to Trousdale's record for the 5 years before they moved up to 3a. Or to South Pitt's Record in the late 90s. Or to Alcoa's or Knox Fulton's or Maryville's or Riverdale's records. The point is that if we are going to multiply ALL the privates because a few are good for a while, why are the publics getting a pass when some of them are better than any private has ever been? And what did the struggling private programs do to deserve a 1.8? If we are going to really try for a level playing field, or something like it, we need some system that takes into account the advantages and disadvantages of EVERY school...public, private, rural, urban, magnet, etc. A merit system does so because it simply uses performance to classify. Performance is the end result of all of a school's advantages and disadvantages. p.s. I wasn't trying to 'pick apart' your post, and I have a pretty universal viewpoint...you did read the part when I said I am a huge fan of South Pitt, Alcoa, and Maryville, right? I just wanted to point out that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...privates don't really have open zones just like country clubs...their zones are closed by the financial requirements involved. I used to say it like this...there is as much water in a small deep puddle (closed geographic zone, no tuition) as there is in a wide shallow one (open geographical, tuition). All of that is just another way of saying that all types of schools have advantages and disadvantages...the only reason that the advantages that private schools have are considered greater is because public schools are in charge of the TSSAA, which is the body that decides which advantages are greater.

It isn't a bad setup...but it would be the same if all of those schools were in DI with the publics and there wasn't a multiplier. There would be one addition, LV. I promise not to mention Alcoa, or S Pitt, or Tyner, or Maryville, or Milan, or Loudon, or Huntingdon, or Fulton, or Trousdale, or any other a, aa, or aaa public powerhouse in any replies if you can tell me what advantage the small privates have over the small publics without mentioning records, because, after all, won-loss records IS the issue, is it not? If not, how exactly can you tell who has advantages and who doesn't?

Indian's posts seem to contain a logical disparity. He claims that aid and non-aid privates should play in the same division and that a private public division is needed to achieve fairness. But if simply being a private school equals a massive unfair advantage over publics, how can giving financial aid (the original reason for the DII split) NOT be a massive unfair advantage that the aid privates have over the non-aid? He tries to talk around it by saying things like "I think the non-aids would dominate", but that doesn't address the issue, which is is it fair? The reason he doesn't want to address the issue is that if he agrees that forcing non-aid privates to play aid-giving schools is unfair, then it is impossible to make a total split work, and he REALLY wants a split. On the other hand, if he says that there really is no advantage, then he has negated the whole reason for DII in the first place and opened the door to bring back the aid giving schools and do away with 2 divisions. That would be unacceptable. It seems that what he really wants is for the privates not to play publics, period. Fairness isn't a part of the equation, but by using fairplay terms the idea of a split sounds more legitmate, even if fairness isn't applied to all schools equally(which by definition is not fairness lol).

ALL schools have advantages and disadvantages. There is NO level playing field unless you can come up with a system that takes ALL advantages and disadvantages into account...then the field isn't level but it is evened out a bit. So what we are really discussing is do we have a system with NO leveling (all classes abolished, everyone plays everyone), a system with some leveling (classification system based on number of kids), or a lot of levelling. so far we have chosen a lot of leveling. The problem is that we are only leveling the privates...publics with obvious advantages are not leveled at all. No private school has ever dominated their division like the current crop of publics who are dominating. Somehow we are supposed to believe that Maryville and Alcoa DON'T have advantages as they destroy their competition but that all the privates who were good DID have advantages. Silly. I say let's go back to less leveling. But if not, we need a system that levels everyone equally, not based on whether a school is public or private. That kind of system is just discrimination thinly disguised as an attempt at fairness. If we continue to try to level every special case, we are gonna have to consider every type of school...urban, open zoned, magnet, rural, etc. and assign multipliers based on the percieved advantages that that type of school has over small, poor rural non-open zoned schools, or whoever else we decide has the fewest advantages. Tennessee will end up with 5 or 6 different multipliers all designed to 'level the playing field', which really means "handicap any school that is better than the worst schools". On the other hand, if we don't add in the publics with obvious advantages, the fact that the current system is only designed to punish private schools becomes self evident. So we are left with a witch hunt or an admission that this system is unfair and a move to a more fair or less restrictive system. I think the private haters will choose and push for a witch hunt. It's a shame, we used to admire excellence in this country, now it gets you punished. I hope for the sake of the Maryvilles, Alcoas, and South Pitts that we can all choose the second option...get rid of this silliness and let's all go back to playing together OR put in a merit system that is fair. I hate to see great programs get picked on because they are great...people should be admiring them