Under the Lights 2

Well you have been wrong all year, and I think your wrong about this too so I am going with Ryle!

I agree 100% on the educational reform for the record, and you are correct, it was not the Shamrocks that stirred the pot. In fact, most T alums I have met will fully admit that they had advantages, athletically and academically, over their public counterparts. It is part of life, some are given more opportunties than others for whatever reason, but it does not mean that those not afforded those opportunities are underachieving. Simply doing the best , in most cases, with what they have. I actually enjoy your insight and hope you understand that while we admire T and X, many of the public schools are doing the best they can but simply cannot overcome the multiple gaps between the programs due to the fact that we must, however irrationally, depend on those bureaucracies for our funding.

I am not in any way trying to demonize Trinity. And I am proud that my school does the best it can to provide for ALL students within the community. I admire the passion and commitment that alumni and students of Trinity display. You will understand then, that it is hard to stomach being labled an underachiever when playing by different values, rules, and regulations. It is a fair label for some, no doubt, but seems to be the rhetoric used to explain away differences. The question was what advantages do private schools have over public schools. I was, however misguided, trying to point out that having control over where funds are allocated is an advantage. Nothing more, nothing less.

So you are agreeing that having this option to not educate ALL special needs students is an advantage? If you take the difference in this choice, approx 20 million over 50 years, and apply it towards benefits and teachers salaries would the two schools not be pretty close to equal, aside from the fact that one school has to take all special needs students, and one does not? It is an advantage to allocate funds as you see fit and not be forced to meet the needs of the entire population.

You misread sir. We don't get to choose whether or not to take special education students, whether or not to fund those programs, whether or not to spend 50 years not doing so. It is a national directive that public education must follow. Just think of how nice the classrooms could be in public schools if we had spent 20 million, per school, funding them over the last 50 years rather than taking care of special needs students. The public school cannot cut special education, or reduce it, as private schools have and do. Instead those cuts come from athletics, coaches, classroom improvments, and educational faculty. All things he mentioned T was able to add. We simply aren't given that option.

Double Post

On your terms then, not taking into account other factors that infulence football playing students: Beechwood isn't supposed to be as good as Highlands (size/numbers) BW - 193 Boys Highlands - 400 Boys Approx a 50% difference 23 of the 30 non T or X 6A schools - 910-712 boys Trinity - 1453 boys Approx a 50-60% difference So again I ask, is Beechwood underachieving becase they can't beat Highlands. Want to argue that 7 teams are underachieving, fine. The rest are in the same boat as Beechwood, numbers wise.

So while you were building your football empire over the past 50 years all of these underachiving publics had to cater to these students that you chose not to deal with. That requires money and resources and lots of them. 10 teachers at approx 40,000 a year over a 50 year span. Yeah, I'm sure lots of football programs and for that matter schools in general could find a use for that 20 million. We don't have a choice in whether we deal with national priorities. Truthfully, they are no where near as important as other issues facing schools in communities across KY. But again, we aren't afforded that luxury. Someone has to take these students, and as you stated, No Child Left Behind isn't as important as your commitment to Catholic education. We don't get to choose what is important to us and what isn't.

But yet you have had plenty of time to develop your football program to a level well past the publics. I'm not buying it. I guess it is all about where your priorities, or in some cases national directed priorities, fall.

Ok, but what if Highlands had won zero state championships, was a school that was built in the last 30-40 years, and had 80% (or less) of the enrollment of T and X. Because that is the problem the majority of your 6A schools are facing. Apples to apples now. Go to practice at your local public 6A school. Go to practice at T/X. The advantages will become blantanly clear. Less paid coaches, fewer players out (and no, you can't convince me they aren't doing a good job getting kids out when it is like that at EVERY school in the state), etc. The question we need to be asking is WHY did Mitchell choose Highlands, WHY did McBroom and Brohm choose Trinity over all the other schools they could have attended. I'm not saying at all that these schools don't do a great job at developing what they have, they certainly do, but it helps to have a lot of motivated ammunition to throw at the dartboard.

But your not and you don't have to?? If we were boys only we would not have to adhere to Title IX, see what I did there??And if we could claim that we couldn't "meet the needs" of certain special education populations we wouldn't have to provide service to them either (because someone eventually DOES have to).

But yet has Alumni dating back to Flaget much further than that. And 1954 is STILL much further back than many of the 6A schools can claim.

I agree, you make some good points, and certainly some schools could do better with what they have. But it is foolish, in my opinion to assume that it is as simple as everyone underachieving. When did the Birds last beat T or X? Are they part of they underachieving 99% of the state because they haven't done it recently (to my knowledge)? Surely you don't think Beechwood is underachieving because they can't beat the Birds? Roughly comparable size wise to T and X vs. the rest of 6A right?

Interesting, I did not know that public schools in KY could take students from out of state. I wonder why people from Cincinnati don't send their kids to Highlands? Thanks for the info The other publics would agree that it IS very hard to gain ground on T and X, or Highlands for that matter. I realize that there is nothing that can be done to change this but that wasn't the question, the question was do T and X have an advantage over Highlands (and other public schools). Right? Longevity is certainly an advantage. Or were you just looking for answers that would suggest that other schools hadn't "figured it out"?

What about out of state players? Can/does Highlands take players that live in Cincinnati? I would think it would be an advantage to go to say, Indiana, and get some of the best players in that area. Guru do you really think that other public schools in the state, save Highlands, just haven't "figured it out"? Of the 24 publics on that list how many of them are not near the top of their state in male enrollment? An even better question, how many are schools that have been playing football for less than 30-40 years? An often discounted advantage that no school in the state can "figure out" is tradition and length of existence. It is no coincidence that the two schools in this thread have been playing football much longer than most schools in the state. Lots of proud alumni that donate and want their kids to go to school there.

If you blame them when you lose do you also credit them when you win? Based on the descriptions of the game I would have to say there doesn't appear to be much "class" from either side.........

Rest assured, Peterson will not play a down at any school other than Holmes next year.

I'm merely curious, but when has Highlands won with strictly homegrown boys in the last 10 years? Sure, there is plenty of talent in Bird land but I can't seem to remember a notable team without one or two players (at key spots I might add) from outside the "normal fort thomas area". You can call it what you want, but facts are facts.

If they hired the best candidate then it is a good hire. As far as the response, what would you have him say? Should he lie? You would rather have someone that would lie about their intentions than someone who would not?

Not a huge believer in ANY recruting ranking sites. A lot of bias, tie ins with certain HS showcase games, etc. The one thing that has really stood out to me over the last few years is that when a player commits early it tends to send them on a freefall down the recruting boards. People don't pay to look at guys who have already committed early. Haven't seen Manley play yet, but Pike has all the physical tools to play big time college football.

According to recent reports you can, in fact, do exactly that. All you have to do is "cut" guys that are already on scholarship. While I won't come out and say that UK would greatly benefit from recruiting ONLY the local players, I would point this out; Think of some of the BEST players to come out of UK in recent memory. The first two I think of are Lorenzen and Tamme. And doesn't UK kind of default themselves to being a middle of the road team by heavily recruiting places like LaGrange? I would venture to guess, and it is just a guess, that the BEST homegrown talent stays at home in those places.

Hiring Kenny Turner would be the biggest kind of mistake, what has he done other than run two successful programs into the ground? Surely the Camels can find someone who has had success and hasn't left any program he has been associated with in shambles, don't you think?

Truthfully the competitiveness of the small schools along the river has been spiralling downward over the last 10+ years. I'm not sure what to attribute it to but I know that surely it can't be just coaching. Bellevue, Dayton, and Ludlow have been virtual coaching carousels over the last decade. Some of those coaches have gone on to do very well other places. In fact, I'd bet that the constant coaching turnover is one of the many reasons these schools are struggling. I have heard that enrollment has consistenly declined, I'm not sure if that is true. Is the allure of the bigger schools facilities drawing kids away from these schools?

I agree with the idea that JS has but would add that it is just as, if not more, dangerous when the opposite approach is taken. Consolodating into larger schools does wipe out community and alumni support but so does county expansion. Take for example the Boone Co. schools. If lived on Pleasant Valley Rd 20 years ago you graduated from Boone Co. HS. Lets say you still live in the same area now and have two children ages 16 and 21. The child that is 21 would have graduated from Ryle, with the child that is 16 attending Cooper HS. How is that for parental support? 3 people living in the exact same place over a 20 year span would attend 3 different high schools. And don't even get me started on how the expansion of the school system further waters down the exisiting schools. The proof is in the numbers. Look at how BC has done against Trinity when there was no Ryle, then post Ryle, and now post Cooper. So what is the right answer then? Continue to add on to existing schools? Combine schools into "mega" schools? Keep smaller schools open despite enormous facility costs? I'm not sure there is a good answer that benefits both athletics and academics.