LHSAA Football Split (1 Viewer)

[RJ in Lafayette]

I am assuming that this is the appropriate forum for this topic, but am wondering about the reaction to yesterday's vote to have a separate playoff system in football between the mainly private and the "non-select" public schools.

The irony is that, aside from John Curtis and Evangel in football, football is the one sport where the public schools dominate. It seems to me that yesterday's vote was something of a Trojan horse--that it was the first step towards a separate playoff or championship system in all sports, particularly wrestling and the other less celebrated sports like cross country and swimming and golf where the private schools are more dominant.

For a 5A private school, does it matter whether West Monroe (which amazingly voted for the separate system) or John Curtis beats you for a state championship? But as one who thinks that people too often use the slippery slope analogy, I do think that yesterday's vote is just the first step to a separate championship structure in all sports, if not separate high school associations.

And I also wonder abount the unintended consequences of this vote--creating or deepening division in the state, impacting support for public education, the willingness of the private schools to schedule public schools during the regular season as an economic disincentive with the separate playoff system, even (dare I suggest it) what type of tax system Louisiana should have with Jindal's desire to eliminate state income taxes.

In short, this was not a simple vote affecting just high school football championships. The catalyst for the vote was the dominance of Curtis and Evangel in football. But the reasons for the vote were many, and the consequences could be far-reaching as well.

 

[bigdaddysaints]

My cousin coaches at a small school and his school has never made it past the second round of the playoffs because they will never get past John Curtis..
I hear people say these schools like John Curtis don't recruit, but that's bull..
I think its a good thing for HS football.
Doesn't Texas do this as well?

a side note: my sister worked for the LHSAA for many years. I haven't talked to her since I heard about this. I'm interested in her take on this..

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Who Dat!

 

[FLIPPY]

This years state championship games were dominated by private schools, which, I think, ruffled many of the public schools feathers, hence the reason why the vote turned out like it did.

Me personally, think it's a crock....

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

I read on a blog the quote of a public school administrator who supported the measure under the rationale that the private schools created the problem of Curtis and Evangel in football so now they should have to deal with it.

But I doubt that most comparable states have the same tradition and history stretching generations of private and public schools competing for championships in football and other major sports. My guess is that in some of these states, private schools seriously competing for championships has been true for only the last 25 or so years, and a division between privates and publics is a return to the historical norm. Not so in Louisiana.

We will see. But the division cheapens a tad the winning of championships in football.

In football, the issue concerns two schools: John Curtis and Evangel. Over the past 22 years in 5A, only Rummel this past year has won. And though St. Thomas More in Lafayette has had an excellent football program over the past 20 years or so, it has never won a state championship. For the most part, the big Catholic schools in the New Orleans area and Catholic in Baton Rouge have fielded consistently competitive and top 10 type teams, but have not produced the teams that West Monroe and some other public schools have produced.

 

[jboudreaux90]

My cousin coaches at a small school and his school has never made it past the second round of the playoffs because they will never get past John Curtis..
I hear people say these schools like John Curtis don't recruit, but that's bull..
I think its a good thing for HS football.
Doesn't Texas do this as well?

a side note: my sister worked for the LHSAA for many years. I haven't talked to her since I heard about this. I'm interested in her take on this..

Sent from my Samsung Infuse using Tapatalk 2
Who Dat!

St. Paul's in Covington use to not recruit five years ago and they were awful. Now they give "Hardship" scholarships to the best players on the Northshore. Their traditional feeder schools are 99.9% white yet the sports teams are 50% black. It seems the only people that are there on a hardship are fantastic players.

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

Has anyone seen the football fields and other athletic facilities at West Monroe? If a school develops a reputation for excellence in any sport or other extracurricular activity, it will attract students, perhaps families moving into a particular attendance zone so that a son can play football at a particular school.

We will see how this plays out. I just think there will be unintended consequences. And there is talk of the state legislature getting involved.

 

[MLU]

WMHS's facilities are top notch, as are the coaches. Casey Sanders (WMHS Strength Coach) is every bit as good as Tommy Moffet (LSU Strength Coach). They tore down an elementary school and turned into a fieldhouse before I arrived and it was probably the best in NELA. They have much, much better facilities now and a good bit of it is privately funded I think.

 

[saintfan1972]

I wish the LHSAA would go back to letting the schools play up. They did this a few years back. Teams like West Monroe couldn't beat the Evangels so they complained and it got changed back. This would be one way to fix things. I would love to see a playoff with West Monroe, Evangel, John Curtis, Neville, and some of the other teams mentioned. John Curtis in 2A is a joke. There is noone who can compete with them. The problem with the system they just voted in puts teams like Carroll from Monroe in that group and believe me they don't need to be there. And if people think these private schools don't recruit, quit fooling yourselves. They can get kids from anywhere, while public schools have to stay in a certain zone.

 

[boutrous]

I am ****** about this. So now pretty much every school will make the playoffs? It's so stupid. This will only make the playoffs worse and less fair for all schools involved. What's the motivation to now play good in the regular season or to win your division? Who cares now because everyone gets in? All over sour grapes.... pathetic.

 

[boutrous]

I wish the LHSAA would go back to letting the schools play up. They did this a few years back. Teams like West Monroe couldn't beat the Evangels so they complained and it got changed back. This would be one way to fix things. I would love to see a playoff with West Monroe, Evangel, John Curtis, Neville, and some of the other teams mentioned. John Curtis in 2A is a joke. There is noone who can compete with them. The problem with the system they just voted in puts teams like Carroll from Monroe in that group and believe me they don't need to be there. And if people think these private schools don't recruit, quit fooling yourselves. They can get kids from anywhere, while public schools have to stay in a certain zone.

They already reinstated playing up for next year LONG before this vote. Curtis and Evangel are playing up to 3A next year already.

 

[saintfan1972]

They already reinstated playing up for next year LONG before this vote. Curtis and Evangel are playing up to 3A next year already.

That would have been good. They really need to go to 5A though because they can hang. They would have dominated 3A though. I know there's no easy solution but some public schools just can't compete with the priate schools. My fear is that some of the private schools may leave the LHSAA and make their own association.

 

[Twyst]

I am ****** about this. So now pretty much every school will make the playoffs? It's so stupid. This will only make the playoffs worse and less fair for all schools involved. What's the motivation to now play good in the regular season or to win your division? Who cares now because everyone gets in? All over sour grapes.... pathetic.

It's high school, I actually think it's a good thing that so many kids get to experience playoff football.

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

The problem is less recruiting--and strictly speaking all private schools try to attract and hence recruit students--than emphasis on football. Look at the top football recruits each year--they come from public schools.

Curtis and Evangel have decided to emphasize football to an extraordinary degree, and in part because of their success attract talented athletes wanting to play football. But doesn't West Monroe attract students for the same reason as far as families moving into that district so their sons can play football?

And to place magnet public schools in a different division for football is utter nonsense. Does Ben Franklin have a competitive advantage in football because it draws students city-wide?

When in two years the talk becomes to have separate playoffs in all sports, then you will see movement towards a second high school athletic association. It may be tough for some schools in north Louisiana because it has fewer private schools for the forming of districts. But this is where we are heading because certainly at the 5A level it has been years since a public school won a championship in a number of sports like wrestling.

 

[FLIPPY]

So where will the championship games be played? All in the Dome? Two weekends of games?

 

[Sun Wukong]

Curtis and Evangel have decided to emphasize football to an extraordinary degree, and in part because of their success attract talented athletes wanting to play football. But doesn't West Monroe attract students for the same reason as far as families moving into that district so their sons can play football?

It takes a far greater allocation of resourced to pick up and move school districts just to play football than to make living arrangements to send your kid to private school. It happens, but not nearly with the ease a private school can arrange for a kid to come play for them.

And as good as WM is, they got decisively handled 40-29 by Calvary Baptist from Shreveport this past season. These private school powerhouse teams have an advantage. Whether or not these measures are the rights ones, I have no idea, but they absolutely do.