Private schools ruin high school sports

[brosbaseball9]

The facts are that cheating happens at both the private and public level. Not all private schools cheat, nor do all public schools cheat. The problem is that the TSSAA rarely punishes anyone no matter how obvious the cheating is. Anyone read the book "The Blind Side" ? If not, you should check it out. It basically a road map of how a booster paid for not one, but several African American athletes to attend Briarcrest. How can you admit this and not get in trouble?

 

In addition, I don't think that you can blame a kid for going to private school if he/she does it the right way (actually paying for whatever amount he/she does not qualify for). Take Memphis for example. The city school system is shotty at best and the county is slowly deteriorating. Now your given the chance to go to a school where you dont have to worry about violence, have a chance to get a quality education, and even have better access to athletic development tools... what would you do...honestly?

 

Its not like the TSSAA is doing anything to aid the private schools either. Most of the decisions they make are in benefit of the public schools anyway. Take a look around at the Spring Fling. In the smaller sports, the private schools were put at the more remote, dumpier (not that they were bad, but not as good as the public school venues) locations. On the flip side, look at who generated more revenue, umm..the private schools. There were by far more supporters of the private schools and it was really obvious. We are headed for these days when the private schools disband from the TSSAA and form their own league. Want them to leave? Sure you may want that now, but when the revenue dips and the TSSAA has money problems, everyone will regret it.

 

Like I said, not all schools cheat. Some actually do it by the book.

 

 

 

wow, and yet they continue to claim michael oher wasnt recruited.....uh huh, sure. ha. i dont think they got in trouble because...umm...well, its briarcrest, and they need all the help they can get. lol.

[itzme]

wow, and yet they continue to claim michael oher wasnt recruited.....uh huh, sure. ha. i dont think they got in trouble because...umm...well, its briarcrest, and they need all the help they can get. lol.

 

...or maybe because Michael was adopted by the Tuohys, and I think that even the TSSAA will allow paying for your own son. Read the book...it's a great story.

[brosbaseball9]

...or maybe because Michael was adopted by the Tuohys, and I think that even the TSSAA will allow paying for your own son. Read the book...it's a great story.

 

 

 

i was being sarcastic, but whatever bud.

i could honestly care less about michael oher. come to think of it though, every family adopts a 6'5 300+ pound high school student from the inner city and sends him to briarcrest..a school located in the bustling metropolis of eads, tn with a football team that has several "questionable," if not obviously "recruited" players, right?....but after rethinking that obviously retorical question, we dont all live in a fantasy world and get exactly what we want. sometimes life isnt fair for those blue collar folks like myself. oh well. pretty sure ill get along just fine.

and again, its briarcrest. they need all the help they can get....too bad its often times not enough. lol.

[larry]

Why is everyone stuck in these threads that place blame here, there, and over yonder? Why not drop by some of the topics that actually propose solutions?

[silverpie]

I wasn't sure where to put this comment, but this thread seemed like the most appropriate place. Private school sports lightweight (outside of girls tennis) Mt. Juliet Christian just hired Greg Scheck as their new headmaster. For those of you unaware of who Greg Scheck is, he is the now former headmaster of Montrose Christian School of Maryland. He is the headmaster that put emphasis on sports - lifting the boys and girls basketball programs to national prominence to the level of Oak Hill Academy (whom they regularly schedule). Kevin Durant - current NCCA POY and #2 NBA draft pick is a graduate with numerous other all-americans.

 

 

Montrose is, as far as I can tell, not a member of any league--Maryland has always limited its state-association membership to publics only, and the only substantial private league in the DC area is Catholic only.

[itzme]

i was being sarcastic, but whatever bud.

i could honestly care less about michael oher. come to think of it though, every family adopts a 6'5 300+ pound high school student from the inner city and sends him to briarcrest..a school located in the bustling metropolis of eads, tn with a football team that has several "questionable," if not obviously "recruited" players, right?....but after rethinking that obviously retorical question, we dont all live in a fantasy world and get exactly what we want. sometimes life isnt fair for those blue collar folks like myself. oh well. pretty sure ill get along just fine.

and again, its briarcrest. they need all the help they can get....too bad its often times not enough. lol.

 

Yeah, I agree that it's pretty rare for something that awesome to happen for a kid. That's what makes it such a great story. To me, the whole recruiting/finance/football thing is really and truly secondary in the whole scenario. I don't know enough about Briarcrest's program to make a judgment about what rules may have been broken or followed, and I am not all that concerned about it in this context frankly. I do know some of the people involved in "The Blind Side", however, and taking athletics completely out of the equation, it's a pretty neat story.

[brosbaseball9]

Yeah, I agree that it's pretty rare for something that awesome to happen for a kid. That's what makes it such a great story. To me, the whole recruiting/finance/football thing is really and truly secondary in the whole scenario. I don't know enough about Briarcrest's program to make a judgment about what rules may have been broken or followed, and I am not all that concerned about it in this context frankly. I do know some of the people involved in "The Blind Side", however, and taking athletics completely out of the equation, it's a pretty neat story.

 

 

 

take away athletics and i agree with you completely. but without athletics, im pretty sure there wouldnt be a story. JMO.

[smith07]

i was being sarcastic, but whatever bud.

i could honestly care less about michael oher. come to think of it though, every family adopts a 6'5 300+ pound high school student from the inner city and sends him to briarcrest..a school located in the bustling metropolis of eads, tn with a football team that has several "questionable," if not obviously "recruited" players, right?....but after rethinking that obviously retorical question, we dont all live in a fantasy world and get exactly what we want. sometimes life isnt fair for those blue collar folks like myself. oh well. pretty sure ill get along just fine.

and again, its briarcrest. they need all the help they can get....too bad its often times not enough. lol.

 

 

Yeah, I read the book and i thought it was well written. Lot of people thrown under the bus. Notice how the only college coach not bad mouth other than coach Blah Blah Blah, was Saban. Funny how that works seeing that at the time this book was written, he was in the NFL and there could have been a possible future with him so that bridge could not be burned. Sure they adopted the kid, but it seemed more like that was after they realized not adopting him would jeopardize his NCAA eligibility. And the issue in regards to TSSAA is that they paid tuition and everything else before they adopted him which should fall under illegal in the TSSAA Rule book. Not to mention, how they mention the other athletes that they purchase things for. You can say that its a good story and the its done to help the kid, but be serious here. How many of those kids were not athletes?.... Exactly.... you dont see them picking up a kid with a musical skills and helping him get into Julliard now do you. It was all done on the premise of athletic talent.

 

There should have been one last chapter in the book that explained how taking such a great O-line talent does not guarantee success. You can have a great O-line, but if your starting QB is a walk on that did not even start at his D2 college, you still wont win!

[itzme]

Yeah, I read the book and i thought it was well written. Lot of people thrown under the bus. Notice how the only college coach not bad mouth other than coach Blah Blah Blah, was Saban. Funny how that works seeing that at the time this book was written, he was in the NFL and there could have been a possible future with him so that bridge could not be burned. Sure they adopted the kid, but it seemed more like that was after they realized not adopting him would jeopardize his NCAA eligibility. And the issue in regards to TSSAA is that they paid tuition and everything else before they adopted him which should fall under illegal in the TSSAA Rule book. Not to mention, how they mention the other athletes that they purchase things for. You can say that its a good story and the its done to help the kid, but be serious here. How many of those kids were not athletes?.... Exactly.... you dont see them picking up a kid with a musical skills and helping him get into Julliard now do you. It was all done on the premise of athletic talent.

 

There should have been one last chapter in the book that explained how taking such a great O-line talent does not guarantee success. You can have a great O-line, but if your starting QB is a walk on that did not even start at his D2 college, you still wont win!

 

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, and I'm not particularly a Briarcrest fan at all. I do know the people involved, however, and it had far more to do with rescuing a kid from a bad situation than any athletic talent. Certainly, that's how Michael was first noticed, but it went way beyond that after a while. This was by no means an adoption of convenience. Michael is totally a part of that family. Not that it matters, but he is a nice kid as well.

 

Again, I'm not even attempting to say anything about the rules that may have been broken or not, but I do think it's cool that a young man who was headed nowhere had his life turned completely around. That is much more important than football.