I'm not so arrogant to ever presume or say we have anything figured out. In fact, I often have far more questions than answers.
I would be interested in knowing what had you in the hallowed halls of 1500 Lincoln Ave so as to be able to make a comparison between Memorial and Southridge? Our students wear uniforms (including ties for boys), so the populations will look much different. But aside from that, I will agree with you 100% that the expectations for success in all aspects of the high school experience at a p/p school are very high, and there is likely a significant amount of students in most public schools whose parents do not have that same expectation.
I have great respect for Titan32, but his "effective enrollment" theory is flawed.
First, the timing has always intrigued me. We never heard about "effective enrollment" when GS was beating Memorial 3 straight years in football Sectionals from 2012-2014. It was only when Memorial beat GS 3 straight years from 2016-2018 that the theory first came to light.
Second, at one time the theory was that MD (500 students) had an effective enrollment similar to GS (700) students. Yet, Memorial (550 students) had an effective enrollment similar to Castle (1950 students). How can that possibly be when MD and Memorial are pretty much identical in nearly every measurable category? I suspect it might be because, with few exceptions, GS generally doesn't face MD in an IHSAA tournament, so it's a comparison that will never be "tested" on a playing field. If Memorial has an effective enrollment similar to Castle, shouldn't we have been able to better compete with an EC team last week (who has 700 less kids than Castle)? We got boat-raced.
Why doesn't Chatard dominate in all sports? As I understand it, football is pretty much it for them. Why doesn't MD dominate in boys soccer like they do in wrestling? Why is our girls soccer program so good but our softball program struggles something fierce? Why don't the advantages translate for the p/p schools in those sports?