Level the playing field in HS athletics

  • After Iowa State won the Big 12, a Cyclone made a wonderful offer to We Will that now increases our match. Now all gifts up to $400,000 between now and the Final 4 will be matched. Please consider giving at We Will Collective.
    This notice can be dismissed using the upper right corner X button.

Cyclones125

Well-Known Member
May 3, 2016
243
340
63
That is an interesting idea. Maybe you should treat high school sports like they do club sports in Europe. Pick a number, say 6 is that magic number, top 6 in each class move up one class bottom 6 move down.

The same issue would happen as it does in Europe. The same teams win, get bumped up, lose, get bumped down. The only reason it sticks in Europe is because teams get increased funding for playing in the higher tier. I don't think the 3A schools are gonna be happy to win a state championship, get bumped up to 4A and then get their *** handed to them.
 

JMA1125

Active Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 7, 2014
276
235
43
Whats sad is the amount of money parents are spending on closed/competitive travel teams only to find out that little johnny might not be as good as we thought....
I’m sure that’s true in many instances. Luckily in my experience that hasn’t been the case. What I’ve seen is that parents spend the money a) to get their kid ready for HS sports, b) because middle school is probably where it will end for most of the kids and they want their kids to have a good sports experience, and c) because it’s fun for the kids and adults. Of all the “competitive” teams my kids have played on, fewer than half the kids ever expected to be able to make the team in HS (I live in a large suburban district). I’ll admit that my kids never played at the highest competitive level so maybe parents/kids who play uber-competitive sports have a different mindset.
 

JMA1125

Active Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 7, 2014
276
235
43
Yeah this is hard for my wife and I because we both grew up in rural NW IA and we both played multiple sports.
I have been pushing my kids to play sports that are either no-cut sports, like soccer and track, or sports that aren’t school varsity sports, like hockey and rugby. I want them to continue to play sports as teenagers regardless of the sport or where they play it.
 

cyhiphopp

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 9, 2009
33,267
14,536
113
Ankeny
Setting up a system that forces religious or private schools in Iowa to only play each other really does not work because of distance. But you have to remember, they would only be doing it for the playoffs, not during the regular season. So a kid from Sioux City would not be going to Davenport on a weekly basis.

The multiplier is the best solution to the problem, that would cause the fewest headaches for the state.

So with a multiplier, would you just have the biggest 4A schools and the private schools stay in 4A and everyone else bumped down to 3A?

Are there enough large/private schools to fill a whole division?
 

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
15,251
27,707
113
I’m sure that’s true in many instances. Luckily in my experience that hasn’t been the case. What I’ve seen is that parents spend the money a) to get their kid ready for HS sports, b) because middle school is probably where it will end for most of the kids and they want their kids to have a good sports experience, and c) because it’s fun for the kids and adults. Of all the “competitive” teams my kids have played on, fewer than half the kids ever expected to be able to make the team in HS (I live in a large suburban district). I’ll admit that my kids never played at the highest competitive level so maybe parents/kids who play uber-competitive sports have a different mindset.

Last year my son played baseball in the Open Baseball league in West Des Moines. They only had the numbers for 3 teams... Almost all of the other kids were playing in closed competitive leagues at 7 years old. It's a problem that's only getting worse. Don't even get me started on the financial side of privatized youth sports!
 
  • Like
Reactions: GT25Ump

IASTATE07

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
May 30, 2016
11,974
18,757
113
Last year my son played baseball in the Open Baseball league in West Des Moines. They only had the numbers for 3 teams... Almost all of the other kids were playing in closed competitive leagues at 7 years old. It's a problem that's only getting worse. Don't even get me started on the financial side of privatized youth sports!

Absolutely insane kids at 7 years old are doing that.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
15,251
27,707
113
I have been pushing my kids to play sports that are either no-cut sports, like soccer and track, or sports that aren’t school varsity sports, like hockey and rugby.

None of those sports are cheap ether... Even soccer gets really expensive when you start talking about the Select/Academy teams.
 

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
15,251
27,707
113
I'd be curious to know the numbers on kids who don't end up playing sports when they get older. Let kids be kids.

100% agree.

Last year the seniors on the Urbandale state championship Baseball team were the kids that played in the Little League World series. There were only like 3 or 4 kids on the team that played in Williamsport.
 

mustangcy

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
3,827
896
113
Bloomfield
View attachment 64928

Here are the locations of the 12 largest private high schools (based on enrollment in grades 9-12 only). the two dots in DSM are Dowling and Des Moines Christian. Other than DSM Christian all are Catholic schools. One of those schools plays in the highest league and another plays way down.

For those of you advocating a separate private school conference, do you A) think this geography spread is beneficial for 14-18 year old kids to play sports? or B) think a huge conference made up of schools ranging from 1,440 students (Dowling) to 187 students (newman in Mason City) is a competitive conference? Dowling has twice as many kids as the next largest private high school in the entire state. Don't you think it's better for those kids to play other schools of similar demographics, like Waukee, Ankeny, or Valley?

I can't imagine anyone thinking Wahlert in Dubuque playing St Albert in Council Bluffs is a good thing, or Heelan in Sioux City traveling to Assumption in Davenport for a Tuesday night basketball game is a good use of teenager's time.

C'mon man, you don't even have Pella Christian on this map. There are tons of religious schools left off this map. Also, public schools (and in turn the general public itself) should care zero what problems private religious schools have with scheduling. It's literally none of the public's concern. It's those private institutions concern.

If we are being honest I think a good deal of the enrollment in some of these private religious schools is based around athletics. Kids go there hoping to play on good teams, with good coaching. Take all that away and now we have more good students/athletes in public schools...which is what we should have.
 

JMA1125

Active Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 7, 2014
276
235
43
Last year my son played baseball in the Open Baseball league in West Des Moines. They only had the numbers for 3 teams... Almost all of the other kids were playing in closed competitive leagues at 7 years old. It's a problem that's only getting worse. Don't even get me started on the financial side of privatized youth sports!
Yes, baseball is the worst when it comes to cannibalizing. Soccer seems to be surviving this trend but I think it’s because in baseball a few dads can get together and form a USSSA team for leagues and tournaments. In soccer you need to play with a club and all the clubs have rec programs for people like me whose kids have all played rec soccer and like it just fine. I think youth basketball is trending like baseball- are there even rec basketball leagues at the YMCA anymore?
 

CYdTracked

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2006
16,956
7,651
113
Grimes, IA
There is 1 area where I wish Iowa would address and that is having a private school competing in smaller classes like 1A/2A sports. Specifically Des Moines Christian is one that has an unfair advantage against the small rural town schools they play. They are a private school so just like Dowling they essentially are able to "recruit" so the talent level they have compared to the small schools they play is usually very noticeable. They were in my school's conference and I remember just how mis-matched we were in basketball when their shortest player in their starting lineup was probably the same height as our tallest post player. Sean Sonderlieter who played at Iowa beat up on teams pretty easily as nearly every school in the conference had no one even close to his size to guard him. DM Christian basically makes the state tournament nearly every year because they have a fairly easy path to go through with their level of talent most years.

I get it, there are examples like this throughout time even with public schools as you can say there isn't a player in the state like Xavier Foster and at least when Harrison Barnes was playing he was at Ames and playing against good competition in the CIML and not some 1A/2A school. I don't know what the solution is other than maybe make DM Christian play in the CIML since they are a private school and other private schools around the state that can "load up" because of their private status have to play in comparable 3A/4A athletic conferences even if their school enrollment does not classify them at that level?

I am all for competition but what's the point of having classifications by school enrollment if private schools have an unfair advantage in the being able to stack their athletics when the public schools can't? A 4A school is obviously going to have a bigger pool of students than a 1A school will which is why they don't play each other. A private school also has a potentially bigger pool of students as well so why should they be allowed to play in a lower class?
 

BillBrasky4Cy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Dec 10, 2013
15,251
27,707
113
In Ankeny, between little league that I coach in and parks and rec, there are literally hundreds of kids at each age between 4-8 playing rec style baseball.

Yep, a friend of mines son plays in the Ankeny LL and it sounds like it's a really strong league, which is great! Unfortunately, West Des Moines doesn't have a good LL and the majority of play is in closed leagues. IMO West Des Moines Parks and Rec could do a lot more to help this situation.
 

Walden4Prez

Well-Known Member
Jul 8, 2014
2,327
2,333
113
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.
Public schools recruit too, to the point of setting up mailing addresses for families in the district etc. etc.
 

ISUTex

Well-Known Member
May 25, 2012
8,422
7,922
113
Rural U.S.A.
are you suggesting a pooled account that then gets divided equally between schools? then you start to punish those schools who do have fan support that usually comes from success


Agreed. All that will do is give Hoover a nice scoreboard. They will still suck and have little to zero fan support.