Diogenes

Well researched and well written. Thanks for the effort. It afforded a lot of pleasure. You have an impressive knowledge of high school basketball. I have seen Slaughter play a couple of times for Shelby County. Any feel for how he will perform at the next level at Western Kentucky?

You guys on BGP are unbelievable! Three questions I thought were obscure, answered in about four hours. St. X is the first answer, Flaget the second, and Male the third. 02 Ram54 was correct on the record, so yes, extra credit. Your check is in the mail (or in the Male).

As they say in real estate...location, location, location. The same thing happens in other sports. Male, St. X, Manual and PRP were in the same district in football!

Jefferson County Football Since the playoff system began in 1959 one high school currently in existence has a winning record against every Jefferson County high school currently in existence. Name that school. Extra credit credit: One Jefferson County high school no longer in existence had a career winning record against the school in the above question since the playoff system began in 1959. Name that school. Extra Extra credit credit: What Jefferson County high school allowed the fewest points scored in a season since the playoff system began in 1959. Name that school. Hint: That team did not win state that year!

I must be suffering a brain infarction. I cannot remember a rock band at Trinity football games in the 1980's. Did they ever play at basketball games? DeSales has had a rock band perform for several years at basketball games, playing a lot of 60's and 70's hits. They have a relatively small gym, and when the band is rockin' the atmosphere is frenetic! I wish more schools had this type of setup. I wonder if Trinity would consider a reprisal of that tradition. They have had good teams with their current coach, and with a loud band their fans may blow the roof off the building.

Upsets, by definition, are when an inferior team beats a superior team. In the X-T game referenced above,T had the best player ever to play high school football in Kentucky, and went on to win state. Also, the 0-4 start was deceptive. T had played powerful opponents. They were hardly inferior. A similar occurrence was the 2004 X-T game, with T the three time defending state champion. X won big (38-16) but we know now it was not an upset because X was the state champ that year. The thread here is "Biggest upsets in high school football ever" and neither of those games even begin to qualify. All they would merit is sophomoric partisan needling of a rival. I admire H in his post above. He tried to post truthfully and cited an upset of his team, rather than hijacking the thread in a lame attempt to needle a rival. Two upsets spring to my mind: In 1999 Covington Catholic, 3A, upset preseason 16th ranked nationally St. X in the opener 24-14. X went on to take state: CC finished with a losing record. In 1991 tiny Holy Cross, with a 4-3 record (two of the wins vs. Iroquois and Western) beat Trinity 15-14 to end a fifty game win streak. Some of us would benefit from studying Copernicus. We (and our team) are not the center of the universe.

You can achieve this at your public school. Start with the base that the taxpayer has already given you- classrooms, labs, computers, parking facilities, football stadium, basketball arena, fully paid tuition, etc. Then, simply add in a fraction of your personal assets. Voila! You have a facility that exceeds the one at X. After all, in all its years X has never had its own football stadium. Neither have some other Louisville area Catholic schools: DeSales, or the late, great Flaget. As cautioned by your compatriot RowdyRedRam in his post above, there is no need to be jealous. If you desire a "facility like that" have your school community conduct its own drive for excellence. Of course, this will entail hard work and sacrifice, both more difficult than accepting government handouts and criticizing the hard work, sacrifice and success of others.

Congregation of St. Francis Xavier :thumb:

I have posited this question previously but have not yet received an answer. What if every student at a Catholic school received 100% financial aid and paid $0? Then the playing field would be level. The Catholic child would pay the same ($0) as the public child. Why does financial aid to privates matter? At most, it evens things out and removes a huge disadvantage for the private school student. What if only Catholic athletes, of all Catholic students, received 100% tuition? The Catholic athlete would pay the same ($0) as the public athlete! Where is there any advantage to tuition aid for a Catholic student?

I have thought for a while that the state would be better served if the games were played at Manual Stadium It is a better venue for high school football, the seats are closer, and it would cost much less to rent. There are a number of cafe/bars nearby to celebrate or to drown your sorrows. It seats enough for any game but X/T, and these two, in the event they met, could opt out and play at PJS.

Parking and ingress, egress are my concerns. Any information on how these are to be achieved?

Does X have a larger enrollment this year than T? I believe T had the larger enrollment a year or two ago. Anyone with updated numbers for these two schools? Re: your earlier mention of posts asserting that all male schools travel better than mixed schools-other than prior post speculations, has anyone come across any numbers to back this up? For example, does DeSales (3A all male) travel better than other 3As?

Must have been a tiny crowd for the game, then, as many on the X side were surprised at how poorly Highlands traveled. With such tradition, a much larger crowd was expcted to travel down I-71.

4A football began in Kentucky in 1975. Since that time there have been only two Jefferson County public high schools to win a 4A state championship in football. One of those schools was, as you noted, Male. The other won in 1979. That school was Butler. They triumphed over Henry Clay 21-7. Jefferson County schools have been the bridesmaid a number of times in 4A football since 1975. DeSales, a small Catholic school in the south end of Louisville, lost to Henry Clay 20-7 in 1981. The next year, a very good Christian County team beat a talented Southern team 10-3. Ballard was beaten by Christian County 14-10 in 1984. Manual was on the short end of the stick by 28-0 score against Trinity in 1988. Of course, both Trinity and Saint X have lost in the state championship game, most recently Saint X this past season. Trinity and Saint X have each won the 4A state championship a number of times since its inception. Saint X was the titlist in 1975,1978, 1986, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2004. Trinity wore the crown in 1976, 1977, 1980, 1983,1985, 1988, 1989, 1990,1994, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005. Note with Trinity there were two threepeats! Boone County has been to the title game four times, but has never won. Saint X has dropped three 4A state championships, and Henry Clay, Trinity, Male and Warren Central were runner-up twice. Two notable factoids: 1)Since 2000, there have been 12 teams to vie for the 4A state title. It has been an all Jefferson County affair, with the lone exception of Scott County in 2004. 2) Of the 31 4A state championships, 21 belong to St. X. and Trinity.

Quote: Originally Posted by centuriondawg WOW 14,000. Thats a lot. Next time I go to Manual Stadium I'll pay more attention to see how big their stands are. That is by far the biggest, that I know of, in the Commonwealth. I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day about Male and Manual stadiums and we came to this... Male's stadium is like Great American Ballpark, newer and more nice and good sized. Manual Stadium is like Wrigley Field, it has all the history in the world at that place. Not the nicest ever but very historic. Both places are great in their own ways. Maybe when it was built it had 14k, but I know that they took out a section of bleachers at the end of the field at some point in its history. Re: Centuriondawg-Excellent baseball analogy. Two great stadiums, and utilized by three excellent "home" teams! Re: ram2003-Indeed, you are accurate in that it was much larger when it was originally built. In fact, I am told that it originally was a bowl. There were seats at both ends of the stadium. I still remember the seats at the back end of the stadium away from the scoreboard. Eventually, they fell into disrepair, and were finally torn down. Centuriondawg, although the Web reference I cited above claimed 14,000 I do not believe that this number is accurate. If anybody gets an accurate figure on the seating capacity of Manual Stadium, it would be nice to see it posted. By the way, to shift gears for a moment, I have only been to Trinity's new stadium once but was impressed. Centuriondawg, you have expressed more of a preference for newer stadiums. Have you seen Trinity's new stadium? If so, your thoughts?

I found the following reference to Manual Stadium at the Louisville Bulls football web page: Historic Manual Stadium, built in 1924, seats 14,000. The field has a bermuda grass surface. Parking is available inside the stadium walls (on the baseball outfield). I did not imagine a 14K seating capacity. For some reason the figure 10,000 sticks with me for Manual Stadium, but as I age the memory neurons tend to misfire more frequently. I found a web site for marching bands that listed Maxwell Field's capacity at 8,000. Your assertion that Male's stadium is by far the nicer is correct in that it is the newer and I feel it is one of the Commonwealth's finest. I suppose it is the ambiance, charm and history of Manual Stadium that sway me, not to mention the walking distance to the historic eateries/bars in Germantown.

I am partial to Manual Stadium. It is the largest High School stadium in the Commonwealth, and one of the oldest. Find parking on a street in Germantown, stop in at Check's, Flabby's or one of the many other eateries/neighborhood bars, and then take in a game on a chilly Friday night. I saw my first high school game there in October, 1959, and it is pretty much the same after all these years. The ghosts of so many great players over the many decades still float across the turf. Hornung, Lyons, Brohm (Oscar), Bush...In 1964 I saw my first St. X-Trinity game at Manual. In mid-October 1967 on a cold, sunny Saturday afternoon Flaget met undefeated, unscored on Owensboro at Manual Stadium. Unlike many high school stadiums that feature only one school, Manual Stadium has been the venue for classic matchups between schools other than Manual. I am told that during the 1930's U of K played there at least once.

This is an issue that flummoxes me. What if every student at a Catholic school received 100% financial aid and paid $0? Then the playing field would be level. The Catholic child would pay the same (0) as the public child. Why does financial aid to privates matter to publics? At most, (100%) it evens things out and removes a huge disadvantage for the private school student.

One small quible with the X and T info: It is my understanding that 8th graders may begin lifting after acceptance, not after taking the test. There is a several month time period difference in the two. The placement test usually occurs in early December, and acceptance usually occurs in March.Thereafter, lifting can commence.

Brohm-Couch, Couch-Brohm. Didn't former first round draft pick, two time former Pro Bowler, former Super Bowl MVP, former Pro Bowl MVP, top twenty NFL history in passing yards Phil Simms also play a little football in Kentucky in high school? Just a thought before we get carried away by our partisan passions!

One more point I meant to make. An especially poignant moment occurred immediately after the game. An X player was crouched on the turf, obvously in grief. A T player stood beside him, hand on his shoulder, consoling him. This sums up the rivalry. Its more than wins and losses.

Congratulations to Trinity on a well executed game plan and their state title. Congratulations to St. X for a magnificent season that came up just short of a title. Condolences to Coach Glaser, who lost a father-in-law before the game. That kind of loss puts the other loss in perspective. I read in the paper that he said "I felt like I let the team down. My head wasn't into the game." He didn't. On this cold night in December Trinity earned a hard fought victory.

Go Tigers!!!! Gone to the game.

Saint Xavier: Trinity twice, Male, John Hardin, Manual twice, Bowling Green, LexCath, Highlands, Warren Central. The remarkable aspect of this schedule was that X was home team side only against Highlands.

A review ofthe various posts/threads regarding the Public-Private issue reveals one recurring theme that polarizes the two sides. The Public side argues that the playing field is not level because the Privates have inherent, natural advantages: numbers, money, etc.. The Private side argues that the playing field starts level but tilts toward the privates because of the affirmative steps private schools employ-harder work, better coaches, etc.. This leads to the public side feeling that the privates are arrogant because private schools impute that their actions lead to their success instead of their natural advantages leading to their success. The private side feels that the public side does not give them credit for what they believe is success based upon their extra efforts and sacrifices.