Small Town Schools

[tackle]

As I drove home to Tennessee from the Ole Miss/Bama game last weekend. I noticed something that is present there that you don't see in our state. Just about every little town I drove through had their own school and football field.

 

Very small towns like Falkner, Walnut, Blue Mountain and larger towns like New Albany and Ripley. I looked it up and found that Tippah County has high schools in Walnut, Falkner, Blue Mountain, Pine Grove and Ripley. That's 5 high schools in a county that has about 20,000 people. I crossed the state line into Tennessee and entered Hardeman County. Hardeman County has 4-5000 more residents, but only 2 high schools-Bolivar (3a) and Middleton (1a)

 

I just wonder if the Mississippi Schools don't have a higher percentage of kids in athletics than Tennessee does in the county schools that exist in so many areas here. I would think that more kids who live in Falkner, Mississippi play football for their hometown school, than would play if they just had one big school for all of Tippah County in the county seat of Ripley.

 

I know that Mississippi ranks at the bottom end on most educational rankings. I also know that Tennessee isn't very far ahead. I'm sure we will never go back to the small town schools in some areas for a variety of reasons (and some of them are good ones.)

 

When I was growing up in North Mississippi in the 70's, you just knew you were going to play football. We had about 40 boys play 7th grade football in a class of less than 50 boys. We watched several of the high school kids go on to play at Ole Miss and State, others played in the numerous junior colleges in Mississippi. Football was just what you did after school. The 8th grade team had similiar numbers.

 

I would bet that those percentages are down now from what they were 30 years ago, but I do think that there are many good reasons to keep small town schools. Some Tennessee counties still have the small town schools (Gibson County). I hope Mississippi will continue to do that.

[REBELRON]

In Blount County you now have Heritage,William Blount,Alcoa and Maryville.

 

In the old days you had Maryville,Alcoa,Friendsville,Lanier,Walland,Townsend,Porter and Everett. In the real old days you also had Hall High School which consolidated into Alcoa High School.

 

A lot of the old timers loved the smaller schools better.

[paper]

What was the point of this thread? Did you play football in the 7th grade or were you one of the 10 who sat out?

[tackle]

What was the point of this thread? Did you play football in the 7th grade or were you one of the 10 who sat out?

Paper, not that it is important, but I was one of the 40.

 

You are probably from Kentucky or Indiana and wouldn't understand any point made on a football message board.

[SCRAPPY]

I also wish this trend had never started. Smaller, community schools were spit out of Metro during the late '70s and early '80s when we lost Goodlettsville, Cohn, Bellevue, Madison, DuPont, North, Joelton, East and Two Rivers. It killed community pride and damaged all sports in Metro. Nashville's high school sports used to draw huge crowds. No more. Now, we've got monster schools like McGavock and Hunters Lane. Whites Creek's monster school sits nearly half-used. All in the name of progress. Go figure.

[HHS82MOM]

Tackle,

I enjoyed this thread also. I am from Blount County and I went to Everett,and my uncle was head coach at Friendsville. The memories of Friday nights at these small community schools will always be with me. The community spirit was so much greater back then. I grew up on high school football, and I sure miss the days!!!

Good post!!!!

[jebjensen]

From a parents standpoint, the smaller community schools have more of a feeling that is soon to be gone in todays society. Every school district is looking at the economical part of the issue and not whats best for the kids and communities. If you have a county that has 2 high schools vs a county that has 5 smaller high schools, there is a big difference in the number of kids that get the opportunity to participate in athletics. Once the schools are combined into 1 or 2 bigger high schools, the number of participants reduces obviously because you can still only put 11 on the field at a time. I played at a small school in VA. and the pride and loyalty of the communities in the smaller schools is more prevelant than that of the bigger county schools. True, the money plays a big part in the picture, but are we really trying to do what is best for our students or are we just trying to save money? It has been proven that a students best opportunity to learn and succeed is in the smaller setting vs the larger setting. Once there are 3 small schools that are combined into a large school, the community pride and loyalty are gone. We need to ask ourselves this question, Are we doing what is best for our kids?

[itzme]

I agree with your premise, but also believe there is another reason that participation is down. Think back to those days when many of us where in school, and how much time we actually spent on our athletics. I know for me and my peers, it was one season, and 2 hour practices. Contrast that with the students of today, and how much time they spend. Much longer practices, year round conditioning and "voluntary" workouts, etc. It is increasingly difficult to find three sport participants, when that used to be the norm.

 

For someone who is destined to be a non-star, the investment of time to benefit ratio has increased dramatically in the past thirty or forty years.The resulting lack of participation has changed many students from participants into spectators. Community involvement and interest is based in large part on knowing the kids who are playing, and that is just much less common now.

Edited October 22, 2003 by itzme

[big D]

come to wayne county and see the pride of playing for your community.

waynesboro and collinwood.

two of the top 1A teams in the state. Wayne co is one of the biggest counties in Tennessee and has three schools one that doesnt have football (Clifton)

 

both sidelines are packed with players filled with pride practicing hard all week to get that starting position.

the whole community is either at the ballgames on Friday or lisening to the local radio station.

 

in my opinion the loss of that type of atmosphere is due to a lot more private schools.

the first post mentioned middleton. i would guess that program would be unbelievable if all the talent in the community went there instead of a private school.

[XtremeLoco]

Roane County has 50,000 people and 5 High Schools. Midway(A), Rockwood(AA), Harriman(AA), OS(AA), and Roane County High School or Kingston(AAA).

[GregC]

If you have a county that has 2 high schools vs a county that has 5 smaller high schools, there is a big difference in the number of kids that get the opportunity to participate in athletics. Once the schools are combined into 1 or 2 bigger high schools, the number of participants reduces obviously because you can still only put 11 on the field at a time

I know this is a football board, but I think this is a good example of what we are talking about here. While Perry County's basketball is still very good, I think it was stronger back in the day when there were little elementary schools all over the county. Cedar Creek, Pope, Beardstown, Pineview still had schools when I was in school in the 70's, and my mom says there were even more when she attended school in the...She'd kill me if I said when she was in school... She has an old annual with her pictured in a Cedar Creek uniform when she was in the second grade. Think of all the kids who had the opportunity to play ball. And Perry County High got to pick from all these kids to put together a high school team.

[warriordawg31]

Tackle,

 

I also grew up in North Mississippi in the 70's, and we had 80-90 out for football every year. My graduating class was 111, and the male students numbered about 350 total. Pretty good participation. I remember we practiced during school, taking 4 classes per year. That has all changed. Several of us played Basketball and baseball as well, but the seasons conflicted very little.

 

Mississippi still has a lot of non-football playing schools. Union County has, I think, Ingomar, West Union, East Union and probably others that don't play football. They play basketball very well though.

 

We'll never see those days again. Where did you play, Tackle? I am an old Shannon Red Raider, Class of '78.