Level the playing field in HS athletics

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isucy86

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Apr 13, 2006
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Dubuque
Winning would probably increase the number of kids that come out for a sport. In football that is a huge issue. DSM area schools like Ankeny, Valley, Waukee and Dowling all have 60+ kids on their varsity football teams. Whereas many of the metro teams appear to have 30-40 kids. IMO it becomes a safety issue in football.

I'd prefer where metro area schools are historically bad and roster numbers low that schools be allowed to combine. In DSM combine Hoover with Roosevelt and North with East.

It was interesting that the article mentioned kids just taking up sports at the start of HS- if that is the case metro schools will never do well because kids at suburban schools are playing competitively at 8-10 years old in most HS sports.
 
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CyCrazy

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Dec 17, 2008
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Ames
I went to a private school that was very good at athletics. We played up because we could. The richest public schools still ended up winning the championships though.

Here's my take: public schools have unlimited funding. The only restriction is what the district wants to spend. Private schools have to fundraise for everything. My parents give to my (and their) alma every year though no one has gone there in 20 years. Neither my wife norher parents have ever given to their alma mater. My point is people who select where they go probably have more motivation to see it succeed. Does that translate to athletics? Maybe.

Private school kids shouldn't be punished because their parents have more money, or they're better listeners, or have more time to practice. Life doesn't kick out richer kids, why would athletics?

Kind of unrelated, but if the rich schools win everything why are the majority of NFL and NBA players from poor backgrounds?

What world do you live in where public schools have unlimited funding? The wife spends a lot of money out of our pocket every year even in Ames.
 

mb7299

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Mar 15, 2013
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Winning would probably increase the number of kids that come out for a sport. In football that is a huge issue. DSM area schools like Ankeny, Valley, Waukee and Dowling all have 60+ kids on their varsity football teams. Whereas many of the metro teams appear to have 30-40 kids. IMO it becomes a safety issue in football.

I'd prefer where metro area schools are historically bad and roster numbers low that schools be allowed to combine. In DSM combine Hoover with Roosevelt and North with East.

It was interesting that the article mentioned kids just taking up sports at the start of HS- if that is the case metro schools will never do well because kids at suburban schools are playing competitively at 8-10 years old in most HS sports.

Having coached at an extreme poverty school for basketball that is very true about kids taking up the sport only when HS starts, you literally have no chance to compete in skilled sports and unfortunately because of numbers those kids have to play varsity against kids that have gotten a lot of coaching for close to 10 years. The well to do communities should do well at the state level most years because of their advantages.
 

3GenClone

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Jun 28, 2009
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Des Moines
My kids attend a small school so I'm looking from the outside in on the situation. A big question that I have (because if I lived in a larger city it would probably be the position that we would lean towards), do many of the parents send their kids to a private school to get them what they feel is a superior academic learning situation which also then leads to those private schools also having a better athletic situation. It seems that the parents that send their kids to private schools are more involved in their lives and can afford to send them to extra camps, clinics, aau teams and such. Obviously there is some recruiting at them, I had friends who were talked to by the catholic schools and told how they would find host families for them and everything, but that is a small percentage of the population.

In what I've seen from the private schools that have been around me, it's the more involved parents who generally are more financially well off that send them to private schools and that also leads to the teams having more student involvement, better financial support and less academic causalities

This is what I've seen and besides having public and private championships, I don't know how you would change this.
I grew up in Clive and went to WDM Valley, so this has definitely been eye-opening for me. It wasn’t uncommon for kids to open enroll at Johnston or Waukee so they could make the Varsity team. I remember that we had 120+ kids try out for the baseball team and this was almost 20 years ago so I’m guessing this is true at the other suburban schools. I ask my kids friends what sports they play and find that they aren’t involved in anything. If they do want to take up a sport, it won’t be until JH or HS at which point they will have to learn the game whereas their counterparts at the suburban schools will already have played the sport for 8+ years.

Like I said before, I don’t think this is a sob story for the DM high schools, but I do think it makes the conversation worth having.
 
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WooBadger18

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Sep 5, 2012
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I'm not saying what *does* happen. I'm saying *what could happen*. If the school board wants to bond for $2m for athletic upgrades they can. If they want to bond for $20m in upgrades they can. I know this is unrealistic in reality, but compare that to a private school that has to go out and fundraise from a small pool of alumni.
Sure, and private catholic schools could ask the vatican to give them money. It won't happen, but it could.

I think this is a conversation worth having, and I agree with the DMPS that it should be based on resources. Because the issue isn't Dowling vs. Waukee, it's Dowling, Waukee, Valley etc. vs. DMPS.
 

SEIOWA CLONE

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Dec 19, 2018
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I'm not saying what *does* happen. I'm saying *what could happen*. If the school board wants to bond for $2m for athletic upgrades they can. If they want to bond for $20m in upgrades they can. I know this is unrealistic in reality, but compare that to a private school that has to go out and fundraise from a small pool of alumni.

You do realize that to pass a bond for anything like you are suggesting requires 60% of the voters in the district to pass it at the ballot box.
Which would be opposed by every farmer or factory owner, because it is going to cost them more money in taxes.

Iowa needs to follow the led of Illinois and use the multiplier too determine the class that each plays in. When you have a school like IC Regina playing Class 1A football and beating 3A teams like Solon before the district starts you have a problem.

The non suburban schools will always be at a disadvantage in atheletics, I believe the DM city schools do not have MS sports because of budget cuts, most are full of lower income parents.

The state needs to radically change the way they class schools, because just using number of students in grades 9,10,11 is not working or fair to many districts.

But after coaching for 30 years, I know the atheletic union will do nothing, they do not care about anyone but the haves, not the have nots.
 
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twojman

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Jun 1, 2006
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Clive
Waukee high school gym has a video board. Hoover can barely keep the lights in the scoreboard going.

Maybe the best thing to do is equalize funding across all districts. Many poor districts can't pass bonds as the citizens can't afford it.

Soccer is a sport I love and have noticed such a difference. Kids in the suburbs are getting professional coaching at age 8! City schools don't get that.
 

WooBadger18

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Sep 5, 2012
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I fully understand. My issue isn't the schools not having the best facilities and I think that's a side-point that wouldn't matter too much. My HS didn't even have a football field we went to state in the highest class 3/4 years I was there (won it once). We didn't have a hockey rink and we went to state once.

My point is that many of kids who go to the poorer public schools are in families that don't play "traditional" sports or can't get a family schedule that allows them to succeed. Conferences based on enrollment alone won't fix that. On the flip side, none of you have presented a solution and most have disagreed with my opinions, one being don't punish private school kids for their parents having more money/time/whatever. I'm not saying Dowling should play Ballard in sports. I'm saying until there is a better metric what else can you do? Iowa is weird because there are so many medium-sized metro areas which makes it tough
It's not a punishment to make you play against schools that are more on your level.

And I don't know too much about how it works (but it sounds like @harimad does), but a multiplier that took resources into account would probably be a good idea. So primarily based enrollment with resources also playing a role.
 

SEIOWA CLONE

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Dec 19, 2018
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I fully understand. My issue isn't the schools not having the best facilities and I think that's a side-point that wouldn't matter too much. My HS didn't even have a football field we went to state in the highest class 3/4 years I was there (won it once). We didn't have a hockey rink and we went to state once.

My point is that many of kids who go to the poorer public schools are in families that don't play "traditional" sports or can't get a family schedule that allows them to succeed. Conferences based on enrollment alone won't fix that. On the flip side, none of you have presented a solution and most have disagreed with my opinions, one being don't punish private school kids for their parents having more money/time/whatever. I'm not saying Dowling should play Ballard in sports. I'm saying until there is a better metric what else can you do? Iowa is weird because there are so many medium-sized metro areas which makes it tough

Did you not say you went to a private school? How is it far, that a school like Holy Trinity can recruit from an area that includes Keokuk, Fort Madison and the surrounding area, but then turn around a be classed with the smallest schools?
I worked with a coach and parent and he would tell me how the church had their auction for the year, and raised tens of thousands for the school. He pointed out, all tax deductible.

Whether we like to admit it, being in a wealthier district allows the kids to get private coaching, playing on travel teams and everything else that goes along with it.

Just like the SEC does not want to see change in the college football playoff format, religious schools and the wealthier suburban schools will fight any change that causes them to loose the advantages that they currently have.
 

IASTATE07

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The idea that private schools recruit is laughable. Maybe the Oak Hill all-athletics type schools, but drawing kids in from a wide geographic area is not recruiting. In MN there is a hockey school that DOES recruit (Shattuck-St Mary) and they don't even play other MN high school teams, only other interstate hockey schools and national teams.

I'm sure plenty of people in here know a guy whose cousin's friend's brother was offered some sweet gig at Dowling but wanting your gifted kid to go to a good school isn't recruiting.

You're not familiar with Holy Trinity.
 
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Rabbuk

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Mar 1, 2011
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The idea that any regular private school recruits is laughable. Maybe the Oak Hill all-athletics type schools, but drawing kids in from a wide geographic area is not recruiting. In MN there is a hockey school that DOES recruit (Shattuck-St Mary) and they don't even play other MN high school teams, only other interstate hockey schools and national teams.

I'm sure plenty of people in here know a guy whose cousin's friend's brother was offered some sweet gig at Dowling but wanting your gifted kid to go to a good school isn't recruiting.

I'm not arguing for or against anything specifc, by the way.
It's pretty common in big cities for schools to recruit athletes. Maybe in Iowa it seems far fetched. Watch hoop dreams and then times that by 100 and that's what Chicago sports is like.
 

theshadow

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Apr 19, 2006
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You can apply any and every convoluted formula conceivable in an attempt to "level" the playing field, but when it's all said and done every game still has a winner and a loser.

The change in number of teams in 4A (football) resulted in Waterloo East moving down to 3A last season. They still went 0-9, with only one of those losses by single digits (Webster City).
 

IcSyU

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Nov 27, 2007
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Rochester, MN
The idea that any regular private school recruits is laughable. Maybe the Oak Hill all-athletics type schools, but drawing kids in from a wide geographic area is not recruiting. In MN there is a hockey school that DOES recruit (Shattuck-St Mary) and they don't even play other MN high school teams, only other interstate hockey schools and national teams.

I'm sure plenty of people in here know a guy whose cousin's friend's brother was offered some sweet gig at Dowling but wanting your gifted kid to go to a good school isn't recruiting.

I'm not arguing for or against anything specifc, by the way.
I'm not going to say it doesn't happen because it does but it happens a lot less than people think...in Iowa at least.
 

SEIOWA CLONE

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Dec 19, 2018
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The idea that any regular private school recruits is laughable. Maybe the Oak Hill all-athletics type schools, but drawing kids in from a wide geographic area is not recruiting. In MN there is a hockey school that DOES recruit (Shattuck-St Mary) and they don't even play other MN high school teams, only other interstate hockey schools and national teams.

I'm sure plenty of people in here know a guy whose cousin's friend's brother was offered some sweet gig at Dowling but wanting your gifted kid to go to a good school isn't recruiting.

I'm not arguing for or against anything specifc, by the way.

That is foolish at best, I have seen it happen in person. Players at my school being contacted by players at private schools to gauge their interest in transferring to the private school. It generally happens as the student moves to 9th grade from 8th in Iowa. That way the kid does not have to sit out 90 days to play.

No one is saying that these kids are getting buck for doing it, but its silly to say its not happening. Private schools can pick and choose who they let in, the public school really has no say. Athletes will always want to move from poor programs to winning programs, but private schools do recruite.
 

IcSyU

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Nov 27, 2007
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Rochester, MN
That is foolish at best, I have seen it happen in person. Players at my school being contacted by players at private schools to gauge their interest in transferring to the private school. It generally happens as the student moves to 9th grade from 8th in Iowa. That way the kid does not have to sit out 90 days to play.

No one is saying that these kids are getting buck for doing it, but its silly to say its not happening. Private schools can pick and choose who they let in, the public school really has no say. Athletes will always want to move from poor programs to winning programs, but private schools do recruite.
Wait, so now a high school kid talking to his buddy is considered "recruiting?" Wtf. We gave the kids at the public school in town crap all the time playing basketball at the YMCA and stuff and you would say we were recruiting them? Lol

And most private schools don't pick and choose. They'll do everything they can to make sure a kid who wants to enroll is able to.
 

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