warmachine7954

I'm in year 17 of teaching. I've taught and coached at in a small K-12 school in West TN, in a foreign public school system, the Dept. of Defense, on the Navajo Nation, in Memphis, and the Suburbs. It's all the same every where. Kids are the same and so are parents. There are all kinds of misunderstandings. It rarely works out in the teachers favor unless there is a pile of irrefutable evidence in favor of the teacher. No matter what you hear about teacher/coach shortages districts will let people go if it puts the district in a bad light or a threat of litigation. I don't do anything other than shake students hands. I don't report female students for dress code violations, hug, horse play, or touch students or colleagues at any point. This has caused me to seem cold and callus to some students and I have to work a bit harder when I'm building relationships. However, in today's world I think I'm doing the right thing by me and my career. I see teachers hug and fraternize with high school kids more than I think any non-related adult should. I'm not a fan of young 20 something females teaching in high schools. High school kids are immature and mob mentality can take over. Teachers and coaches need to assume what they say and do at school is being recorded or on video. Teachers and coaches should not be communicating with students or posting things on social media that can be construed in ANYWAY inappropriate if they want to not have that hang over their head or leave a mark on their reputation.

Riverside is not NWTN.

The ability to create a special school district was blocked by the state until Memphis City merged with Shelby County and the suburbs complained. That's why Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington have their own schools. I don't know the rules now but I can't imagine the state wanting to create more districts. My first job was at Gleason and I'm not sure if there would be enough funding for Gleason to maintain it's own school.

His family is from Gleason/Martin/Dresden area. His dad has coached for a long time and he has been coaching since he was young. His family are great people.

They have 6 classes in basketball and they do regions rather than districts. https://scorebooklive.com/mississippi/basketball/brackets/2023-mississippi-6a-boys-basketball-championship See the link above.

It depends on your purpose for sports. Mississippi, like many southern states, have rural communities with small schools. Never giving those schools an opportunity to compete and play for something valuable only creates a sense of apathy for sport and participation dwindles. Then the loss of sports begin to happen and the lessons and value of sport are lost to the communities only further creating challenges in an already challenging world. TN hurts basketball by allowing practice to start 2 weeks before the first contest. Players and coaches need more time to condition and work team stuff before the first game. Especially in small school where kids play multiple sports. A month before would be a good start. Then allow for more off season player development with their coach.

Mississippi has up to 7 classes in some sports.

What year are you talking about?

There is no doubt that the talent level is down. Memphis is really low comparatively to other years. We all know that talent comes in cycles then occasionally you'll get a super group like 2006 with Willie Kemp, Wayne Chism, Thaddeus Young, and Brandan Wright. Coaches aren't being hired for their coaching ability in some places. In basketball, schools are looking to hire coaches that are young and have connections to AAU programs that have connections to kids with the hope of getting players to a school. So many conversations with coaches have these phrases, "________ was supposed to come here." or "That kid was supposed to play at ________ school but went to __________." If you get a player great but why not spend time growing a developing the players you have? But on the flip side some coaches are scared to develop kids because they'll put in the time and work and the kid will leave and go somewhere else.

Our kids here are playing multiple 40 minute (running clock) games on 10 ft rims at 10 years old on a Saturday with one or two practices a week in a "season". Then AAU rolls around and they play a bunch of games (sometimes with multiple teams) with no practice, no game plan, and no camaraderie. The coaches, that are getting high school coaching jobs in some places, just encourage chaotic basketball and those with the best players/athletes win. Then we regulate high school basketball to start practice to 2 weeks before the season begins and a few days in the off season.

Union CIty 07-08 was 37-0. They have to be in the conversation.

The changing of the game itself is to blame. It doesn't matter how many classifications their are. The talent in basketball in general is down because of AAU and influencer basketball. No one plays team defense, bad shots, no strategy, less skill, etc... is the cause of the decline of the game. Rebounding and defense are essential and it is avoided like the plague. Look at how wild the NCAA tournament has been the past few years. The strategy is simply try to beat the guy in front of you and throw up a wild shot and hope to get bailed out.

Arlington and Bluff City are open.

Where did you get that information? When Shelby County Schools didn't play because of Covid some players moved to municipal schools, Houston, Bartlett, and Collierville. It's much easier to prove eligibility (or lie about it) going from public to public than it is public to private. The private school kids are identified early and they're sought from middle school. The power in Shelby County has slowly shifted with the emergence of some of the charter schools. The talent level is down all over the city.

Houston (Germantown) won with Mike Miller (coach) 2021. They never played Centennial. The school has been open since 1989 so I have no idea what he's talking about.

None of this makes sense.

All about match-ups. Overton and East can be a nightmare but if you match-up well they can be beat. Neither team is unbeatable like some teams fro mthe West have been in the past.

At this level there is no doubt about it. The way most kids play now shots go up quick anyway. I coached (assistant) overseas where there was a 35 second clock and in two seasons there was never a violation called in any of the games. We never even got close to 10 seconds.

If it's a fan issue you play the game with very limited fans or none at all. You can allow 2-4 passes per player/coach and make people register that are coming. It's more work on Humboldt but not playing is a worse option.

There are alot of Memphis teams that won't schedule Haywood because the coaches don't get along.

NIL will have a major impact on the landscape of high school sports nationwide. Kids will wave goodbye to their zoned school and say hello to any school where a buisness has parents willing to pay for NIL deals. In Memphis the good players in the city will go private/municipal because that's where the money will be.

I lived in the middle of no where and drove 15 miles to attend Dyer County High School (class of 98). I lived closer to Lake County High (12 miles) and was zoned for Obion Central High School.(24 miles) Dyersburg High (15 miles) was an option too. Lake County was good at football. Obion Central was a basketball school. Dyersburg was football and baseball. Dyer County was middle of the road in everything. I had family or friends at all of those schools and we didn't have student athletes go between schools. This hasn't happened forever. My first teaching/coaching job was at Gleason in 2007 and there weren't kids bouncing around Weakley county then.

There are some rural schools that don't really have much if any recruitment base. They will be the one that should focus on program building from the elementary level up. Usually those schools have strong community connections and wouldn't be affected like the suburban/urban schools.

This is Memphis/Shelby County pretty much without the good paying job part. Here is how I can see it going. Recruit two kids (within the rules) then those two kids recruit other kids from the area and you have 1-2 schools (depending on rural, suburban, urban factors) that have all the players. In a few years the recruited players will become unhappy for some reason and transfer then the talent shifts to another school. This will happen every 5-6 years and there won't be any solid base for "programs" to be built. It's just more emphasis on the win now, win at all costs attitude that we see dominating sports culture these days.

Isn't Bolivar 2A?