Baldcoach

St, You said you disagreed with most of my post, but you didn't tell me which parts you disagreed with. And I'm not ignorant of the history of Catholic schools...they go waaay back...in fact, you could make a historical argument that they predate the United States. They certainly predate US Public Ed. I don't think that that precludes other Christian groups from starting their own Christian schools though. And I'm not sure why a recent date or a distant date makes one school more or less legitimate than another. If you are using the tired old argument that the small privates started in response to desegregation I can tell you I don't buy it. There were plenty of elite privates in existence during desegregation for those who were prejudiced to retreat to. Besides, the vast majority of small Christian Schools' startup dates simply don't fit the argument. Here in Chattanooga Boyd started in 1952...well before desegregation occurred. The next nearest is CCS which began about 1980, well after all of that was over with. In Nashville the startup dates of many schools match up with the initial population explosion and 'metroization' of the system when the neighborhood schools were torn down and replaced with gigantic metro schools better than they match up with the Civil Rights Movement. You seem to be bitter about the small privates for some reason. I'd be interested to hear why. p.s. Thanks for the diplomatic thing /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> (and I am over 40, but as Indiana Jones says, "It's not the age, it's the mileage.")

Larry, I would submit you have the cart before the horse. Most of the small privates are Christian schools that started because of a deep dissatisfaction with the anti-Christian direction much of public education was headed in. Note that most small privates are in or near major metro areas where the public schools perform very poorly, are crime ridden, and have little or no community identity left as kids from all over are bussed in. The small privates are in large part an attempt in the cities to get the small school sense of community and values that the smaller rural schools have by virtue of their location. That is one reason why even though the TSSAA has punished them repeatedly they still cling to DI. Believe it or not as much as many of the small publics dislike the small privates, the small privates are much more similar to rural publics than they are to the elite preps or the larger metro publics. Similar kids, similar values. If I lived in a rural county I would happily let my children attend a small public school. I don't, and neither do 3.5 million other Tennesseeans. For some of us, the financial burden of tuition is well worth the safety, academic performance, sense of family, and religious values that small privates offer. None of that is available in our metro system. If you live in a rural area with small schools count yourself blessed, you get much of what we have to pay for for free.

bump

I did the same and came up with the same numbers...but the uncertainty is killing me. As you can probably tell from my previous post, I don't think the whole "here are the numbers, now guess" approach is appropriate. Put us all in divisions, tell us exactly how things will be figured (will 1a be made larger because so many of the schools are non-Football or only play 2 or 3 sports total, how will that effect the other classes, etc.) and then when all the smoke clears let everyone know where they are going. We still don't know if some weird manipulation is going to go on for 1a/2a to even out the Football/non-Football schools. Being on the border is a bad place to be, and while our Football and Soccer programs could compete most years against the local 3a and 4a schools, most of our sports could not. So it is a HUGE decision for us...especially since philosophically we are against DII.

The BoC is obviously hoping that by intentionally being vague and forcing all the small privates to make DI/DII decisions based on misleading and inadequate information they can either 1) Force them all out or (2) 'surprise' a couple by catching them off guard and forcing them to play up for 4 years. It is really quite asinine. Did all the supposed 'educators' on the BoC forget that we are really talking about kids here? Why all the secrecy and unclear info...there are 50 or so TSSAA member schools in good standing who are making a decision that will affect their student/athletes for the next 4 years...is it unreasonable to ask for a little clarity instead of a lot of vague and unclear instructions and data?

By my calculations the 1a/2a regular season cutoff should be right at 600. There are 300 DI schools so there should be 100 in each of the 3 divisions. That puts Polk County right at the split + or - a couple of schools

If a child comes to 1st grade and can't count to 10, say their ABC's, read or speak English in a reasonable manner all the research shows that unless that child is WAY above average in intelligence they are never going to catch up. Disintegrated families and parents who don't value traditional education (as opposed to street education) are the primary causes of poor public school performance imho. You will notice if you look at the data that Shelby, Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox counties are always among the lowest in the state even though they spend more money per student than most of the others. The reason is the state of the inner cities and specifically the state of the families in our inner city communities. I have a very good friend who is the principal of an inner city elementary school here in the 'nooga. When NCLB went into effect one of the mandates was that anyone who had school age children HAD to put them in school to keep their government housing. That year her school got 65 new students ages 6-10 who had NEVER been to school. The same story was repeated all over the city and I would guess in all the major metro areas in Tennessee. Those kids will never catch up, no matter how good their teachers and facilities are. I don't know the solution... p.s. US ed vs other countries is an invalid comparison. Every other country on the planet recognizes that some kids simply aren't cut out for college and has several filters in place to get those students out of the college bound schools and into trade/technical schools. When the comparisons come out between US schools and other countries' schools it is like comparing normal school kids to fast track kids...of course other countries beat us. It's a wonder and I think says great things about our system that we beat ANY other industrialized nations.

Buck, Using the TSSAA current DI Football schools I get a break point of more like 530 or so for the 1a2a/3a4a split. Are you using the numbers on the TSSAA website?

The difference is that scholarships are money that isn't paid back and can be offered for any reason by the school. Need based financial aid may or may not be paid back but is only offered to families who are declared in need of help by an agency not associated with the school. In other words, they aren't the same in any way. Scholarships are not legal for TSSAA members...need based aid is legal for varsity athletes if a school is in DII.

Probably not...at least without a majority Board vote. I'm guessing that JCS is similar to other small Christian schools in that they try to take whoever comes to the door and don't have the kind of cash that prep schools do. Dunno for sure, just an educated guess

I dont know anything about Grace...live in the Nooga. No small private can do the things you claim. First it is illegal to recruit. Second, because they are in DI they can't offer any financial aid to athletes, so those who DO go there have to pay. Bitterness and an insistence on the justice in your position are worth nothing...get the facts straight before you make silly accusations that can't possibly be true...there are about a billion posts on the public private board from both sides that will help fill you in on what is and isn't possible for a small private. p.s. I'm guessing you should leave Jesus out of the argument...

We all prayed a special prayer in HS chapel today for Ty and his family. Glad to hear things look like they will be ok...power of prayer.

prayers and good wishes from the Bucs. Does anyone in the family need a place to stay tonight in town? We've got lots of leftovers. Let me know if we can help.

Nope, Boyd's with Upperman, Gordonsville, and Livingston...just an FYI post for those who asked

Pulled a muscle in his back in practice...just letting it rest for a few days.

Livingston had a tough day. Man, you guys on the plateau are really intense about each other. I think 3 fights erupted at one point or another.

Scrimmage last night was 10 O and 10 D for each team. We scored every possesion, twice in one of them. Blanked the other teams...without Emory at LB. FYI we've switched jamboree opponents with the Rams as Tyner had a scrimmage scheduled for Friday and we didn't play until Saturday. That means we play first quarter Friday night against Baylor and Tyner plays Saturday.

not

Gotta admit I was somewhat ticked at McCallie in 96. They did wrestle an illegal wrestler or 2 knowingly and then had the gall to bring a lawsuit against the TSSAA when they got penalized. I think it made a bad situation worse. But Stan, your condescending questions about why the privates "let it happen" just tick me off. First, we didn't 'let it happen' just like we didn't let the highest multiplier in the country or what amounts to a kick in the teeth with realignment happen. We weren't given any choice because we have 0 representation at the TSSAA. Second, we have all asked for some representation...the response was a rep on the advisory board...wooh, that's good stuff. Truth is the public schools just aren't going to give us any reps...even though we are 20% of the organization. Third, the small non-aid privates did mobilize...if you remember the original vote was to put ALL privates in DII...we went to the TSSAA and explained the difference between large, elite, wealthy privates and smaller mostly religious ones. Thus they allowed non-aid schools to stay in DI. They didn't want too, but if they were claiming that BA and the other elites had an advantage because of aid, they clearly would be hypocritical to force non-aid schools in with them. Even the hint that we are to blame for this, especially the smaller privates who are catching all the crap, is just a feeble effort to get the spotlight away from the real reason all this is happening...the publics are ok with dominating public programs and all the myriad advantages different publics have but any private that wins is evil. What a hypocritical double standard. Discrimination pure and simple.

Unless you have only 1 public in your county all your publics are open zoned.Privates aren't open zoned, their zone is closed financially. It is a much more restrictive zone than the geographic zone most publics have. That is why most privates are small. No they don't. They may carry the banner for DII privates, but not DI. Grunt, ALL publics that have more than one school in the county are essentially open zoned. Certainly any metro area is completely open zoned. So what you are really for is a rural/urban split.

Just fyi those two guys (Devin and Vincente) aren't transfers. They both played last year but weren't starters...one was a Freshman and the other a Sophomore. By 'new' I think Coach R meant 'new to starting positions/lots of PT'. Great young men...I like them a lot.

Someone want to clue me in as to which transfers we are talking about? I ought to be in the loop after all...

If memory serves the DI/DII split occurred around 96 after BA beat Riverdale in the 5a chamionship in Football. The TSSAA Board of Control decided that schools that offered financial aid had a distinct advantage over those that could or did not. Thus, all schools that played athletes who were on financial aid were moved into a seperate division...DII. Many of the smaller privates had very few if any students on financial aid. Thus, a lot of them decided to stay in DI and not play any varsity athletes who were on financial aid. Most of the larger/more elite/more selective privates had a large percentage of their student bodies on some sort of aid and elected to play in DII. In the years following the split (specifically the 2000-2004 period) there were a handful of DI privates that won more than their share of the state Football titles. That, combined with small private dominance in Spring sports in general initiated the multiplier for ALL private schools in DI. The multiplier is 1.8 (not so coincidentally the largest in the country). So a private school with a student body of 300 is counted for classification purposes by the TSSAA as a school with 540 students. The threads on this board are all essentially arguments about 1) whether the multiplier is too harsh or not harsh enough so (2) whether it should be increased, decreased, done away with, replaced with another system, or all the privates forced out, or (3) what the TSSAA is going to do in 09 when they sit down to discuss the issue. I hope this is a fairly complete and unbiased explanation of the issues. As to whether there is a level playing field in 1a or 2a... imho the idea of a 'level playing field' is like the idea of the perfect woman...both are sought after by people who aren't wise enough to realize that neither exists. But, I could be wrong. Heck, there could be a woman out there who looks like a supermodel, fishes like a pro, washes clothes and keeps the house clean while cooking like the Top Chef and laughing while she watches the 3 Stooges then turns everything off, hops into bed and actually initiates...naaaah. Sounds great but we all know that if she exists she sure isn't with any of us, just like no 2 schools have a level playing field...both have advantages and disadvantages when compared with each other.

1) All caps is rude and considered shouting 2) If you are saying privates recruit then you ARE saying they cheat. Either have the courage to stick with your accusation or don't say it at all. The whole "I am not saying they cheat; they just recruit" is not only cowardly but sounds sort of schizophrenic 3) Coaches at the DI privates (which are the only ones playing publics) have SMALLER salaries and do a lot more work than coaches at the publics. We've gone through this 50 times on these boards and if you had any inkling about the issue you would know that 4) Privates do play each other...all the time. Privates also play publics. The dominating schools statewide in all but spring sports are public. What you really mean by this is that you don't want to play the privates because of the competition and something needs to be done about that, but that doesn't sound as good, does it? 5) Something has been done about it. Every recruiting rule and undue influence rule put out by the TSSAA in the last 15 years has been aimed at privates. And then there is the multiplier. And the fact that no private in DI can play any student who is getting financial aid.

Nope, for playoff games the TSSAA gets 50% of the gate, the two schools split the last 25%. The school that hosts gets concessions and parking as always.