Iowa prep sets national record

[V8305chevy]

Eh. My graduating class was 55. A pretty good percentage of our school was actually pretty attractive. More friends is debatable. I can say I was pretty good friends with my 54 other class mates as well as other people in other grades.
We also got our own laptops. They were okay to have, but a pain in the *** more than anything. Especially because our teachers wouldn't really utilize them, and most of us didn't want them to begin with. Although they did make study hall a lot less boring.

I loved going to a small school and I really don't think there's anything I would have liked about going to a big high school. Except for not having to play Emmetsburg in football. Screw those guys.

 

[awd4cy]

I would absolutely hate going to a 4A school. When I went to Wayne, we were still a 1A/2A school in every sport, including football, so there were quite a few more kids there when I was. But I would hate the idea of seeing someone new every day at school. I loved knowing everyone and having very tight-knit groups of friends that didn't require everyone in the group be on the football team (or some other extra-curricular).

I definitely don't want to raise my family in a 4A community. There are a few 3A schools that I wouldn't be unopposed to sending my kids to one day, but 2A or smaller is ideal, IMO.

I wen't to a 3A school and you still basically know everyone. 3A isn't even close to being too big.

 

[CyFan61]

I would absolutely hate going to a 4A school. When I went to Wayne, we were still a 1A/2A school in every sport, including football, so there were quite a few more kids there when I was. But I would hate the idea of seeing someone new every day at school.

Went to a 4A school and could probably count on one hand the number of people that I wouldn't recognize by name that I passed in the hallway. And even that might be high... Getting 100% wouldn't surprise me.

To be fair this was a smaller 4A school. But does seem like a lot of small school people have the fear that you are posting and it is just not true in my experience.

 

[tm3308]

From my experience at ISU, it seemed like this statement applied more to small-school people than to those from larger schools. The people who came from a small high school that sent a ton of students to Iowa State seemed to be the most "insular" in their social groups.

I'm guessing that's because the adjustment to a school like ISU is a bigger change for them so they lean more on the parts of their life that haven't changed so significantly.

That might be part of it, but I think if there were a group of friends from larger schools who all went to the same college, they would probably still hang out a lot, too. It's one thing to drift away from your high school friends when you go to a different college (I only have a handful of high school friends that I'm still pretty tight with, and actually several of those friends went to a rival high school). But if you're all at the same college, why wouldn't you still hang out?

 

[tm3308]

Went to a 4A school and could probably count on one hand the number of people that I wouldn't recognize by name that I passed in the hallway. And even that might be high... Getting 100% wouldn't surprise me.

To be fair this was a smaller 4A school. But does seem like a lot of small school people have the fear that you are posting and it is just not true in my experience.

How many of those people did you actually know, though? It's one thing to know a person's name, but I liked being in an environment where I knew at least 80-90% of the student body pretty well. Odds are that the fear is probably more accurate for the stupid big schools like Valley, Waukee, East and Lincoln. Maybe not for the Indianola/Urbandale-type 4A schools.

 

[besserheimerphat]

Why do some of you think there aren't any multi-sport athletes in the bigger schools? When I went to Ames, it seemed like nearly anyone who played one sport was actually in 2-3. I played football and threw shotput, and for one year I wrestled. Stuff like that was very common. As I recall, all of the best athletes actually played multiple sports. The IHSAA sets all the seasons the sam for everyone and they don't overlap much. So unless you wanted to play, for example, two fall sports there's minimal scheduling problem. Are sports clubs available in small towns that might cause conflicts? I'm thinking like club soccer or baseball, AAU basketball.

And I had friends from sports teams, and friends from clubs, and friends from classes, and I was able to navigate between the various social circles pretty fluidly. I think I knew probably half the kids in my class of 380 well enough that if I saw them on the street today I could address them by name and have a conversation (whether I'd want to or not is another story).

I coached junior high football for 6 years at Gladbrook-Reinbeck junior high. The high school was 1A at the time, but it has since dropped to A - the last couple junior high classes I coached (juniors/seniors now) were very small. It was to the point that if a couple kids were sick, we'd have to play people out of position to field a team because there were only 18 8th graders and 16 7th graders.

 

[tm3308]

Why do some of you think there aren't any multi-sport athletes in the bigger schools? When I went to Ames, it seemed like nearly anyone who played one sport was actually in 2-3. I played football and threw shotput, and for one year I wrestled. Stuff like that was very common. As I recall, all of the best athletes actually played multiple sports. The IHSAA sets all the seasons the sam for everyone and they don't overlap much. So unless you wanted to play, for example, two fall sports there's minimal scheduling problem. Are sports clubs available in small towns that might cause conflicts? I'm thinking like club soccer or baseball, AAU basketball.

And I had friends from sports teams, and friends from clubs, and friends from classes, and I was able to navigate between the various social circles pretty fluidly. I think I knew probably half the kids in my class of 380 well enough that if I saw them on the street today I could address them by name and have a conversation (whether I'd want to or not is another story).

I coached junior high football for 6 years at Gladbrook-Reinbeck junior high. The high school was 1A at the time, but it has since dropped to A - the last couple junior high classes I coached (juniors/seniors now) were very small. It was to the point that if a couple kids were sick, we'd have to play people out of position to field a team because there were only 18 8th graders and 16 7th graders.

I'm not saying no athletes play multiple sports at the 4A level. But 4-sport athletes are fairly rare at that level, whereas it's pretty common in smaller schools.

 

[bigdaddykane]

I'm not saying no athletes play multiple sports at the 4A level. But 4-sport athletes are fairly rare at that level, whereas it's pretty common in smaller schools.

its not that hard I could if I want to, but I don't want wrestle or run track

 

[tm3308]

its not that hard I could if I want to, but I don't want wrestle or run track

I'm curious to know what sports you do play, and whether you compete in AAU/USSSA/etc. I think there's often a higher level of commitment required among 4A athletes if they want to actually play for their school's varsity teams, which is what I think drives a lot of kids to specialize in just one or two sports. The best athletes can be good enough in some sports to still start without specializing in those sports (Tyus Mason at Valley in basketball is one of the most recent examples). But a lot of kids fall behind their peers if they don't focus more on a particular sport. You see a lot less of that in smaller schools.

In some ways, I specialized, but not at the expense of other sports. I played baseball, football and ran track, and baseball was always the one I cared about most and I put in a lot of extra time for that (my dad was the coach, so I hit year-round and did a lot of work on my own to get better). But I still worked hard for football, and I ran track to help me for my other two sports (why every athlete doesn't run track and/or wrestle is beyond me; either one helps an athlete in other sports, especially track). I was a lousy wrestler and basketball player, so I'd dropped those sports by the time I hit high school.

 

[besserheimerphat]

I guess I don't understand the focus on "starting" rather than participating. Yeah, it's more fun to be the starter, but most of my friends on the football team weren't starters and they still had a good time. Granted, our teams were usually pretty successful and many of the non-starters still got a chance to play every week. But I sucked at throwing shot, never threw varsity and only officially threw JV in like 3 meets my entire career, but I continued to go out because 1) it was good offseason prep for football and 2) I enjoyed doing it with my friends. I had a chance to be the heavyweight varsity wrestler starting my junior year, but I didn't like wrestling enough to go through the practices so I gave it up after my sophomore year.

 

[Cybyassociation]

How many of those people did you actually know, though? It's one thing to know a person's name, but I liked being in an environment where I knew at least 80-90% of the student body pretty well. Odds are that the fear is probably more accurate for the stupid big schools like Valley, Waukee, East and Lincoln. Maybe not for the Indianola/Urbandale-type 4A schools.

Sometimes its better not to know everyone. Life in the "real world" is not a small isolated little town. You'll meet new people every day. I have found though, through teaching, small town kids usually have better interpersonal skills and are better and talking with adults and people they don't know.

 

[VeloClone]

Somewhat smaller schools are nice for the marginal athlete. I was never particularly athletically gifted and uncoordinated as hell, but if I wanted to play a sport - or multiple sports - I had the opportunity. There was no trying out for a sport - you just went out and everyone had a roster spot. That didn't necessarily mean you played a lot or even at all, but you could still get the benefits of participating in sports. I played 4 different sports in my school days as well as several other extra curriculars. If I was at a larger school I might have made one or two of those squads (based on guts alone) but that would even be questionable. That is sad because I ended up being pretty good in two of those sports and actually made it to the state track meet. There would have been no way to know that when I was first going out and likely wouldn't have even made the squad to progress and find out. It is also likely that the larger school would not have been as forgiving about helping juggle sport practices and rehearsals for example. They seemed to go out of their way to encourage broadbased participation.

My graduating class was one of the largest ever at my school and was a hair shy of 200. In my opinion there are advantages to the different sizes of schools. Sadly, the smaller schools are losing many of their advantages due to budget issues.

 

[VeloClone]

By the way, congratulations to this kid. I am so happy there is small sided football available around the country now. Back in my day there wasn't in Iowa. When I was in 7th grade we teamed up with the 8th grade team for one game because the school we were playing had 12 players between 7th and 8th. They had to play 11 man or not play at all. During that game I couldn't help thinking that the lonely kid on the bench was praying that someone in a critical position wouldn't go down.

 

[besserheimerphat]

I can't speak for all the sports, but I know at Ames there were no "cuts" for football, wrestling or track. You were either varsity or JV, and for wrestling and track they had other meets where you could compete without being part of the varsity or JV point totals. There may have been cuts for basketball, baseball or soccer but I didn't play either of those so I don't know. When I was in school, if you weren't one of the starters for the varsity football team or one of the few important backups then you were on the JV team.

 

[Fitzy]

I think the thing that people don't realize is it's more than "starting"... It's representing your town/school. And when you get to do it for more than one sport like you can do at a smaller school, it's pretty neat. No one outside of the parents of the players cares about any levels below varsity.

 

[besserheimerphat]

I think the thing that people don't realize is it's more than "starting"... It's representing your town/school. And when you get to do it for more than one sport like you can do at a smaller school, it's pretty neat. No one outside of the parents of the players cares about any levels below varsity.

The only thing I disagree with is your implication that you can't "do it for more than one sport" at a larger school.

 

[Fitzy]

The only thing I disagree with is your implication that you can't "do it for more than one sport" at a larger school.

That's where I forgot to add that you don't have to be a superior athlete to do so. As long as you're above average, you can start in multiple sports at a small school.

 

[dualthreat]

Well, we've certainly come a long way from discussing a football player breaking a national record...

I'd like to read a post from someone who:

*Went to a small school but thinks large schools are better, or
*Went to a large school but thinks small schools are better

And most of the posts in this thread can be summed up as: I went to this size school, loved it, and have no idea how anyone could survive anywhere else

 

[cmjh10]

That's where I forgot to add that you don't have to be a superior athlete to do so. As long as you're above average, you can start in multiple sports at a small school.

example 1

cmjh10

 

[Fitzy]

And most of the posts in this thread can be summed up as: I went to this size school, loved it, and have no idea how anyone could survive anywhere else

See as how I now go to a school with 35,000 kids, I still am content to say I prefer the smaller size school in high school. Bigger is great for college.