HoopsCoach

Here’s some data related to those schools. This is from every other year using the numbers for classifications (and the DOE numbers from this past September for 2020). New Palestine 2012 - 1107 2014 - 1094 2016 - 1117 2018 - 1175 2020 - 1160 Mount Vernon 2012 - 1119 2014 - 1170 2016 - 1227 2018 - 1322 2020 - 1372 Whiteland 2012 - 1725 2014 - 1763 2016 - 1845 2018 - 1916 2020 - 2007 Franklin Community 2012 - 1713 2014 - 1630 2016 - 1533 2018 - 1590 2020 - 1582 Plainfield 2012 - 1489 2014 - 1560 2016 - 1636 2018 - 1696 2020 - 1744 Greenfield Central has remained very steady over that same 8 year period with an enrollment staying right around 1450. It was 1446 in 2012 and 1445 in 2020.

I don’t think West Lafayette will be in 4A. Based on the enrollment data from September, here is what the bottom of 4A and top of 3A could be. 4A (bottom 9 including success factor) South Bend Saint Joseph 831 Norwell 829 Western 824 Brebeuf 816 Angola 814 Delta 806 South Bend Washington 805 Indianapolis Bishop Chatard 673 Evansville Memorial 559 3A (top 9) Indianapolis Washington 789 Yorktown 782 Madison 776 Scottsburg 767 Hamilton Heights 763 Edgewood 763 Mississinewa 761 Hanover Central 748 West Lafayette 743

Right, I did have some corrections to make to the original list I posted here - take out Barr-Reeve, add in Rock Creek, etc. I keep a spreadsheet that I have made updates to, I just haven’t posted them here. Since official numbers are normally posted by the IHSAA sometime in January, I figured it would be best to just wait until those are released.

I don’t see any issue with this being undue influence. Now if this flyer was posted in the hallways at Carmel, North Central, Lawrence North, Fishers, and the middle schools in those districts, then it would be more of an undue influence.

Covenant Christian may create more competition for athletes looking to go the private school route on the west side of Indy/Marion County.

Richmond Muncie Central Anderson Harrison Lafayette Jeff McCutcheon Crap, misread the title and overlooked that it is *new* conference lineup. At least I got the wrong answers only part right.

Enrollments from count day this year were West Vigo 518, TH North 1431, and TH South 1463.

New Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference Crossroads Division Carmel Fishers HSE Noblesville Westfield Zionsville Hoosier Division Center Grove Brownsburg Avon Southport Franklin Central Columbus North County Division Ben Davis Warren Central North Central Pike Lawrence North Lawrence Central Each team plays the 5 other schools in their division plus 1 from each of the other two divisions. That leaves 2 non-conference games that could be scheduled, or a team could pick up more opponents from the other two divisions.

The enrollments I included in my previous post for Delta and Yorktown were from the count day this year, which should be the numbers used for the alignment that will occur this spring for the 21-22, 22-23 cycle. Current enrollments in the HHC: Greenfield-Central 1445 Pendleton Heights 1394 Mount Vernon 1372 New Palestine 1160 Shelbyville 1137 New Castle 907 Delta 806 Yorktown 782

Yes, the North Central Conference. It stretches from Lafayette/West Lafayette to Richmond, which is roughly 140 miles. Elkhart to Lake Central or Crown Point is about 95-100 miles.

Correct, those three high schools are all part of the same district - Vigo County School Corporation.

Yorktown (782 students) is very similar to Delta (806 students). Those two schools are rivals and probably prefer to stay together. Yorktown also has one of the best volleyball programs in the state along with New Castle. All hypothetical of course, just wondered if there was a reason Yorktown was left out or if they were simply overlooked.

No Yorktown?

I know that sounds like things would be better, but I am just not sure attendance and finances will go back to the way they were before the pandemic that easily. Parents and siblings have been allowed to attend at the majority of schools. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends have been cut out along with many casual fans within communities. Those will be groups that are more difficult to get back. Parents and siblings will always attend, but opening the gates may not be all that it takes to get many in those other groups to return. Each of the 12 teams that played in the football state finals this year were allotted 3500 tickets. I don’t think any of those schools sold their full allotment. There were plenty of seats available that were not sold to the biggest event of the season. Maybe more general admission tickets would have been sold if the tickets were good for more than a single game, but I think many people stayed at home to be safe. That will be a hard trend to reverse by simply opening the gates. Just this week, the boys basketball hall of fame tournament at New Castle featured 3 schools that all have huge fan support and a 4th school that has a lot of appeal to casual basketball fans that want to see a Mr. Basketball candidate (at least 3 legitimate candidates played in the tournament). New Castle had plenty of tickets available to the general public (advertised 650) and didn’t sell anywhere near that many. It should have been the most financially successful tournament in years, but they didn’t even sell out with the reduced capacity. Even if they had opened the gates to everyone, a lot of people would have stayed home. I’m not debating whether that is the right or wrong decision because that is their choice. I just think it is going to be hard to get many of those fans back when a lot of them are older fans that will be reluctant to return based on their own health risks. That will be a hard demographic or age group to replace, just like it is with officials. New, young officials aren’t replacing the older officials that retire fast enough to keep up, resulting in the current shortage. The same trend may occur with fans as a result of the pandemic. Younger casual fans will not replace the older casual fans that choose to stay home when the gates are open to all again. Another factor that will play a role in attendance numbers is the availability of live streaming. If live streams continue to be available, many of those extended family members and casual fans in the community will choose to watch online from the comfort of their home rather than go to the game until this era is long into the rear-view mirror. They may come back eventually, but I think it is going to take a more deliberate effort by the schools and possibly the IHSAA to reverse that trend. It will be interesting to see if the IHSAA leads the way in trying to bring fans back, or if they will continue to push the live streaming options for their own financial gain. I would be surprised if we ever see an all-day general admission ticket to the football or basketball state finals ever again. I will miss that. Single game only ticket sales will drive more of those casual fans to select the more affordable and hassle free live streaming options if they are available. I will always prefer the live experience, but the cost is certainly a factor at those big events.

Forcing all of the students that have gone to TSC schools throughout their education to transfer to LSC would not go over well for any politician. That’s why boundaries like that are not changed very often. Even boundaries within districts. Open enrollment has made district boundaries less of an issue anyway.

School district boundaries usually do not change with urban/suburban growth and development.

I agree. That’s why I suggested cutting back the number of required conference games in the NCC to free up more openings for non-conference opponents. That is more realistic than my proposal to take the five western schools of the NCC and start a new conference with the addition of West Lafayette.

Honestly, I don’t think Jeff would. I think they would want Harrison and McCutcheon to go with them. Jeff (and their Catholic cousins down Teal Road at Central Catholic) loves to fill the trophy cases. I think they are fine with being the top dog of the NCC in football, and their talent pool will be down a little after the 2021 season. If there was another conference option for Jeff that was attractive, they might consider it but not strictly for football purposes. If they could just reduce the number of required conference games they would be happy to have some additional openings to play better opponents in football.

Jeff is part of the Lafayette School Corporation, which primarily consisted of a district within the city limits of Lafayette when TSC was established. The same is true for West Lafayette. TSC was made up of the rural areas outside the city limits when it was established in the 60’s. As Lafayette has grown beyond those city limits (and the LSC district boundary), the population in the formerly rural areas has grown and the TSC schools have increased in size. Jeff and West Lafayette are landlocked, which is why their enrollments haven’t changed as much as the 2 TSC high schools. Any growth at Jeff or West Side would occur mostly through open enrollment.

All 6 of the TSC middle schools were high schools (although not all were in the current buildings) prior to consolidation in the 60’s and 70’s. There are certainly facilities within the eastern part of the district that could be added onto for a “new” high school. Wyandotte Elementary is a newer building that would be a perfect location about midway between East Tipp and Wainwright. If the school district was going to add another high school they needed to do it 5-10 years ago. The housing growth in the northern and eastern part of the county is pretty substantial, which is why they are building onto Harrison now. They could be around 2400 students within the next 5-10 years. McCutcheon’s growth on the south side of the county hasn’t been as rapid in recent years.

The long rumored East Tipp High School. Currently, there are three middle schools that feed into each of the two TSC high schools. Battle Ground, East Tipp, and Klondike go to Harrison (northern half of Tippecanoe County) and Southwestern, Wainwright, and Wea Ridge go to McCutcheon (southern half of the county). They could easily be split to have Klondike and Battle Ground stay at Harrison, Southwestern and Wea Ridge stay at McCutcheon, and East Tipp and Wainwright would go to the new East Tipp High School. Enrollments would be roughly 1550-1600 at Harrison, 1500-1550 at McCutcheon, and the East Tipp HS a little over 1000. Each of those would be bigger than any of the current members of the Hoosier Conference, which ranges from 300-800 students. It is easier and cheaper to build onto an existing school than it is to build a new additional school. TSC will just continue to expand Harrison and McCutcheon rather than build another high school.

If Tech contributed anything positive to the conference, they might be worth consideration. They really don’t though. Boys basketball is the only sport they are even competitive in, which is why they fit with the schools in the eastern half of the NCC. They struggle to field JV and freshman teams in several sports and they have a ton of turnover in their student athletes and coaching staff. There was some discussion in the last few years of pushing for Tech to leave the NCC, but it hasn’t happened. They could get better in football with Chambers coaching (still don’t know how the kid from Howe ended up at Covenant Christian instead of Tech). Their drop in enrollment, which will continue, makes a move back to a conference of Indianapolis public schools a better fit for them (Attucks, Shortridge, Tech, Washington). The Terre Haute schools might be competitive in that conference as a 6 team league, and they have some history with an Indy area conference from their time in the MIC.

True, there will be a point when logistics ($) and reality (declining enrollment and loss of athletes) supersede tradition and history.

Richmond, Muncie Central, and Anderson are some pretty lengthy bus rides from Tippecanoe County. Marion and Tech aren’t terrible, but not trips that are easy to make on a weeknight. The tradition and history of the NCC will keep schools like Kokomo and Logansport from leaving. Football has never been the focus of the NCC, but the current alignment and schedule format really doesn’t benefit very many of the teams. The non-revenue sports are not very competitive either. I don’t think the 10 or 12 team conferences have worked out very well. This past season showed what schedule flexibility (mostly out of necessity rather than choice) could look like and there were several interesting matchups that wouldn’t normally happen. AD’s hate the prospect of 6 or 7 team conferences because they see it as more work to schedule non-conference games. Personally, I think 6, 7, or 8 teams in a conference is good for high school sports. I thought for a while that a conference of Kokomo, Logansport, Jeff, Harrison, McCutcheon, and West Lafayette would be a nice combination with relatively limited travel. It would also leave some openings in the schedule for Kokomo and Logan to keep the traditional rivalries with schools like Marion. The eastern schools of the NCC could combine with a few of the larger schools in east central Indiana and two from the Hoosier Heritage. That conference could include Marion, Mississinewa, Anderson, Yorktown, Delta, Muncie Central, Jay County, and Richmond. The Hoosier Heritage would then have 6 teams with Pendleton, New Castle, Mount Vernon, Greenfield, New Pal, and Shelbyville. They wanted 8 teams when they went after New Castle. Maybe they look at a school like Beech Grove to fill one of those spots. Note: absolutely none of this will ever happen.

Is there a reason McCutcheon was not included? They are a package deal with Harrison. Maybe you left them out to leave room for Southport and the parochial schools. Jeff, Harrison, McCutcheon, TH North, TH South, Bloomington North, Bloomington South, and Columbus North have quite a bit in common. If they were closer together they would be a pretty competitive league.