ANYONE ELSE HEARING THIS?

[redandblack63]

I still don't understand why privates object to playing in a league with other private schools. Why do they insist on playing in a classification where the know they aren't wanted or welcome. Just don't understand. At the weekly Saturday Hardee's round table. There is speculation that catholic is under investigation for funding student tuition and that in the next couple of months will be given an ultimatum to go division II or be at risk for a Grace like probation. Just saying.

[Warriors2011]

I still don't understand why privates object to playing in a league with other private schools. Why do they insist on playing in a classification where the know they aren't wanted or welcome. Just don't understand. At the weekly Saturday Hardee's round table. There is speculation that catholic is under investigation for funding student tuition and that in the next couple of months will be given an ultimatum to go division II or be at risk for a Grace like probation. Just saying.

It's really not that hard to understand IF you're willing to understand it.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you DO want to understand, though I'm a bit concerned at your objectivity given your choice of words that privates "aren't welcome" in Div. 1.  It could be you're simply biased against private schools for some reason or maybe you haven't met enough private school people yet to realize there are some pretty good folks there, not all rich and snooty or whatever stereotypes you might have in mind.  Anyway, on the chance that you're willing to keep an open mind...here goes...

 

All privates cannot afford to give athletic scholarships like Webb, Ensworth and MBA.  If Webb, for example, has 5+ kids on scholarship and they are all playmakers, then week in/week out it will be extremely difficult for any school that does not give scholarships, public or private, to compete with them.  Your typical TN high school football team, with rare exceptions like the giants in Blount County, doesn't have 5-8 guys on the team who are capable of playing college football at some level.  Scholarship/Div. 2 privates usually do.

 

You'll notice looking back over Webb's history the last few years, the teams that beat them tend to be the larger public schools (yes, I know Alcoa's fans on here will point out that Alcoa is just a poor lil ole 3A public school, but they dress out about 90 players...that depth of talent, plus the solid system of player development they have in place, gives them the ability to compete against a private school chock full of scholarship playmakers).  

 

You'll notice, however, that while Maryville and Alcoa will sometimes schedule a Div. 2 lower subdivision team like Webb, you don't often see them put one of the Div. 2 upper subdivision big boys like Ensworth or MBA or MUS on the schedule.  Why do you think that is?

 

So, non-scholarship private schools like CAK, which costs about half the tuition of Webb, strive to provide a good quality private (and most of the Div. 1 privates I'm familiar with are religious schools too) education and still field competitive sports teams.  Privates like CAK that play in Division 1 have to live under the "multiplier rule" for size classification purposes, which you're probably aware of.  Maybe you think the multiplier ratio should be higher; reasonable minds might disagree about that.  Public schools, even the ones that are "open zone" enrollment, don't have to labor under any kind of "multiplier" rule, but the Div. 1 privates do.

 

Would you think it would be fair to put ALL privates into one classification, even the ones that can't afford to give athletic scholarships to 5-6 football players (and athletes in other sports), like the Webbs, and MUSs and Ensworths (it probably has even more than 5-6 scholarship players on the football team)?  A lot of people assume that, since you're talking about a private school, everybody who goes there, and the school itself, must be filthy rich.  Having been at CAK for 13 years now, and knowing a lot of other CAK families, and quite a few at Grace too, I can tell you that it would be a wrong assumption to assume that there are just gobs of money lying around to pay for the scholarship athletes that would be necessary to not get your teeth knocked in every time you compete against the private schools that DO have enough money to essentially "buy" a team...well, they don't "buy" success, but they do buy some of the raw material that comes in handy when doing the hard work, etc., to succeed on the field.  

 

Another huge aspect is travel time and expense.  If you put all the privates in a separate division, then after CAK had played Webb, Catholic and Grace, it would have to schedule 7 more games in Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis.  There might be some privates in upper East TN but I'm not familiar with them.  Just during football season alone, that is more missed hours of school, more $ in gas and food expense.  Think about applying that to basketball; I assume you're wanting to be consistent and apply this new rule to all sports and not just football.  Think of the number of games that make up a regular season basketball schedule, then after the Knoxville privates play each other twice per season they'll spend an incredible number of hours during the school week driving to Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis for regular season basketball games.  Baseball?  Even MORE expensive and time-consuming if you adopt a rule saying publics don't play privates.

 

If you say, well, let's just apply the new rule to football, that makes it sound like the reason for the rule is because a couple of Div. 1 privates have had some notable success in football over the last few years and you're just wanting to adopt a rule to drag them down/put them in their place.  That's not a good reason for a rule.

 

Now, you might still disagree.  It's your right to do so as this is still America.  But hopefully this information helps you have a better understanding of the fact this is not a simple issue and is definitely a lot more complex than somebody's visceral opinion that the privates ought to keep to their own.

 

BTW, this whole debate about whether privates should play in Div. 1 is really not the subject of the thread.  If Catholic violated the clear TSSAA rules about providing financial aid to athletes, it should be punished at a level commensurate with the crime.  Same goes for any Div. 1 private that violates the rules.  On the other hand, I don't see how it fosters the spirit of athletic competition and sportsmanship and development of character in our youth to say to the Div. 1 privates who DO obey the rules, but yet can't afford the $150,000+ per year extra money it would cost to get scholarship athletes to be consistently competitive with the privates that DO have money to burn, that they're "not welcome" in Div. 1.

[MountainTroll]

I got no problem with privates, but the tuition records of all athletes should be audited by the T$$AA.  If any athletes are receiving financial aide, tuition support/subsidies, or discounts, that school should be DII.  Athletes should be able to transfer anywhere anytime and be immediately eligible for T$$AA sports, if the local school board approves the transfer.

[RONDO]

It's really not that hard to understand IF you're willing to understand it.  I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you DO want to understand, though I'm a bit concerned at your objectivity given your choice of words that privates "aren't welcome" in Div. 1.  It could be you're simply biased against private schools for some reason or maybe you haven't met enough private school people yet to realize there are some pretty good folks there, not all rich and snooty or whatever stereotypes you might have in mind.  Anyway, on the chance that you're willing to keep an open mind...here goes...

 

All privates cannot afford to give athletic scholarships like Webb, Ensworth and MBA.  If Webb, for example, has 5+ kids on scholarship and they are all playmakers, then week in/week out it will be extremely difficult for any school that does not give scholarships, public or private, to compete with them.  Your typical TN high school football team, with rare exceptions like the giants in Blount County, doesn't have 5-8 guys on the team who are capable of playing college football at some level.  Scholarship/Div. 2 privates usually do.

 

You'll notice looking back over Webb's history the last few years, the teams that beat them tend to be the larger public schools (yes, I know Alcoa's fans on here will point out that Alcoa is just a poor lil ole 3A public school, but they dress out about 90 players...that depth of talent, plus the solid system of player development they have in place, gives them the ability to compete against a private school chock full of scholarship playmakers).  

 

You'll notice, however, that while Maryville and Alcoa will sometimes schedule a Div. 2 lower subdivision team like Webb, you don't often see them put one of the Div. 2 upper subdivision big boys like Ensworth or MBA or MUS on the schedule.  Why do you think that is?

 

So, non-scholarship private schools like CAK, which costs about half the tuition of Webb, strive to provide a good quality private (and most of the Div. 1 privates I'm familiar with are religious schools too) education and still field competitive sports teams.  Privates like CAK that play in Division 1 have to live under the "multiplier rule" for size classification purposes, which you're probably aware of.  Maybe you think the multiplier ratio should be higher; reasonable minds might disagree about that.  Public schools, even the ones that are "open zone" enrollment, don't have to labor under any kind of "multiplier" rule, but the Div. 1 privates do.

 

Would you think it would be fair to put ALL privates into one classification, even the ones that can't afford to give athletic scholarships to 5-6 football players (and athletes in other sports), like the Webbs, and MUSs and Ensworths (it probably has even more than 5-6 scholarship players on the football team)?  A lot of people assume that, since you're talking about a private school, everybody who goes there, and the school itself, must be filthy rich.  Having been at CAK for 13 years now, and knowing a lot of other CAK families, and quite a few at Grace too, I can tell you that it would be a wrong assumption to assume that there are just gobs of money lying around to pay for the scholarship athletes that would be necessary to not get your teeth knocked in every time you compete against the private schools that DO have enough money to essentially "buy" a team...well, they don't "buy" success, but they do buy some of the raw material that comes in handy when doing the hard work, etc., to succeed on the field.  

 

Another huge aspect is travel time and expense.  If you put all the privates in a separate division, then after CAK had played Webb, Catholic and Grace, it would have to schedule 7 more games in Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis.  There might be some privates in upper East TN but I'm not familiar with them.  Just during football season alone, that is more missed hours of school, more $ in gas and food expense.  Think about applying that to basketball; I assume you're wanting to be consistent and apply this new rule to all sports and not just football.  Think of the number of games that make up a regular season basketball schedule, then after the Knoxville privates play each other twice per season they'll spend an incredible number of hours during the school week driving to Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis for regular season basketball games.  Baseball?  Even MORE expensive and time-consuming if you adopt a rule saying publics don't play privates.

 

If you say, well, let's just apply the new rule to football, that makes it sound like the reason for the rule is because a couple of Div. 1 privates have had some notable success in football over the last few years and you're just wanting to adopt a rule to drag them down/put them in their place.  That's not a good reason for a rule.

 

Now, you might still disagree.  It's your right to do so as this is still America.  But hopefully this information helps you have a better understanding of the fact this is not a simple issue and is definitely a lot more complex than somebody's visceral opinion that the privates ought to keep to their own.

 

BTW, this whole debate about whether privates should play in Div. 1 is really not the subject of the thread.  If Catholic violated the clear TSSAA rules about providing financial aid to athletes, it should be punished at a level commensurate with the crime.  Same goes for any Div. 1 private that violates the rules.  On the other hand, I don't see how it fosters the spirit of athletic competition and sportsmanship and development of character in our youth to say to the Div. 1 privates who DO obey the rules, but yet can't afford the $150,000+ per year extra money it would cost to get scholarship athletes to be consistently competitive with the privates that DO have money to burn, that they're "not welcome" in Div. 1.

I have a question...Does CAK give need based financial aid/scholarships ..as you call them..to students that are NON-ATHLETES??

[Warriors2011]

I have a question...Does CAK give need based financial aid/scholarships ..as you call them..to students that are NON-ATHLETES??

To the best of my knowledge, CAK does provide need-based financial aid (not full scholarships) to some students consistent with its Christian mission statement.  However, those students cannot participate in any high school athletics (including cheerleading).  I am personally aware of a couple of students who were receiving financial aid through middle school, and then, when it was time to go to high school, they had to either give up the sport (or in one case cheerleading) or transfer to another (public) school to play.  (CAK's middle school is not a member of the TMSAA--the middle school equivalent of TSSAA--and therefore not prohibited from having an athlete or cheerleader in MS who receives financial assistance.)

 

I suppose someone could argue that all privates should still move to Division 2 and, if CAK wants to be competitive in athletics, it should use the need-based tuition assistance that it currently gives to non-athletes to star student-athletes instead to help it compete with other privates who spend their available extra funds that way.  Personally, I think that would be a somewhat jaded way of looking at high school sports, but certainly someone who is dead-set against privates competing with publics might look at it that way.  

[Warriors2011]

I got no problem with privates, but the tuition records of all athletes should be audited by the T$$AA.  If any athletes are receiving financial aide, tuition support/subsidies, or discounts, that school should be DII.  Athletes should be able to transfer anywhere anytime and be immediately eligible for T$$AA sports, if the local school board approves the transfer.

[realmenwearred]

I would not have a problem playing the private schools if we had open enrollement, it would level the playing field.

[Pounder1]

Everyone knows that BOYD Buc is a private institution. How do they give tuition assistance to their athletes ? In other words how do they go about doing this. I heard a rumor that parents have to work so much at the school to defray some of the costs for their kids to go there. How does Grace do this? Also I know that Fant from Notre Dame came from Boyd so does he knows the ends and outs of this tuition assistant game? Just curious how are all these private schools getting around giving monetary help to its athletes ? They need to go division II and play the ones that pay as they do. Just my thoughts.

[Indian]

The teams like CAK would not be in a class with an Ensworth or BA. They would be in a small class or middle class. I can't believe that's still being tossed around but that kind of talk helped prevent a total split some 18 years ago. As far as playing a Webb or Friendship, unless those schools are particularly giving aid to athletes-which we're told doesn't happen, it should not matter. And there have been plenty of seasons a Goodpasture in football or other Division I privates in other sports would have won In Division II-small.

[Warriors2011]

The teams like CAK would not be in a class with an Ensworth or BA. They would be in a small class or middle class. I can't believe that's still being tossed around but that kind of talk helped prevent a total split some 18 years ago. As far as playing a Webb or Friendship, unless those schools are particularly giving aid to athletes-which we're told doesn't happen, it should not matter. And there have been plenty of seasons a Goodpasture in football or other Division I privates in other sports would have won In Division II-small.

I don't know who told you Webb doesn't "particularly give aid to athletes," but I know for a fact it isn't true.  In fact, it's not even close to being true.  When one of my son's CAK middle school teams played Webb a few years ago, only one player out of the 4 who touched the ball for Webb was NOT a scholarship player, and he was the son of one of the coaches of another sport at Webb.  This year's Webb HS football team has well-known players/stars who are scholarship athletes.  You would recognize these players' names as they appeared in the news regularly.

 

I'm not very familiar with Goodpasture's history, so I can't comment on your hypothetical about what Goodpasture might have done over the last few years if it had played in the Div. II small subdivision.  However, it is my understanding that, while Goodpasture has made it fairly deep into the playoffs a few times, I'm not aware of it getting over the hump and winning a state championship (I readily admit I could be wrong about that and just don't have time to research that side issue right now).  So, I guess I'll take an arguing point from the private school haters and phrase my question this way: If Goodpasture hasn't been stealing championships that rightfully belonged to publics, why are all the publics complaining about it?

 

As far as 3A is concerned, an interesting question would be this--do you 3A publics really want to have Alcoa beat you EVERY year?  If you get rid of CAK and CPA, you take away two of the teams that, every few years or so, might present a legitimate threat to knock Alcoa off.  Can anybody name the 3A teams that have beaten Alcoa in the last 5 years?  CAK has beaten them 3 times, Austin-East once, and CPA gave Alcoa a little competition in this year's state championship game.  If my memory is right, not a single other 3A team has even come CLOSE to beating Alcoa in the last 5 years.  NOT...even...CLOSE.  If I were a 3A public school fan, I'd love to keep CAK and CPA in Div. I because that increases the chances that every few years one of them might knock off Alcoa and my team might then be able to beat that team for a championship.

 

So, if all the public fans who want privates kicked out of Div. I get your way, enjoy having your teeth smashed in by Alcoa for the foreseeable future.  Your teams are not just all of a sudden going to get good enough to beat Alcoa.  Without teams like CPA and CAK in Div. I 3A, the chances of ANYBODY preventing Alcoa from winning a championship every year go way down.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Warriors2011

[MountainTroll]

If more local school boards allow more public schools to go open zone or the T$$AA lets kids living out of zone transfer to and play for public schools, there are a number of public 3a teams that could potentially compete with Alcoa

[Indian]

There is a difference in giving aid when a family qualifies for it, regardless of athletic talent, and seeking such players to give them aid. I don't think it's the aid as much as the higher percentage willing to even participate in sports. Look at the roster sizes for some of these Division I privates, compared to the number of males in the school.