everything HS sports should NOT be....

[jhc68]

Channel surfing tonight I ran into Fox Sports TV coverage of the big Southern California showdown: a football game between Oaks Christian HS and St. Bonventure HS. Both small parochial schools that regularly beat the bejabbars out of every school that has to be content with athletes who actually live in the legal boundaries of their respective school districts.

When I happened on the game Oaks Christian was leading by 40 points midway through the 4th quarter. Naturally, OC still had all their starters in (all's fair, if St. Bony had been ahead by 6 td's they would have left their starters in, too... I've seen it from them time after time.) The TV guys said OC had to run up the score in order to make a statement to the national media.

OC's starters include a senior QB headed for Notre Dame (who had been held back a year in school by his parents so he'd be ready to play varsity ball as a 9th grader) and a running back whose father played in the NFL and whose family lives in Palmdale (maybe two hours from the Oaks Christian Campus each way in typical morning and afternoon LA traffic... not to worry about the commute, though, the kid has been living with the QB's family for the last 3 years!).

Anyway the running back scored by following a talented lineman into the end zone. The TV guys were enthusiastically describing how the lineman had transferred this year from Lancaster, also a two hour drive from the OC campus. They didn't say whose family the lineman was living with. The TD was either the 101st or 102nd career TD for the running back, nearly all of them coming at the expense of small public schools with about as many players as OC has coaches. Oh, yeah, OC needs a lot of coaches because it is a combined middle and high school, so kids can be in the football program from 6th grade on. The TV guys seemed convinced that this game was high school athletics at its best.

I kinda got mixed up about how many career TD's the kid had since I was fighting back the urge to puke.

[tafnut]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

Both small parochial schools that regularly beat the bejabbars out of every school that has to be content with athletes who actually live in the legal boundaries of their respective school districts.

Maybe it's not the same in Cali, but in Florida, public schools routinely go outside of their boundaries to get athletes. Although 'recruiting' is illegal, there's MANY ways around the rules, and it happens often. I'm betting there's 'suspect' transfers into public school powerhouses all the time out there too.

[bad hammy]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

Both small parochial schools that regularly beat the bejabbars out of every school that has to be content with athletes who actually live in the legal boundaries of their respective school districts.

Maybe it's not the same in Cali, but in Florida, public schools routinely go outside of their boundaries to get athletes. Although 'recruiting' is illegal, there's MANY ways around the rules, and it happens often. I'm betting there's 'suspect' transfers into public school powerhouses all the time out there too.

It happens out here in public schools, but is more common in private schools. Much better funding.

[tafnut]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

It happens out here in public schools, but is more common in private schools. Much better funding.

It's the funding issues that get schools caught for recruiting, so the money NEVER comes from the school; it comes from 'boosters' who care just a wee too much about high school sports. If drug runners think they're good at laundering money, they should check out what's happening out behind the gym.

[bad hammy]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

It happens out here in public schools, but is more common in private schools. Much better funding.

It's the funding issues that get schools caught for recruiting, so the money NEVER comes from the school; it comes from 'boosters' who care just a wee too much about high school sports.

For a number of reasons going back decades, the funding for the CA public K-12 school systems is abysmal. As a consequence, educational achievement in public schools has dropped dramatically, and therefore it is near universal that those families with the means to afford it put their kids in private schools. The public school system still has plenty of students, but outside of those in a small number of wealthy enclaves, their parents do not have the deep pockets to fund significant ‘booster’ programs.

As far as I know, private schools do not have geographical boundaries concerning where their students come from. Public schools do have these geographical boundaries to contend with. Some work to get around them, but the private schools have a much easier time recruiting.

[tafnut]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

Some work to get around them, but the private schools have a much easier time recruiting.

Several Florida schools have gotten the 'death penalty' (no school teams are eligible for post-season play for a year) for getting caught with their hands in the recruiting jar. Same in Cali?

[bad hammy]

Re: everything HS sports should NOT be....

Some work to get around them, but the private schools have a much easier time recruiting.

Several Florida schools have gotten the 'death penalty' (no school teams are eligible for post-season play for a year) for getting caught with their hands in the recruiting jar. Same in Cali?

Don't know off the top. I do know that there are several high profile public school athletic programs in my area that make no secret about having kids from outside their geographical sphere, and have faced no sanctions that I am aware of. So if there is any enforcement, it is very lax at best.

[dukehjsteve]

"Recruiting" like that happens in basketball too. Isn't it amazing, that when Indy-domiciled Mike Conley ( that's our Oly champ 3j'er Conley) was coaching an AAU basketball team about 4 years ago, for which his son Mike Junior played, and an Illinois giant named Greg Oden also played for, that within a year said Greg Oden not only moved to Indianapolis, because his mother"got a job" here, but she moved into a home in the same school district ( Lawrence North) as Mike Junior ? Of course the Lawrence North coach ( Jack Kiefer) professes NO knowledge of any of this. 2 state championships later ( or is it 3 ? ), both Greg ( # 1 recruit in the entire world) and Mike Jr. are now frosh at Ohio State this fall.

[tandfman]

The principal of my junior high school was a golf buddy of the principal of the best high school in the county. The JHS was not in the same part of the county, and if the normal geography rules were followed, nobody from my JHS could have gone to this very good HS. But a handful of the kids in my JHS with the best grades were told each year which courses were offered by the good HS and not by their own local HS, so if they wanted to go there, they just had to profess an interest in one of those courses. The admins made sure that the paperwork was done right and sent directly from the JHS to the good HS.

Sports had nothing to do with this at all. The HS (which had absolutely awful teams) simply wanted the best academic kids it could get and through this personal connection, they found a way to recruit a half dozen bright kids who were willing to double their commuting time to get a better education.