KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
As a Cardinal alum and former player …
That was over 40 years ago, though - we were actually 2A back then, went 7-2 my junior year … good times, good times
Iowa High School BEDS count 24-25
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As a Cardinal alum and former player …
That was over 40 years ago, though - we were actually 2A back then, went 7-2 my junior year … good times, good times
Bob Gerard coached team I bet, they made the playoffs 3 or 4 years ago, before losing to SK.As a Cardinal alum and former player …
That was over 40 years ago, though - we were actually 2A back then, went 7-2 my junior year … good times, good times
It actually makes a ton of sense. The city is growing away from East and the boundaries have gotten so out of balance that there is basically a space crisis at the middle school level on the West/South side of the city.
Should have done this years ago.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
Between 1972 and 1988 Waterloo had three high schools. Now they’re going to just one.
Waterloo East has been struggling mightily with participation for decades. Pretty sad when their history includes players like Reggie Roby and JJ Moses. I don’t know if it’s cultural or economic or what, but their programs have just not had numbers in forever. Similar to the Des Moines schools, I guess … plenty of students in the buildings, but participation in sports and other extracurriculars just isn’t there. Even West, which is a really big district, hasn’t had a lot of sports success over the past 10 years or so.
And as someone just said above, the distribution of students across the two districts is all out of whack. It’s probably easier to just combine instead of trying to convince a bunch of West families to move to East.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
I was there when Coach Gerard took over as head coach in 1980, I think, he was a good dude. My avatar picture is me catching a TD pass at West Burlington.
They did have a good run for a couple of years not too long ago, must have had some good athletes in a couple of adjacent classes. I remember a couple of years where they went undefeated in non-district games, and then promptly lost every district game, lol.
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G was always one of my favorites, the stories he told about the army and the school was always worth hearing over a beer or two. He really loved his Busch lite.
I would think Girls Wrestling has caused some issues too. Now the athletic girls have another sport to divide them. This is not a complaint or a bad thing, having more options is a good thing, it just might be causing some of the issues. That being said there are other issues as well, less kids interest in sports, more club sports as mentioned, kids focusing on 1 sport rather than several etc.
Not the case at multiple HSs in NE Iowa that I am aware of, including DNH. All or most of their top VB players also play BB.
A lot more kids are specializing in one or two sports these days compared to 25 to 30 years ago when they played all of them. Once the fall sport was over, they would start the winter sport and not play that fall sport again till the next season. Those days are now gone, which leads to smaller numbers out for a each sport as fewer kids are playing multiple sports per season,
Club sports are killing the multi sport athlete and it's getting hard to be a multi sport athlete if you want to play a varsity sport in high school at a big school or in college at least at any level above D3. It's not impossible but if you want say play college baseball and you're not in some specialized training for that year round the deck is definitely stacked against you. On the flip side of that most kids will be money ahead if you were to dump all that money into a 529 instead of private coaching.
Here's the thing with that, several sports are already combined for the Waterloo High schools and several more are throwing kids out there that should be playing JV instead of Varsity. For whatever reason kids just aren't going out for sports. Might be socio-economic, might be the coach is an ass, could be a dozen reasons. Combining the schools doesn't really fix that. If you're one of those kids that plays a little but doesn't start and now all the sudden there's twice as many kids going out for pickleball why would you bother? There's a lot of people here that think this is going to solve Waterloos athletic woes but I just don't buy it. Talking with the former superintendent about this way before it was public knowledge they were looking into it because they were hoping this would allow them to consolidate some of the more advanced classes rather than having them half full at both buildings with two teachers to support it. The other thing with this is they built a fantastic technical program with 15 career paths that's already shared between the two schools and at the site where this new school is going. This would make it so kids don't have to drive between the buildings during the day like they are now.
Also there's a couple coaching vacancies at the high schools right now and in my opinion they should just combine them now rather than try and hire a coach for 2 years.
You're dead on as far as athletics. That horse is so far out of the barn that there is no getting back to being anything other than marginal. West decided that politics and playing the 'right' kids from 4th grade on was the most important and East lost the socioeconomic lottery. Combining probably helps SOME but they still won't compete with CF, Liberty, Kennedy, LinnMar, City West, Prairie, Western Dubuque.
One high school is going to be GREAT for the city as far as academic achievement, access to better facilities and tech and opportunity in general but it's not going to make any noticeable difference athletically.
Careful you don't say that too loud. There are some people who are convinced that adding the two kids on the East football team who are good enough to play for West is going to make them state title contenders. I only have one kid who played sports there who's in college now and my youngest is a junior so I don't really have a dog in the fight at all but I'm generally pretty objective. Other than the football coach none of the coaches at West should feel too confident that the head job will be theirs at the new combined school and even with him I'm not sure if he's better than the guy at east, just has enough kids that stay eligible they're a middle of the pack team. Until more kids start specializing in one sport and playing it year round in Waterloo they're going to be middle of the pack at best in 4A/5A sports. That's really hard to do because there aren't that many private coaches around for any of the sports. The big Nielsen kid who's committed to play tackle at Iowa has been going to work with a guy down in Coralville pretty much every night in the off season for 3 years now and the kids in CF who make it all go to the cross fit place in the industrial park to work with private coaches there. Hardly any Waterloo kids are going there for workouts and that's what it'll take to get ahead for them.
Fun fact. It was Waterloo East who played Ames and Freddy in the 1991 state basketball championship.
I’ve seen people say this but WHY? I’m seeing it in Ankeny - almost no girls playing basketball in high school.
My kids do a lot of club sports.
We don’t do it because we think they’ll get a scholarship. We do it because they tell us they want to and it’s fun. No coach any of them have ever had, even the private ones, have ever even mentioned that.
Sometimes you spend money and time on fun things and that’s okay.
A couple reasons, IMO...
1) Volleyball is a lot more accessible at an earlier age. They play on a lower net and it's a more fun game.
2) You have to be a good athlete to play both well but basketball takes a lot more skill development and, especially, cardio.
Depending on your growth cycle you can still keep up in VB. I’ve seen tall youth posts not focus on ball handling when they stop growing and turn out to be averageish height, fall apart due to a poor handle. VB even the hitters will need to be okay passers.
It’s too hard is the excuse we get. Some girls work on bball and are skilled and others just want to show up and play. Doesn’t always work out and they just quit.
Would you say the girls playing club volleyball generally are friends with the other players and that enhances their experience?
