Just a dad

On 4/26/2024 at 8:33 AM, Muda69 said:

Can you please provide details about this low cost HS education?  Also besides tuition have you also payed for travel teams,  workshops, camps, personal coaches/training, etc. for your two children in your quest for an athletic scholarship?

And what colleges/universities that cost $250k for A 4-year degree are offering your children athletic scholarships?

1. Didn’t say it was all athletic scholarship money. Academic scholarship money and forgivable grants are nice, too.

2. Indoor track is a thing in Indiana

3. Do some research into the cost of private HS tuition after the $7k state credit and other incentives. You will find that it is less than $6k/yr. If you choose the right school

4. Played a few years of 7v7 but that cost is nothing. No private trainers or coaches, no workshops, no paid recruiting consultants, 2 single day college camps (about $150 total).

5. Club VB is a killer (mostly due to hotels) but Title IX should make that a low risk investment in the future. (I offset 2/3 of that cost by coaching for the club)

6. Don’t make this an us vs them competition, dude. It’s possible to want every kid to succeed. 

11 hours ago, Firsttimeformerdad said:

Forgive him, he moved in from out of state to get his boy a ring.

He actually has 3 rings. 2 sport star. They are shiny. Daughter will probably end up with 3 as well. Both will get to play college sports on someone else's dime. $500k worth of free college education for my kids for just a few years of high value, low cost HS education.  I’m like the Warren Buffet of choosing High Schools. 

I’m done with this subject. You clowns bore me. 

23 hours ago, HHPatriots said:

I weep for these poverty programs.

You have beautiful facilities up there in the cornfields. Between the stadium, gym and school grounds it must have cost you tax payers millions. I am sure Chatard will miss using them during their warm up for their playoff run this year. 

11 hours ago, Bobref said:

Interesting that you chose that example as a possibility. 

Is it? My mind would go there with any school that is on their 4th HC in 7 years. Especially with the one they just ran off having won Marion County Coach of the Year the year before. I would hope the Administration realizes that they will be losing talent to the new top program in the south (Center Grove) now so this may not be the prime opportunity they think it is. Unless LH is returning from college to carry the ball 40+ times a game I don’t think the Admin will be happy with anyone. Do you have any thoughts that would be constructive to this topic?

Nobody “turning” just think a good coach got run out and am curious as to why. Admin speak is always double talk. 

Is “philosophical differences” code for “wouldn’t play the rich donor’s kid”?

20 minutes ago, jets said:

Hahahahaha....you wanna talk about "EGO!?!?" How much of an ego do you need to have to just honestly believe "we win because we just WORK HARDER, have a better FEEDER SYSTEM and it is our CULTURE." 

Like no one else has figured out those things. 

That, sir, is an EGO. 

See @foxbat. They are easy to find.

4 hours ago, foxbat said:

So I'm not sure I qualify as the guy you are looking to answer.  My parents both had Catholic education all of their life with my mom finishing from a Catholic college and my dad leaving Catholic college for the military and then finishing from a public university.  I went to Catholic school through 6th grade and then did public school for everything else through college.  Two of my kids have attended Catholic school, but all have also been homeschooled and attended public schools ... my three girls from Jeff and my oldest son finishing at Harrison this year and the youngest probably attending Harrison part-time for high school.  Nonetheless, I've been thinking about this issue for a bit and frankly, haven't yet been able to come up with a set of items that works for the argument as to why p/ps, in general win, that can then be applied across the board.  What I have been leaning toward though is something akin to the idea that it's less categories and more programs.  When I look at the issue in short timeframes, like this thread does every season, it's fairly easy to generalize.  Even when several short-terms are pieced together, that generalization is easy, but some things don't seem to specifically match up with the general premise.  With that said, I'm coming at this very much so from an Indiana perspective with some additional insights from Texas and Louisiana; but mainly Indiana.

The premise has often been, if there isn't some advantage, then how does x percentage win y percent of the time?  @Bobref has pretty much trademarked on GID that correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation.  That got me to thinking through some things that, rather than focusing on the generalities and trying to make an all-encompassing theory, I'd look at some case studies and try to work from there.  Also, and I don't recall who it was that asked the question in another thread, but what got me thinking about this was a general question that was asked about 6A ... which was never really fully answered or even really solidified.  The question was, and is very similar to the question first posited in the thread, "Why is it that only four teams/programs have ever won 6A?"  It went on to, and rightly so, point out that there weren't similarities between the schools as there are differences in size, FRL items, communities, offenses/defenses, etc. It just kind of ended up as a mystery.  Four teams out of roughly 40 teams that have been in and out of 6A since its inception 11 years ago, roughly 10%, have not only won SOME of the titles, but ALL of the titles in that class.  What is the categorization that defines that four programs that you could "bottle" or is it something much more complex that can't fit on a bumper sticker?

So let me start and see if the idea can perhaps be expanded by others with some real discussion on things.  The program that I'm most familiar with is LCC.  A couple of my kids attended Catholic school until the 3rd and 5th grade, but I coached in a youth program there for 18 seasons.  LCC first started playing ball back in 1958.  As seen in a couple of other threads currently in play, while LCC has a mystique about it that has it mentioned as a storied p/p powerhouse, it's really been about the last 15 years or so that LCC has probably earned that mystique.  It entered into a storied four-peat era back in 2009-2012, but prior to that, it was pretty much feast or famine according to season outcomes on Harrell's.  So I'll ask the first question that catches my eye with LCC and the statements often made about p/p in general.  If p/p have the automatic advantage, why did LCC have such gaps between its pre-four-peat timeframe?  Starting from 1976, until 2009 ... a 34-year period ... LCC got out of sectionals four times with gaps of 13, 10, and 6 years between each.  Incidentally, in every season for LCC, until 2021, when their season ended without a state title, it came at the hands of public schools ... only the last three seasons, in 2A, has LCC's season been ended by another p/p.  BTW, not just one p/p-killer public school, although Pioneer has a storied tradition for jousting with LCC, but over a dozen public schools have delivered deathblows to LCC's post season.  So if the idea that there's an inherent p/p advantage that LCC has, then why was it not there in force in the 34-year period and, probably more importantly, what were the MANY public schools doing that was causing LCC seasons to end really early in that timeframe?

Of course, Noll is always mentioned.  Noll has a very storied past in that it never seemed to have any p/p mojo outside of 1989 when it won 3A.  Outside of that, according to Harrell's, Noll made it to a sectional championship only three times, never making it out of the sectional, and has been ousted in the first game of sectionals for the last decade ... all by public teams.  

Ritter has an amazing past.  Five state titles with three in 1A and two in 2A.  For a long time, they were one of the poster children for p/p dominance, but now, closing in on a decade, no one whispers their name anymore.  Their last state title was in 2016; however, since then, they haven't made it out of a sectional.  They've also not even been close oustings.  The closest they got was this year's 23-point second sectional game loss to Eastern Hancock.  Maybe they have a string of "bad classes" ... the opposite of those "good classes" that public school lament might SF them unfairly into the next higher class ... but, for all of the talk about p/p mojo, four losing seasons in the last seven and three of the last four would seem to indicate that reloading, which is fairly automatic for p/p schools as I've been told, would seem worrisome and not in line with the meme.

Heritage Christian ... an often forgotten p/p ... maybe because they aren't Catholic.  Only has around a two-decade history history according to Harrell's.  Has back-to-back state appearances in 2007-2008 with one blue ring.  Outside of that, two sectional titles in 2019-2020.  Has a mix of being ousted by both public and private schools.  Fairly good records, but not really drawing any of the p/p ire directed at the categorization as a whole.

Culver Academy has been around since the mid-1980s, yet only has a pair of sectional titles spaced a decade and a half apart ... 2000 and 2015.  Again, almost never referred to or draws the ire of the p/p category and I've NEVER in over two decades of being in Indiana ever once heard anyone talk about the unfair advantage that Culver Academy has, not only as a p/p, but a p/p that has had students on its rosters from foreign countries!  Wanna talk about recruiting or being outside of a youth program circle?  Also, Culver Academy used to be Culver Military Academies, so I'm pretty sure that their lack of state titles wasn't due to not being competitive.

Again, I don't have a specific answer to your question because the general answer that folks hope is given doesn't fit with all of the categorization.  Just the subset above actually refutes the generalized statements that tend to be made.  Also, I see the issue as being more complex than many of the bumper-sticker takes that have been bantered around.  I think there's something to be said for focused, driven groups in a school, but similarly, I would contend that Noll, LCC, and others have been equally focused, driven, etc., if the narratives are to be fully-embraced, but the outcomes don't seem similar.  With that said, what I think MAY be an issue is that there may be advantages that come from said make-ups, but that they aren't uniformly autonomous and that what's actually happening, which dovetails back into the 6A questions is that programs, and not necessarily categories, have figured out how to wield/harness the power as opposed to demographics.  I also believe that, and Ritter and LCC look like interesting cases for this, that while a program may be able to leverage some type of advantage, it isn't necessarily something that's inherent and automatic by birthright of categorization and, for example in the case of Ritter, it may be something that isn't eternal.

I have learned in a very short time on the GID that some of the people are so attached to their narrative that it has become a defining part of who they are. To admit that there might even be the slightest chance that their chosen narrative might not be 100% correct causes them so much cognitive dissonance that they won’t even give credence to a differing perspective. They have chosen to go all in on the “it’s not fair” argument and that is all it will ever be. You choosing to supply facts and data will never counter their preferred explanation. After all, if they admit that “it’s not fair” is wrong then they are suddenly forced to face the fact that it comes down to something else. Maybe personal accountability. Their egos are too fragile to deal with that. Nice post though. Don’t be surprised if you get blasted by the fairness brigade. 

13 minutes ago, JQWL said:

You know, sometimes I like to do things for entertainment purposes. The other day, I emailed an athletic director at a private school in the state. Basically that my son was getting interest from some small D-1 and NAIA programs and we were interested in transferring him for his senior year to better prepare him for college. Mentioned he is a solid student. Top 10 in his class. Things like that. I feel like the AD probably should have just told me that transfers for athletic reasons aren't allowed in Indiana. However, I was referred to their Enrollment Director to set up a meeting. I didn't take it any further than that.

Now email the same guy and tell him your kid has a SAT score of 1500 and wants to get into Harvard but isn’t good at sports. I bet he tells you the same thing. Not quite the “gotcha” you were hoping for.

Clearly the God that the Catholic schools support is better at football than the god that public schools choose to (or choose not to) support. The big time version of “My dad can beat up your dad!”

12 minutes ago, cloudofdust said:

Thank you for the very thorough explanation of the rigorous enrollment procedures. It's not an exaggeration when I say I actually  read most of it.😉 Narrowing 27,390 students down to just 900 (3%) is no small task indeed! 

The law of supply and demand is basic economics. When demand is low and supply is high, you lower the cost and/or standard. If numbers are truly at the top of the list, I would suspect that strategy would be in place.

It's apparent that a student/athlete's decision to attend one of these schools and their dedication and commitment to their faith, school, teachers, administrators, parents and self is truly unparalleled. 

Conversely, public schools have registration day. Five minutes of filling out forms gives you a genuine ticket to ride!

Additionally the State of Indiana pays a little over $10k per public school student per year (your tax dollars). A school accepting the voucher is only paid $7k. This starts the accepting school off in a $3k hole per student (they then make this up with the additional tuition) and benefits the State by the same amount. A P/P of 800 kids starts with a deficit of $2.4M.

The IHSAA is a business (google “IHSAA salaries”) that works in conjunction with the State of Indiana. All of these discussions about separating P/P from public would likely cause the P/P schools to leave the IHSAA and form their own organization. This would be a not insignificant hit to the IHSAA’s bottom line. Do you think the IHSAA wants to see their $150k salaries be reduced?

Also, there might be a few families that then decide to send their kid to the public school (if they are chasing a ring) which would cause the State’s expenses to increase. 

This is a symbiotic relationship that benefits the parties that make the money. As George Carlin said “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!”

2 hours ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

No it was all complete sarcasm. Just repeating what I always hear about why Chatard is so good. 50 years of foundation laid for them to be where they are...or they are just pulling from 4 different feeder schools in Indianapolis. Take your pick.

Here is a photo I saw on X yesterday of the Chatard State Championship team from 25 years ago. To save everyone from having to count (unless you love seeing enormously oversized shoulder pads), there are 31 kids in uniform. What’s my point? Every program has to start somewhere. Chatard didn’t get to 85 on varsity overnight.

4 hours ago, US31 said:

Odd that you view a kid that takes rigorous academic classes and participates in various extra curricular activities as a kid that needs to be "carved out".

In my eyes those kids are valuable participants at whatever school they attend.  

The point is that at some schools...there are a large proportion of kids that won't ever attend or participate in ANYTHING...sometimes even school iteself.  Public schools have to count all these kids toward their classification numbers.  The amount of these kids at a p/p is going to very small; and,  as you had mentioned previously, at many affluent suburban publics this will also be a small number.  At some high poverty urban or rural schools...this number is high.  This is the difference between public and p/p....not that kids are "recurited" or anything else.

To be clear...I was never a proponent of SF or a class "bump" for p/p's.  I would have preferred a "clearninghouse" method of counting enrollment (i.e. kids who want to participate in ANY extracurricular - football, sports, music, student gov, or even those parasitic robotics and chess club kids you despise, would be "counted" as they fill out an inschool clearing house form.). Most schools already have a code of conduct form that extracurricular kids have to complete (or something similar) so its not a hard number to determine.  This number would be used for classificaiton.  The percentage of kids in the clearinghouse would probably be very similar between Chatard, Zionsville, Brebeuf, Carmel....but drastically different at Elkhart, IPS, South Bend, etc.

 

 

Just for clarification: I don’t despise those kids. Just the opposite. I was pointing out the absurdity of omitting any group of students based on the fact that they won’t contribute to the sports program of choice. Every school has kids with other interests. 

10 minutes ago, JQWL said:

I think you're right. I feel like I have been unfair with my opinion of private schools and the challenges their coaches face. I have never been one of the 17 coaches on the sideline of a school with 258 kids. So, what would you see as challenges that are private school coaches/teams face?

So now your issue is that private schools find a larger number of people to volunteer their time to act as coaches for the high school team? Or is it with the number of kids who want to play football even though they will likely never see a meaningful down on a Friday night? Not all P/P have the same challenges. Some overall challenges would be: outside interests, grades, keeping all of the kids engaged, managing parental expectations, size of facilities, availability of weight room for all of those kids, proper development of monitoring of lifting programs. I’m sure all programs have their challenges. The good ones find ways to overcome them bad the bad ones use them as excuses.

1 hour ago, JQWL said:

I have not seen the weight room at Delta or the facilities at Hamilton Heights. Have you? Do they give dads tours of the opponents facilities prior to tournament games? You seem to have a pretty good feel for what the majority of the state's schools are in but I believe I read you just moved to Indiana. Have you ever been to the weight room at Crawford County? Tell City? Paoli? Brownstown? North Knox? 

I haven’t but I bet they are comparable to or better than some of the privates and probably some of the publics From what I have learned Chatard didn’t even have a home field til the last decade. They played every game on the road. Talk about a disadvantaged program. The point I constantly try to make is that every team has their challenges. They can be used as excuses or motivators. Winning organizations look for ways to maximize their outcomes under the current rules structure. Sometimes those are huge hurdles but there are a lot of kids playing college/pro sports who never won much of anything in HS sports. My goal as a parent and coach was to help kids become successful at the next level and in life. Couldn’t control the outcome of the games but I could (can)) teach kids to control and show their best attitude and effort. I bet that is what the vast majority of coaches do. They leave the complaining to the parents and alum. 

4 hours ago, JQWL said:

You just agreed with him. You're saying that publics have more problems due to their clientele that they have to focus on that makes the extra-curriculars more difficult. Let alone the other factors. 

Some publics do have more problems. Especially the ones in urban areas. Public suburban’s tend to have all of the advantages (even over privates). Have you seen the weight room at Delta? How about the facilities at Hamilton Heights? I only reference those two because Chatard played there this year. Their facilities are beautiful. I don't even want to talk about the tax bases for Carmel/Fishers. For those few publics that do have these problems, and I would bet money that it is only a few, they have other concerns. For the rest of the publics, the majority, this argument does not apply. 
 

Additionally, I would be interested in knowing what percentage of a school is dedicated to this special “clientele” that you refer to. Maybe 5%? Will you let the privates carve out their special “clientele”? I’m referring to the kids who fill their extra-curriculars with robotics, chess club, multiple foreign languages and the other things they need to get into ivy league schools? I bet the offset wouldn’t benefit the publics in that case. 

18 minutes ago, US31 said:

As always....the issue with p/p vs public isn't the kids they count. 

Its the kids the p/p's will never have to count. 

The kids the publics will always have to count.

Would a kid who constantly fails all his classes, is habitually absent, and often suspended for disciplinary issues; be allowed to remain at a p/p school?  The answer is he probably would have never been an applicant to begin with, but also assuredly NO...he would not be able to remain.

Public schools have to count those kids...and for some publics that is a sizeable fraction of their student body.  

 

Seems like those schools have larger problems than worrying about how many football games their team wins. 

16 hours ago, HHPatriots said:

Well, now here we are.  This has went off the rails.  This game carries the stench of Rome!!!!

Anyway, here is the deal, we knew what we were running into.  The kid that had the 3 ints said it best, "We are used to this".  34ish seniors, 1 two way player, etc, etc.....

Here is the fact publics--deal with it.  We at HH have dealt with it on and off for over 25 years in the playoffs, what is the answer?  The answer is until the brain trust at the IHSAA changes the rules (which they won't) we have to get bigger, faster and stronger.  Period.  

I'm with @hhpatriot04--go do some Oklahoma drills.  Let's get to work!

You are about to win back-to-back 3A titles with your QB. Even as a sophomore he is probably the most dynamic athlete in 3A. He is the best individual player that Chatard saw in the playoffs and they got to play all of the best teams. The unfortunate part is that when he graduates the other kids at HH will have to take some lumps in 4A just because of 1 great player preceding him. They are the ones who will be “punished” for how good he is. That is the downside to success factor.  Nothing is perfect. Enjoy these next two years and I hope more kids from HH decide to play football. Like I’ve said, your kids played a great game. They were well coached. The community showed great support. And your fans showed out. 

51 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

This was possibly the dumbest thing (or maybe just weird) I have ever read on here....aside from anything from the Merrillville morn.

 

Gotta call BS on this one Chief.

People might actually take you seriously around here (sometimes you say interesting things) but your incessant need to fight with everyone is tiring. Whenever you show up the conversation gets less interesting and usually goes off track. 

55 minutes ago, Ribbed85 said:

Not LB heard they are consider him for Safety spot and Western Michigan wants Brotherton to be a TE that’s scary if he puts on the pounds and keeps his speed already has the hands and blocks pretty well 

They have a safety from Pittsburgh, PA who is early enrolling in Dec. Can’t imagine they would have two at that position in a class. Worth watching, though. 

29 minutes ago, BTF said:

Lately everyone has been siting Calpreps and Massey's football polls. Why the belief that these are so accurate? Sagarin does a darn good job, but we've seen some flaws.

Sagarin’s biggest flaw is that it doesn’t factor in out-of-state opponents. As the top teams look for better regular season competition they are looking to play some cross border teams (BD vs IMG). Not including those games in the calculation is a huge flaw. That said, none of them are perfect but if one is excluding data then that is the one I tend to ignore. 

25 minutes ago, psaboy said:

I would put Snider above Chatard & CG. I think Luers is overlooked, should be on list if Indy Lutheran is

Chatard and Snider is probably a tossup. Calpreps has it 21-20 Chatard but that is basically even. Put them at a tie for 5. As long as you keep Cathedral below them both then I won’t complain. Ha ha ha

8 hours ago, Trojan12 said:

34 carries 251yds 3td

Facing Josh Ringer is different 

Any idea what position Miami, OH is planning on playing Ringer at when he gets to the next level of football. I have heard LB but that seems foolish after watching him carry the ball. 

12 hours ago, Titan32 said:

I’m going to go out on a limb and say your option of my test levels would change dramatically face to face.

Ah, you’ve got nothing constructive to say go with the old “wanna meet me behind the toolshed” argument. I still remember when I saw a big dude ask a smaller guy if he wanted to “take it outside”. The smaller dude asked “Why, do you fight better out there or do you want to make it easier for the paramedics to get to you?”. Hysterical. You can guess how that one ended. Thanks for a humorous trip down memory lane. 

@hhpatriot04That Jett kid is going to be fun to watch for the next 2 years. Good luck to the rest of 3A with trying to stop him as he grows and matures. Maybe if he wins 2 state championships the tired narrative in the 3A threads can stop for a while. Probably not but we can only hope. Anyhow, that kid is electric. Looks like I will be following HH scores next year to follow that kids trajectory. Best of luck with the rest of 3A.