MHSTigerFan

I was impressed by a couple sophs on the D line: Caleb Collins and Kelton Farmer. And I thought Farmer’s brother Aiden (a junior this year) deserved more accolades than he got for his play at DE. I’m pretty sure he led the conference in sacks. If not, he was up there. Also keep your eye on DC Ben Johnson’s sophomore son Carac at LB. He missed most of the season with a knee injury. But he played well after returning and that kid is a terrific athlete with a great motor. Just have to hope he can stay healthy.

I've also heard a rumor of a local offensive lineman transferring in. I put no stock in any of these rumors. For one thing, it can be risky to transfer schools -- as Curt Hopf can testify. Coming in from out of state is one thing. But across town? I'm actually kind of curious how Javonte Madison and Xavier Tyler transferred from Bosse to Central & Memorial with no IHSAA pushback.

I’ve heard the same thing. We’ll see. Caleb Ellspermann is quick, elusive, and athletic. And he performed well when called upon this year - especially in the win over Castle. But he may be better suited to be a slot receiver than a QB.

I mean...that’s a pretty thorough whipping. What was the score when they started putting reserves in?

Wow...didn’t see that coming. MD is young though. Should be tough next couple years. Quite an accomplishment for this team to get to SS.

Ah, but when looking at our record against Jasper, Reitz, and MD (Jasper just joined the SIAC, but we have played them every year for quite some time), most of the wins we've gotten recently came by way of the "once in a decade" situation you referenced earlier. We had our flourish with the Lindauer/Combs era. Prior to that, we had lost a slew of consecutive games to these opponents. It was, literally, around 10 or so. Your point about the "once in a decade" thing was intended to be the other way around, wasn't it? In other words, private schools would perform at a higher level than their enrollment might suggest on a relatively consistent basis. But a typical public school would only enjoy that success when they happen to get the rare phenom or group of phenoms. In this case, it worked the other way.

Naturally. But, of course, it doesn't matter what you or I think. There's a reason the IHSAA declined to separate out the PP schools into their own class(es) back in the c.2012 deliberations that produced the Success Factor. And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they were advised that such a policy would be grounds for an Equal Protection lawsuit.

You realize that the court wasn't asked to address the rightness of the TSSAA's pension system, right? They were asked (at this point) to determine whether or not the TSSAA was a state actor and thus obligated to honor constitutional protections like any other state actor. Courts don't usually answer questions they aren't asked. And, again, it seems entirely possible that not a single tax dollar actually went into their pension accounts -- merely that they used the existing state pension system rather than recreating the wheel. Anyway, flawed or not, the test they established is the one in force. So, like I said, I'm pretty confident that the IHSAA would be considered a state actor in any lawsuit.

This didn't become part of the entwinement test established by the court. And, besides, it's entirely possible that all employer contributions to these pensions were made by the TSSAA -- it just so happened that they were invested into the state pension system. I don't really know. But it's neither here nor there. As I said, the court established an entwinement test -- and employees having state pensions wasn't part of it. It was primarily the composition of the entity and the enmeshment with the state public school infrastructure. As I just said, 18 of the 19 members of the Board and the Executive Committee of the IHSAA are employees of public school systems. So, after looking into the Brentwood holding and the IHSAA's structure, I'm very confident that the IHSAA would be treated as a state actor.

Glancing at the 2020-21 Board of Directors, there are 19 members. Eighteen of them are from public school systems. One seat is explicitly held for a representative from a private school member. Same composition of the Executive Committee -- 19 members, 18 from public schools. Paul Neidig, the Executive Director, spent 31 years in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation. I don't think there's any question that the IHSAA meets the above listed criteria to be considered a state actor. They can't institute a policy that would be a violation of the members' constitutional or statutory rights. Due process, equal protection, the relevant sections of Title IX, all that applies to the IHSAA just as it would the IDOE.

It was, and still is. Here's a synopsis of this holding Again, I do not know if this was discussed during the deliberations which saw the creation of the Success Factor. I do know that the ruling was issued prior to those deliberations. And I do know that some people were advocating for a separate class for P/P schools (which you're doing here). And I also know this was not implemented. It seems pretty plausible that the IHSAA legal counsel advised them that they'd be considered a state actor in any litigation, which would bind them to the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws. Discriminating against Private/Parochial schools would be a pretty clear violation of the EP Clause. As such, the success factor rule they implemented applies to all member institutions.

Heh...it was, like, one paragraph. Simply put, the court found that the TSSAA was closely “entwined” with Tennessee’s version of the DOE, counted all of the public schools and corps in Tennessee as members, frequently traded staff with the public education infrastructure of the state, and offered taxpayer-backed pensions to employees. Hope that’s concise enough. Again, I don’t know if the courts would find the IHSAA similarly situated. But, again, I think it’s interesting to recall that there were discussions when the SF was adopted about separating out the PP schools in their own class. It didn’t happen. I’m not sure why - but it seems plausible that this holding played a part. That would’ve made them subject to an equal protection claim.

I did address your hypothetical. Scroll up. As for my question to you -- which wasn't a hypothetical...it actually happened -- you really can't square it with your stance. Saying "Well, I didn't have Memorial in mind" doesn't get you off the hook. And that's part of the problem of dealing in generalities as you are. It would make no more sense for me to address "public schools" as a monolith, lumping in the athletically slumping Harrison with normally strong programs like Castle and Jasper. If private schools really have advantages that result in a predictable elevation in athletics, then there's absolutely no excuse for one of them having decade-plus long losing streaks to several public schools in their conference, isn't there? Moreover, why are we (or Mater Dei, etal), perennially crap at so many other sports? I mean, wouldn't you expect that we'd have a bunch of basketball trophies? We've never been to the state finals in boys basketball. And we rarely win the SIAC. Our T&F has never been anything special. Our volleyball has normally been pretty weak - with last year being a notable exception. Our wrestling is typically a comedy show -- yet Mater Dei's is phenomenal. Moreover, our soccer is a powerhouse...but Mater Dei's, not so much (boys, anyway...their girls have been great of late). Our biggest SIAC challenger in recent years has been Castle. An SIAC school has produced the last 4 state champion teams in girls golf. It's not Memorial or Mater Dei, though. It's North. Are we just not utilizing our advantages well enough in these other sports? But I still come back mostly to our long period of losing records in football. That's what we're here to discuss. We went years getting our teeth kicked in, despite these advantages you say we have. There's another conversation about Roncalli elsewhere. Apparently, they had an extended down period too. This year, they're great -- and that has some people talking about doing something about it.

As I said above, if we really have access to all these advantages, we're pretty bad at taking advantage of them -- considering those loooong losing streaks to the likes of Reitz, Jasper, Castle, and Mater Dei. I had asked how this real-world (and not very ancient) history squared up with your "once in a decade" idea. But you never answered.

Did you see what Justice Souter said about this? I posted it above. The TSSAA had initially fought Brentwood's suit (it was a First Amendment claim) on the grounds that they were a private entity and that Brentwood, like all its members, was a voluntary member of it. As such, they believed they had no duty to respect the constitutional limitations the way a governmental agency would. Essentially, the court first held that TSSAA was a quasi-governmental agency (for the reasons Souter explained) and thus did have an obligation to respect the constitutional rights of its members. This allowed the lawsuit to proceed. With this, the court established what is called an "entwinement test" to determine when an agency like the TSSAA is a state actor. FTR, that doesn't necessarily mean that the IHSAA would be found to be a state actor by way of the entwinement test. But I'd be willing to bet that the prospect of this had a lot to do with the fact that the Success Factor was implemented, rather than a rule that was clearly discriminatory towards P/P member institutions as some had been advocating at the time.

If that's the case, then so much for the idea of a Multiplier or anything else that only applies to private school members. Again, I'm no lawyer -- and Muda's right that the IHSAA is technically a private organization. But it would appear that they're (correctly, IMO) regarded as a quasi-governmental authority and thus bound by the 14th amendment (as well as the 1st, etc.). But, here again, I think it's wrong for them to try to "throttle" anybody -- whether it's legal or not.

Well, nothing is stopping them from doing that. I think the ICSA is still around and consists of non-IHSAA affiliates. There may be others. But I don’t think any school voluntarily being in the IHSAA requires them to surrender their constitutional protections or absolves the IHSAA from having to respect them. The Supreme Court ultimately found that Tennessee’s sanctioning body wasn’t violating Brentwood Academy’s 1A rights by requiring them to comply with rules regarding recruitment. But the suit was allowed to proceed on the basis that the TSSAA was effectively a state actor. Well, the 14A guarantee of equal protection seems like it would make it difficult for the IHSAA to establish different rules for private school members than it has for public school members. I seem to remember some discussion about separating out the PPs back when the success factor rule was adopted. This happened after the Brentwood decision. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the Association’s legal counsel advised them not to go that route.

This is from Justice Souter’s opinion in Brentwood Academy vs TSSAA, regarding the latter’s standing as a private entity: "The nominally private character of the Association is overborne by the pervasive entwinement of public institutions and public officials in its composition and workings, and there is no substantial reason to claim unfairness in applying constitutional standards to it." The court ultimately found for TSSAA in a 5-4 decision. But they also had made clear that the TSSAA was still bound by constitutional standards.

True. But courts have in the past declared entities like the IHSAA to be quasi-governmental in nature. That could be operative in a number of ways — even things like 1st amendment cases involving prayer and such. And, of course, even being a fully private entity is no shield from civil litigation. I’m an employer and I can assure you that I’m expected to abide all sorts of anti-discrimination laws - including ones involving religion. I’m not sure if Indiana courts have ever viewed the IHSAA as quasi-governmental. But I do know that courts elsewhere have approached similar organizations that way.

I wonder if PP schools would have standing and grounds on which to sue the IHSAA if they were reclassified simply because they’re a private school. The SF, as ridiculous as it is, at least is based on objective criteria that apply equally to all member institutions. So, while I think it’s a bad policy, I’m sure courts would be very reluctant to get involved. But I’m not sure that would still be the case if classification policy was openly discriminatory.

To each their own, of course. But I think it’s a good thing to kick a little money their way to support televising sporting events....especially during Covid. I’m sure the IHSAA and the member schools have taken it on the chin this year. Seems like 20 bucks isn’t too much to ask to help the cause. I don’t have a team left...but I think I’d like to see Southridge tangling with Danville. That ought to be a great game and I’m a big fan of what Coach Buening has done at Southridge. And I’d also like the IHSAA to keep this up. It costs money to televise games and I doubt that advertising covers all the costs.

Uh, making a living as a doctor or attorney has very little to do with an employer giving you special consideration for where you went to high school. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that more of these sorts of professionals come from private schools (per capita, anyway). But I have a hard time imagining a hospital giving a hoot about where a prospective doc went to high school. They might care where you went to medical school, but that's not what we're talking about. I didn't bring up human capital, Titan did. I've repeated it because I find it rather peculiar terminology. I can't speak for anybody else, but all I've ever really cared about when hiring are things like experience, skills and qualifications, attitude, professionalism, cultural fit. I'll consider educational background when and where it's relevant -- such as with an accounting/finance position. But I can't imagine what would ever prompt me to consider the particular high school they went to. I never have -- and I've hired lots of people. I don't know for sure, but I suspect most small business owners would say the same. The point here is that all this supposed success we have is hardly universal. I'm not looking for any sympathy -- let alone somebody to change rules. Most people who do that are just sore losers. Lastly, most of the football success my school has had recently can fairly be chalked up to two brothers and their cousin whose mothers are twin sisters and whose paternal aunt happens to be married to our head coach....not because of some ethereal advantage we have for being a Catholic school. If that were actually the case, we wouldn't have been licking our wounds for the better part of a decade.

Well, I don't bet on sports at any level. And I sure as heck wouldn't bet on HS sports -- because it's a completely different beast than college or pro sports. I think one can assume that Duke basketball is going to continue doing well so long as Coach K is roaming the sidelines. HS sports have pretty much always been dependent on the state of their pipelines. And those are unpredictable. That said, if I were forced to make such a bet, I think I'd want more information about the schools than simply that one's public and one's private. For instance, here in Evansville, Reitz and Bosse are both EVSC public schools. One of them has a very rich football tradition and the other does not. As I said earlier, we went over a decade without beating Reitz up until about 3 seasons ago. Historically, I think most people around here would say that Reitz has the most successful football program in the area. Bosse, on the other hand, has had lopsided records for quite some time, and not in the good way. If you told me that the public school was Reitz and the private school was Memorial or Mater Dei, I'd bet on Reitz. Because history would strongly favor me -- even recent history. Over our last 10 matchups with Reitz, we're 4-6 (we played them twice this year after moving up to their 4A sectional) and that's after winning 4 straight.

Not only did I not say that, I pretty explicitly said the opposite of it. I only mentioned nepotism in unions because you did. But you had made an assertion different from nepotism -- you said that many employers favor private school grads. There's no evidence for such a thing. Nepotism typically involves favoritism towards family members. But it is not necessarily an overestimation of anybody's "human capital". Typically metric of merit are disregarded entirely. In other words, it certainly could involve overestimating somebody's merit. But it doesn't have to. Mmm, I don't think I agree with that. A whole lot of high income people are professionals of one kind or another -- physicians, attorneys, accountants, engineers. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that an inordinate number of these people went to private high schools. But that has nothing to do with employers favoring them in the hiring process because they went to private high schools. Many other high earners are high volume salesmen. There, too, this is something that one either is or isn't. Sales reports really don't care where (or even if!) you graduated high school. You either turn over a lot of business or you don't. First, you're the one who hijacked the thread with a tangent about employment. Second, that's not really what I've said. My primary point is that I don't think the IHSAA should be tinkering with rules in order to bring about certain favored (and thus prevent certain disfavored) outcomes based on some limited sense of relevant advantages and disadvantages. In reality, I think a "level playing field" is something of a unicorn. Nobody knows what kinds of athletes are coming up in what school programs at a given time. And it's not as if administrators can control, for instance, a great soccer player in the Evansville area from going to Memorial or one in the Fort Wayne area going to Canterbury. Of course the best players in a sport are going to have some extra interest in going to the best programs for that sport when they have an opportunity to do so. This is why I referenced some history here. In my school's case, it took us some 35 years to reach a state final in football -- despite all our alleged advantages. It took us another 10 to win one. We've never reached it in boys basketball. Our football team has been pretty successful of late. But, in between appearances in the finals, we spent a slew of years in the bottom half of our conference. Why hath thou foresaken us, advantages? Maybe they aren't actually worth what some presume? Besides, I can and did name a couple of places where P/P schools tend to lag their public school counterparts: budget and facilities. Titan dismissed these -- but, what else would he do? They don't really fit his narrative. But, if money spent on athletic programs doesn't have any bearing on the success of those programs, then why the hell are school corporations wasting so much taxpayer money? If they could have just as much athletic success with smaller budgets, then couldn't that money be put to productive use elsewhere?

First, my company is neither imaginary nor “podunk” - though, obviously, all things are relative. But I really don’t care whether you believe that or not. It’s of no consequence. Second, if you assert simply that nepotism exists in various forms, that’s obviously true - but hardly indicative of employers as some kind of quantifiable rule giving favor to alums of private high schools. You mention unions and in my experience skilled-trade unions are particularly ripe for nepotism....which typically involves legacy applicants irrespective of where they went to school. Third, you whiffed again on your empirical evidence. The study you linked had to do with a relationship between income and where somebody went to high school, not whether employers favor job applicants who went to private schools. Interestingly, that study found a relational link for females but not so much for males. It touches on various explanations, all of which seem logical but none of which being that employers leap down to the bottom of resumes to see where an applicant went to high school. Are there any studies you came across actually showing what you claimed? Because both of the ones you linked to show something else - and that’s a waste of both of our time.