Grace Christian

[DCBoysfan]

Being from Roane County and watching Harriman athletics we've had our fair share of watching our sports teams compete against Grace. You'll be the first to know i despise their football and basketball programs with a blazing passion. But baseball is a different story, yes they have transfers that role in but tell me a private school that doesn't have what they do. It doesn't help our case baecause they have one of the best coaches in the state either. The program has had their slip-ups but it's time to let the past go and focus on the future. Whether any of us like it or not that they're in our district it's something you have to live with and just play ball! Nothing but respect for the GCA baseball program! Good luck to them in the Road To State!

 

 

Thanks, 'olerockyrebel' for the positive comments. Very much appreciated.

[DCBoysfan]

Let me try to address each of your above rebuttal comments. First of all, I gather you are probably only a few years out of high school from your post, but apparently are much wiser than the decision makers at Grace as to how the illegal activity at Grace should have been addressed. And I don't thing a Public Relations degree is necessary either to realize that stepping up and taking responsibility for your actions instead of playing the naive card, would have been a better option. I think most of us would have a lot more respect for the pastor and the school if they had just stated that they got caught up in all the winning and got off keeping Christ the main focus of the school, and then offer the those affected an apology. I also think many of the students saw through the facade, which only made many of them lose respect for the adminstrators and pastor, as I am friends with many of those who attended Grace in the past who have both insight and negative opinions as to what went on there. XBraves10X, it is a shame the powers to be didn't ask for your advice before making weak excuses to the public on the radio, tv, etc. If so, perhaps the verbal abuse Grace continues to take would not have been near as harsh. Anyway, in regards to your post... the kid from FL did live with one of your asst baseball coaches. If you know who he lived with, then you know this to be fact (if you are only going by what you have been told, then maybe not). As for people losing their jobs, the only person I am aware of was Coach Lamb. And there were numerous issues with him already, in that he was working there much of the time without a contract due to those issues. In fact, I was told that Pridemore threatened to pull his son out of Grace because of Lamb, and Slusher was to leave with him, as well (pretty easy to validate this being Pridemore is now your girls basketball coach). As for the transfers I mentioned, per the TSSAA, Adrian was required to sit our his first year at Grace, whether he was adopted or played sports at AE, or not. Here is language taken directly from the TSSAA website:

 

Q. A student with or without an athletic record moves to live with a guardian other than a parent. Is the student eligible?

A. No. A student must live with the new guardian, if other than their parent, for 12 months or longer.

 

And by the way, it was the Pastor's son (not brother) who was to have adopted Adrian (I heard that was the intention of the pastor's son, but not sure if that ever actually happened, or not). Also, he actually met Adrian when he started an inner city church a several years back, and had not known Adrian all his life. Whether or not the intention was to involve Adrian in sports at Grace to benefit him or the athletic program at Grace, I will not comment on, as that would be speculation at best. As for David Amos, all of your facts are correct to my knowledge. However, after the KCS basketball program was turned down by the TSSAA to co-op with Grace, the Amos family petitioned TSSAA to allow him to be illegible to play basketball at Grace if he transferred. Again, all legal as you stated. However, I can tell you for fact they would never have approved the tranfer illegiblity if they had known the intention was for him to transfer to Grace only for the basketball season, and then withdraw and return to KCS to graduate. And just so you know, I only mentioned Amos because you stated in your post that Helton was the only transfer at Grace in the 4 years you played sports at Grace. As for my Pridemore comment, I never said he was a transfer (so I will let the dumb comment slide). That was only a response to your comment that all the people who have left Grace and went on to play college sports attended Grace in middle school (Pridemore did not attend middle school at Grace and he is playing basketball in college). Someone I failed to mention in my prior post is the star of your girl's basketball team who transferred from Oak Ridge after her freshman year. No family relocation of residence, no sitting out for a year, and no 20 mile rule adhered to, so I am still trying to figure how they pulled that off (or maybe they didn't and she played illegally). Since a lot of what is in you above post is incorrect regarding my comments, I actually find humor that yet another one of the Grace faithful (Ram Fan) jumped on the bandwagon to commend your post. No beef with you though, as you seem like a pretty decent young man. I am sorry you had to go through what you did while attending Grace due to the actions of a few adults.

 

 

 

 

Oh my goodness! 'braveheart', you simply have no clue.......period!

Edited May 11, 2012 by Ram Fan

[RunAndGun]

Let me try to address each of your above rebuttal comments. First of all, I gather you are probably only a few years out of high school from your post, but apparently are much wiser than the decision makers at Grace as to how the illegal activity at Grace should have been addressed. And I don't thing a Public Relations degree is necessary either to realize that stepping up and taking responsibility for your actions instead of playing the naive card, would have been a better option. I think most of us would have a lot more respect for the pastor and the school if they had just stated that they got caught up in all the winning and got off keeping Christ the main focus of the school, and then offer the those affected an apology. I also think many of the students saw through the facade, which only made many of them lose respect for the adminstrators and pastor, as I am friends with many of those who attended Grace in the past who have both insight and negative opinions as to what went on there. XBraves10X, it is a shame the powers to be didn't ask for your advice before making weak excuses to the public on the radio, tv, etc. If so, perhaps the verbal abuse Grace continues to take would not have been near as harsh. Anyway, in regards to your post... the kid from FL did live with one of your asst baseball coaches. If you know who he lived with, then you know this to be fact (if you are only going by what you have been told, then maybe not). As for people losing their jobs, the only person I am aware of was Coach Lamb. And there were numerous issues with him already, in that he was working there much of the time without a contract due to those issues. In fact, I was told that Pridemore threatened to pull his son out of Grace because of Lamb, and Slusher was to leave with him, as well (pretty easy to validate this being Pridemore is now your girls basketball coach). As for the transfers I mentioned, per the TSSAA, Adrian was required to sit our his first year at Grace, whether he was adopted or played sports at AE, or not. Here is language taken directly from the TSSAA website:

 

Q. A student with or without an athletic record moves to live with a guardian other than a parent. Is the student eligible?

A. No. A student must live with the new guardian, if other than their parent, for 12 months or longer.

 

And by the way, it was the Pastor's son (not brother) who was to have adopted Adrian (I heard that was the intention of the pastor's son, but not sure if that ever actually happened, or not). Also, he actually met Adrian when he started an inner city church a several years back, and had not known Adrian all his life. Whether or not the intention was to involve Adrian in sports at Grace to benefit him or the athletic program at Grace, I will not comment on, as that would be speculation at best. As for David Amos, all of your facts are correct to my knowledge. However, after the KCS basketball program was turned down by the TSSAA to co-op with Grace, the Amos family petitioned TSSAA to allow him to be illegible to play basketball at Grace if he transferred. Again, all legal as you stated. However, I can tell you for fact they would never have approved the tranfer illegiblity if they had known the intention was for him to transfer to Grace only for the basketball season, and then withdraw and return to KCS to graduate. And just so you know, I only mentioned Amos because you stated in your post that Helton was the only transfer at Grace in the 4 years you played sports at Grace. As for my Pridemore comment, I never said he was a transfer (so I will let the dumb comment slide). That was only a response to your comment that all the people who have left Grace and went on to play college sports attended Grace in middle school (Pridemore did not attend middle school at Grace and he is playing basketball in college). Someone I failed to mention in my prior post is the star of your girl's basketball team who transferred from Oak Ridge after her freshman year. No family relocation of residence, no sitting out for a year, and no 20 mile rule adhered to, so I am still trying to figure how they pulled that off (or maybe they didn't and she played illegally). Since a lot of what is in you above post is incorrect regarding my comments, I actually find humor that yet another one of the Grace faithful (Ram Fan) jumped on the bandwagon to commend your post. No beef with you though, as you seem like a pretty decent young man. I am sorry you had to go through what you did while attending Grace due to the actions of a few adults.

 

 

 

by asking .

Man for someone who knows so much about Grace athletics I am suprised at how little you REALLY know and the false things you say. I will try to clear up you obvious confusion about the GIRL from oak ridge. She played her freshman year at oak ridge and sat out her 10th grade year and played no sports at all and transfered to Grace as a 11th grader. By TSSAA rule she was eligible to play right away. Dude quit trying so hard enjoy life and move on and most of all get your facts right.

[TwinCityT]

Let me try to answer your question. You wanna know why GCA will never go D2, the reason is $$$$$$$$. The same reason Catholic dropped from D2 to D1. Grace currently has the cheapest tuition in and around Knox county for private schools. Catholic dropped down to D1. CAK will never go up to D2 for the same reason. If we charged $18,500 tuition per student like Webb....well yeah we could play D2 and travel to Chattanooga, Nashville and Tri Cities for district games....that's a long way from a $6500 tuition like GCA's. We, don't have the funds, resources, ability to do that. AND...why in the world would we do that? My resources have told me that We (GCA)will always stay and play D1.....as most every small private school like CAK and Catholic should. Enuf Said!

$$$$$$ can't be the reason. If parents can get their kids to Cinn, Atl, etc for travel ball, surely they can scrape up enough $$$$$ for school ball. The arguement that privates are to far apart is absurd ! Let me help you out in making a new district

Webb

CAK

Grace

Berean

Knox Christian

Catholic

These are all within 15 miles of each other.

Of course these schools will never do something like this because they would rather drive 70 miles

to Tellico, 45 miles to Rockwood, 40 miles Harriman etc. in order to win, and run up scores. These

schools except Webb, want to compete with schools that they have a huge advantage over. These already play each other in non district games it shouldn't be that difficult to make a district out of these schools. Of course they wouldn't do it cause their advantage of being able to recruit any kid anywhere would be gone.

That's the reason D1 privates will not go D2.....enuf said !

[IrishBBall]

$$$$$$ can't be the reason. If parents can get their kids to Cinn, Atl, etc for travel ball, surely they can scrape up enough $$$$$ for school ball. The arguement that privates are to far apart is absurd ! Let me help you out in making a new district

Webb

CAK

Grace

Berean

Knox Christian

Catholic

These are all within 15 miles of each other.

Of course these schools will never do something like this because they would rather drive 70 miles

to Tellico, 45 miles to Rockwood, 40 miles Harriman etc. in order to win, and run up scores. These

schools except Webb, want to compete with schools that they have a huge advantage over. These already play each other in non district games it shouldn't be that difficult to make a district out of these schools. Of course they wouldn't do it cause their advantage of being able to recruit any kid anywhere would be gone.

That's the reason D1 privates will not go D2.....enuf said !

At the risk of defending the private schools, I think in the past few years you could throw Maryville, Alcoa, OR, Anderson County, Central, Powell into the mix of players outside of their "zones". We also have a multiplier of 1.8 to determine our classification. That puts Catholic in a situation of playing district games vs. Schools with 1,000+ more kids.

[gcapride]

Grace continues to play "up" in competition, especially in football. I know Catholic plays up in several games each year as well. Grace hasn't been as successful when playing up in baseball. GCA played several larger schools this season. You can take a look at the win/loss record and you will see the results do not favor GCA. We also have the mulitiplier rule in effect and it requires us to play "up" in classification. What you guys fail to realize is that we have a VERY small pond to fish in to field our athletic teams. Nobody has to attend GCA like public schools. We don't have a set geographic area that states that kids in that area MUST attend that particular school. I can assure each of you that if you lived in Knoxville and could make the sacrifices to send your children to a private school, you would do so after you visited our campus. Public schools in Knox county are average at best. And "Average at best" isn't good enough for my family (and I don't mean that in a bad way, we just want the best for our children and put them in the best opportunities we can offer them). That's a choice we made and we sacrifice many things to send our children to GCA, however, there isn't a day that goes by that I regret our decision. I certainly hope you can appreciate that decision.

[DCBoysfan]

$$$$$$ can't be the reason. If parents can get their kids to Cinn, Atl, etc for travel ball, surely they can scrape up enough $$$$$ for school ball. The arguement that privates are to far apart is absurd ! Let me help you out in making a new district

Webb

CAK

Grace

Berean

Knox Christian

Catholic

These are all within 15 miles of each other.

Of course these schools will never do something like this because they would rather drive 70 miles

to Tellico, 45 miles to Rockwood, 40 miles Harriman etc. in order to win, and run up scores. These

schools except Webb, want to compete with schools that they have a huge advantage over. These already play each other in non district games it shouldn't be that difficult to make a district out of these schools. Of course they wouldn't do it cause their advantage of being able to recruit any kid anywhere would be gone.

That's the reason D1 privates will not go D2.....enuf said !

 

 

You just have no clue 'TwinCityT'. If all these schools above charged $18,500 tuition per year like Webb does, then yes it would be possible, reasonable, and affordable to go D2 only, but guess what? It's IMPOSSIBLE for Grace, Berean, Knox Christian, and CAK to charge those figures. I would say Catholic could not either.

 

Your above statement is so childish and ridiculous. Put your pacifier back in your mouth and quit your whining.

[DCBoysfan]

Grace continues to play "up" in competition, especially in football. I know Catholic plays up in several games each year as well. Grace hasn't been as successful when playing up in baseball. GCA played several larger schools this season. You can take a look at the win/loss record and you will see the results do not favor GCA. We also have the mulitiplier rule in effect and it requires us to play "up" in classification. What you guys fail to realize is that we have a VERY small pond to fish in to field our athletic teams. Nobody has to attend GCA like public schools. We don't have a set geographic area that states that kids in that area MUST attend that particular school. I can assure each of you that if you lived in Knoxville and could make the sacrifices to send your children to a private school, you would do so after you visited our campus. Public schools in Knox county are average at best. And "Average at best" isn't good enough for my family (and I don't mean that in a bad way, we just want the best for our children and put them in the best opportunities we can offer them). That's a choice we made and we sacrifice many things to send our children to GCA, however, there isn't a day that goes by that I regret our decision. I certainly hope you can appreciate that decision.

 

 

Ditto

[DCBoysfan]

At the risk of defending the private schools, I think in the past few years you could throw Maryville, Alcoa, OR, Anderson County, Central, Powell into the mix of players outside of their "zones". We also have a multiplier of 1.8 to determine our classification. That puts Catholic in a situation of playing district games vs. Schools with 1,000+ more kids.

 

 

So true about your above statement. I can name so many more public schools just like that too.

[crazzyness]

Grace continues to play "up" in competition, especially in football. I know Catholic plays up in several games each year as well. Grace hasn't been as successful when playing up in baseball. GCA played several larger schools this season. You can take a look at the win/loss record and you will see the results do not favor GCA. We also have the mulitiplier rule in effect and it requires us to play "up" in classification. What you guys fail to realize is that we have a VERY small pond to fish in to field our athletic teams. Nobody has to attend GCA like public schools. We don't have a set geographic area that states that kids in that area MUST attend that particular school. I can assure each of you that if you lived in Knoxville and could make the sacrifices to send your children to a private school, you would do so after you visited our campus. Public schools in Knox county are average at best. And "Average at best" isn't good enough for my family (and I don't mean that in a bad way, we just want the best for our children and put them in the best opportunities we can offer them). That's a choice we made and we sacrifice many things to send our children to GCA, however, there isn't a day that goes by that I regret our decision. I certainly hope you can appreciate that decision.

You seem to forget, for the most part, (at least up in these parts) public schools play with what they have. 98% of kids go to which ever school is closest or in their community. But Grace has kids transfering in there from mediocre or bad AA and AAA schools for the soul purpose of playing sports and winning a few championships.

 

BIG advantage Grace.

Edited May 12, 2012 by crazzyness

[TwinCityT]

You just have no clue 'TwinCityT'. If all these schools above charged $18,500 tuition per year like Webb does, then yes it would be possible, reasonable, and affordable to go D2 only, but guess what? It's IMPOSSIBLE for Grace, Berean, Knox Christian, and CAK to charge those figures. I would say Catholic could not either.

 

Your above statement is so childish and ridiculous. Put your pacifier back in your mouth and quit your whining.

 

-What are these extra costs??? D1 vs D2

 

-Quit whining about Webb, they've done the right thing and gone D2... so all students can have

a chance to get in their school.

 

-And please explain why we should feel sorry for poor ole Grace....especially

after it just installed a state of the art million dollar turf" just like

the one the Buffalo Bills have" .

 

-So put your silver spoon back in your mouth...and sit back and enjoy watching your

hand picked recruits pound tellico thru the new million dollar turf !

[gcapride]

-What are these extra costs??? D1 vs D2

 

-Quit whining about Webb, they've done the right thing and gone D2... so all students can have

a chance to get in their school.

 

-And please explain why we should feel sorry for poor ole Grace....especially

after it just installed a state of the art million dollar turf" just like

the one the Buffalo Bills have" .

 

-So put your silver spoon back in your mouth...and sit back and enjoy watching your

hand picked recruits pound tellico thru the new million dollar turf !

 

Stop being a moron and respond to the comment instead of replying with your own agenda in mind.

 

1. The extra costs involve travel expenses because D2 district games are so far apart as opposed to playing in D1 and allowing TSSAA to set the districts within close geographic areas (in most cases).

 

2. The "multi million dollar" turf didn't cost millions of dollars. It was $350k. And YES it is the same exact turf that the Buffalo Bills play on.

 

3. You would be suprised to find that there's not very many "silver spoons" at GCA. And as for your Tellico Plains comment, they have a tough time competing with anyone on their schedule. There's not a lot of pride down on the plains. The new coach could change that, and I certainly hope he does.