crimsonace1

A thread for the 2022 broadcasts. If your school/team airs games, post 'em here so those of us who are home on Friday night (or in the car) can find them. I'll start: New Palestine: All games audio on NewPalRadio.com. Coverage begins one hour prior to kickoff. Home games video ($) on IHSAAtv.org/NewPalestine

The reality is, many of those top players from North Central 30-40 years ago would likely be at Carmel or Cathedral/Chatard today. North Central got hit *hard* by out-migration (primarily to Carmel) much earlier than the other township schools did. The Lawrence schools probably were next (primarily to HSE, but Mt. Vernon is now getting a lot of ex-Lawrence kids), and then Pike/BD (to Zionsville/Brownsburg/Avon).

Marian has advanced to the semistate three straight years, only to run into Chatard, Chatard and a generational Brebeuf squad ... and lost the last two by a total of six points ... not only three straight semistates, but four of the last five and five of the last seven. A handful of really close losses in there. Feels like Marian in the semistate is the equivalent of Hobart in the State Finals in the 1970s/80s before they finally got over the hump. Bad news for them is Chatard is looped into the north semistate again.

Brebeuf was one of the most impressive teams I saw last year. Yes, Strickland is gone, but DL/LB were as good as any group I saw outside of Cathedral and they return three of their top five tacklers. Their QB, Buckman, is also back and they throw it all over the place (although their WR corps almost all graduated). Brebeuf and Roncalli should be a really good matchup. 4A south should be loaded. Roncalli lost a ton, as well, but always has talent waiting in the wings. East Central is always a contender. Mt. Vernon lost a lot to the diploma - especially Slunaker & La Belle - but still has a couple pretty good playmakers, especially Burhenn. They & New Pal will meet in Week 4 and will likely be the top two contenders in their sectional. New Pal is back in 4A for the first time since winning it in 2014 and has a really talented roster with multiple Div. I prospects/commits on both sides of the ball. Every weekend, especially from the sectional final weekend on, should be a meat-grinder just to get to Lucas Oil.

Cathedral was likely the main target of the Success Factor and will be used as proof its implementation has been successful (there are a few others - Muncie Burris volleyball & Heritage Christian girls hoops, but they've regressed to the mean since they lost their coaches with the, um, "good club sports connections"). While the LCC/Luers/Chatard dominance of their respective classes had a lot to do with it, Cathedral was a top-5 program bulldozing its way through 4A every year. Every time they've tweaked the SF, they've done it to prevent Cathedral from dropping back to 4A.

With the SF only needing two points to stay up once you've been bumped, all Memorial needs to do is win two sectionals or a regional in the two-year cycle, which they've been pretty successful at doing. Brebeuf is 4A by enrollment. I don't think they've ever been 4A in football until now, but it's not a success factor bump. Chatard has only bumped up to 4A twice. In three years, they've lost to Roncalli in the sectional twice. They won the sectional their first year in 4A, but then lost to New Pal in the regional in the Dragons' first year (IMO, that game might be the biggest win in NP's history, because they finally broke through the regional after years of trying. That win completely changed the mindset and culture in the New Pal community).

To further the initial point, the IHSAA does not rule on transfers with an eye toward "competitive balance." They're not going, "you know, if this kid transfers, it's going to really hurt this school's team that's struggling and make this other team much better and we can't have that." They're going to rule based on the factors of each case. The relative strength of the programs and what's "best for Indiana high school football" is not among the criteria. Basically, the transfer rules are pretty simple. If the two ADs/principals sign off on it, it's good. If someone doesn't sign off on it, the questions are - was the transfer was for athletic reasons, it's likely going to be reviewed and limited eligibility granted. Generally, the "athletic reasons" involve going to a school where you have a past link (translation: if you're transferring to be with your former AAU basketball or travel baseball coach) and/or your move did not involve a change of address, then some red flags get raised. Sometimes, the move was without a change of address and *appeared* to be an athletic move even though it was for other reasons (the Jayden Brewer case when he transferred from Avon to Ben Davis - the latter being the school district he lived in, for family reasons - being the most obvious, but we broadcast Hamilton Heights games a few years ago where they had a WR - who ended up going to Oregon - transfer from Noblesville, we were told because of the FFA program, who had limited eligibility for one year and couldn't play until the sectional). There was another case where a kid transferred from a p/p to his local public school. Went to the Case Review Panel and they upheld the IHSAA's limited eligibility ruling as the dad basically spent the entire hearing talking about how bad the previous school's coach was. It couldn't have been a more blatantly obvious athletic transfer.

Pot, kettle.

This is not the NFL. There is no salary cap or draft to ensure competitive balance. The IHSAA's job is not to ensure "competitive balance," but to administer tournaments and create rules for fair competition. The reality is, in high school sports, some communities/schools are going to have better teams than others. There has never been competitive balance, and never will be, in community/education-based athletics.

That changed during the Daniels administration. When the property tax caps were made a part of the Constitution, the school funding formula changed to a money-follows-the-child system (partially funded by an increase in sales taxes). Part of that deal was that schools could not charge tuition for transfers (but the receiving school had discretion to allow or deny transfers). That has since been modified, because some schools were only accepting transfers with good academic or attendance records, and now the state requires a school that accepts transfers to accept everyone who applies, everyone who applies until capacity is reached, or to hold a lottery if there are more applicants than spots. The state provides the enrollment-based financial support. So, if a student transfers from Community A to Community B, the money attached to that student goes to School B, not the school where he resides. Local property taxes pay for buses and capital improvements, but the general fund (salaries, the electric bill, operating costs of running the school) have to come entirely from the money coming from the state, which comes on the per-student basis.

New Pal's AD is very ethical and, to my knowledge, has never blocked a transfer out even though there have been some transfers out - in non-football sports - that he easily could have blocked because the transfer was very obviously athletically-motivated and didn't include a change of residence. Some other schools in the area, as CaptainHook noted, will drag the process out as long as possible and then refuse to sign off on it at the last minute.

Really, there's open enrollment statewide. The key is, the school where you're wanting to *transfer to* needs to accept out-of-district transfer applications. Most schools do, some don't (usually, the ones that don't are in high-demand districts where the locals are concerned about keeping the property values up or districts where the schools are largely at capacity and can't really afford to take on more students). At New Pal, our previous superintendent was a hard "no" on out-of-district students for years, until a study committee (largely spearheaded by yours truly) pointed out the significant financial benefits and few costs. The biggest fear was that kids transferring from Marion County would take spots from longtime local families on athletic teams, et al. What has turned out is there's a significant self-selection bias - the people who are transferring in are doing so because they *want* to be here, and many intend to move to the community (a significant number do).

I agree but parents and kids are going to believe what they're going to believe. My days as a girls basketball coach were spent having "conversations" with parents whose 9-year-olds were playing an indoor travel softball game at 2 a.m. the night before in February because "that's when the games are." When I ask why they subject themselves to that and isn't that a bit of overkill, the response is "she has to or she'll get left behind." I don't think a lot of coaches say that, but the parents think it. Parents - especially the ones who micromanage their kids' careers - are *terrified* of getting "left behind" and their kids "losing their spot." (the micromanaging-type parents are also the least likely to send their kids to their districted school unless it has a powerhouse, state championship-level program in their preferred sport). They had Derrick Mayes and Eric Allen as WR/CBs in 1990-91 but could never get past Ben Davis.

Not sure if that's the case - schools of 3000+ kids tend to specialize just because if you don't, the kid who plays year-round might take your spot - but Darius Latham & Daniel Jones were both multi-year starters in both sports. They may have been the exception rather than the rule. David Bell (WC), Dawand Jones (BD) & a handful of others have been standouts in both sports in 6A.

Hard to see Northview going to CI. It's a bit on the big side for the WIC, but it's way too small for Conference Indiana and its enrollment hasn't been growing for years.

Play each other, Cathedral, whatever MIC schools still want to play them and then fill their schedule by going out of state.

They like the randomness and unpredictability and tradition of the sectional.

Remember, the main reason they won't seed is because the basketball coaches want a blind draw and they want to keep all tournaments the same (but they acknowledge football is different when 6A & 5A were smaller classes ... yet went out of their way to kill a proposal to limit 4A in basketball/baseball/volleyball to 64 schools under the same spirit).

I'm using my original moniker. I've been here since before I did a story on TA and the GID in (I think) 1999 for the Daily Reporter in Greenfield. We became fast friends and remained so.

I doubt it. They may flip a few, but most people who are going to Brebeuf, Cathedral & Chatard are doing so as much for academic/social reasons as for sports. And even if you're transferring for sports, the path to a trophy is much more likely at those schools as NC, even if the Panthers won a H2H matchup. When North Central had Derrick Mayes and Eric Allen (and Allen grew up at Pike but then transferred), they were stacked and couldn't get out of the sectional because Ben Davis was just loaded. They haven't really had *that* kind of talent since.

My scheduling belief is ... *-If you're in a weak conference, schedule one heavyweight and one team slightly at/above your level. *-If you're in a conference where you're in the middle of the pack, schedule one team you can beat and one that's at/above your level. *-If you're in a strong conference (like the MIC), schedule one tough game but try to get a game that's winnable. Guys need to have some degree of confidence and they get beaten down by losing. The three that are bigger have been on their schedule for the last quarter-century. At least two of those three remain in their conference.

Sagarin's ELO CHESS ranking does not take into account margin of victory. You likely use some combo of Sagarin (especially ELO CHESS) and head-to-head/common opponents. It would not be terribly difficult in most sectionals, especially for the top two and bottom two.

Let's be honest, a lot of coaches *and teachers* go from p/p to public for financial reasons, and the pension/retirement is a part of it. It's one reason I've stayed in education when I had opportunities to leave. But the way you're phrasing it is that it's a parachute job that he's not putting anything into, which couldn't be further from the truth. O'Shea isn't putting less into NC's program than he did at LCC, but it takes a lot to build up a culture where there hadn't been one. I hesitate to call what O'Shea has done at NC a "failure." He took over a program that hadn't had a winning season in 11 years and one that had gone 1-29 in the three previous years. Since, he's posted three winning seasons playing one of the state's toughest schedules (they play Fishers & HSE in addition to the MIC schedule - a real meat-grinder). They struggled last year, but the body of work of North Central with O'Shea has been pretty darned good. Do I expect NC to become a potential perennial state championship contender? Not necessarily. NC is a really difficult school to win at. There may be no Indy-area suburban public school that gets hit harder by transfers than NC (Cathedral, Chatard & Brebeuf are all in - or right next to - NC's district and they lose a lot of students and athletes to those schools). Their district has suffered a lot of out-migration, especially to Carmel, over the last 30-40 years. While that's happening elsewhere (Pike->Brownsburg/Zionsville, Southport/Perry Meridian->Center Grove, LN->HSE/Fishers, Ben Davis->Avon/Brownsburg, more recently LN/LC->Mt. Vernon and Warren Central->Mt. Vernon/New Pal), that pattern seemed to hit NC before it hit those other communities. Success is measured in different ways. We tend to think of it as "are you playing on Thanksgiving weekend?" But to a lot of programs - especially in this open enrollment era - just simply being above .500 or having a chance to win a conference/sectional is a win for a lot of programs.

Triton Central was taking out ads in the Hancock County newspaper (likely targeting the New Pal kids who live near TC) and aggressively recruiting students in Franklin Township a few years back when it was going to a New Tech curriculum. That may have backfired, as New Palestine's school board and superintendent were stridently opposed to allowing out-of-district transfers at the time even though open enrollment had been a thing in the state for a few years. Once those ads started running, NP felt targeted and opened it up to open enrollment. Once that happened, a significant number of students living in the Triton Central area transferred to New Pal. Now that the cat is out of the bag and open enrollment is a thing, you will see public school districts openly recruiting students from other districts. Many have marketing/communications/PR types now, in part, to assist with that (by my observation, most do a pretty lousy job because they're not marketing/PR experts but some crony of the superintendent who might have written the company newsletter at one point and has the in to get the cushy job with admin benefits).

When I moved to Hancock County in 1998, I largely knew Tim as the really kind DC at Mt. Vernon who loved to talk football. A few months later, I went over to his classroom at MV and interviewed him about the GID for a feature story. We became fast friends, a friendship that developed even more when we became broadcast partners in 2006 when he retired. Tim was one of my best friends. We worked together in some fashion from then until he passed four years later. We always drove together to games and the rides with him were among my favorite times of the week as we'd talk football, family, faith and much more - he'd update me on the church he pastored near Connersville, we'd talk about his daughters and grandkids and my kids, share classroom stories, and most of all, talk football. We had an incredible on-air chemistry. I miss him every fall Friday night. I still use the broadcast equipment he bought for us those years ago. Nobody has been more passionate about promoting Indiana high school football. He did so through this site and many other channels. He was beloved by nearly everyone in the high school football community and we miss him.