crimsonace1

The school in this township would probably be as big as it is now, with a similar student population, no matter where U.S. 52 or U.S. 40 (which also runs through the NP district) were located. Much like Avon, we don't have an interstate exit, yet are still growing rapidly. Don't tell Muda that I live a mile east of the Marion County line and my neighborhood is completely surrounded by fields ... as are the four other neighborhoods on our county road. Quite honestly, it's not much different than living in Frankfort, just that we have a few more subdivisions. But I don't consider suburbs to be a bad thing and I enjoy living in one.

I don't want to feed trolls, but this is absurd. New Palestine is a fast-growing community largely because of the schools. Good for you that you've found the couple of disgruntled people in every community. Our test scores and community makeup are comparable to Center Grove, Avon, et al, and as the school grows, that's going to continue. Property values *inside* the district are substantially higher than those across the line in neighboring districts. I follow a lot of social media accounts. I've not seen anything about "God creating football for New Palestine." I do see a number of people with pride in their community and their football team, and acknowledging the hard work of many in the community to build a quality youth program that has fed this high school team. And yes, I've checked the police records at the local paper. I'm not going to speak for other communities, but New Palestine is fairly quiet, low crime, good community. When it comes to football, we've got Warren Central, New Palestine, Mt. Vernon & Triton Central - all neighboring districts - are all competing for regional titles this Friday night, so obviously, we must be doing something right over here.

We prefer "growing suburban community." Thousands of people making the conscious choice to live in a quiet, tight-knit community with good schools and a good way of life is not something to be panned because they didn't make the choice you'd make.

Not sure, but they're on the approved broadcasters list.

IHSAA.tv will video stream NewPalRadio.com will have the New Palestine broadcast Cathedral buys time on WNDE, so it will have their broadcast

1. NP's schedule isn't awful. 2017 5A runner-up, Center Grove in the non-conference. A Mt. Vernon team that won its sectional (over Pendleton Heights) in the regular season. Yorktown was a Top 10 3A team. Delta was a very good 4A team. It's only perceived as "awful" because NP improved, but there are a lot of good, well-coached teams in the HHC. NP is playing Decatur Central and Brebeuf in the non-conference next year. 2. This team is special and next year will be a bit of a rebuild, but the JV went 8-1 (only loss to Center Grove), the frosh 7-2 and were literally three points away from being undefeated. The seventh grade had a solid season and New Palestine has one of the largest and most well-run youth football leagues in the state feeding it talent. That, and with 300-400 homes under construction *right now* and another 800 or so planned, NP is going to keep growing. Many thought NP's run was going to end after the Neligh/Blackwell/Yazel/Brickens/Estes class graduated with a 2014 state title and a 2015 runner-up, but NP reloaded and the core of last year's title team and this year's squad went 19-2 over the next two years and that set the table for 14-0 last year and 11-0 this year. 3. There is no problem with the nickname. It's unique (Argos & Silver Creek also use it) and a mythological creature. It has *nothing* to do with what some people want to insinuate. The town of New Palestine is very tiny and largely consists of the older neighborhoods on a narrow strip of land between the railroad tracks and U.S. 52 for a mile stretch... most of the population of the New Palestine school district lives outside town limits. It would be like using the population of Bargersville as a proxy for Center Grove's population. Sugar Creek Township's population as of 2010 was 14,900 ... and there have been *several* new subdivisions built since then, so it's probably closer to 18,000-20,000 now. Brandywine Township (south of Greenfield)'s population was about 2,500 in 2010. There isn't much growth in Brandywine, but Sugar Creek Township is one of the fastest-growing areas in Central Indiana. Wouldn't be surprised to see 5,000+ New Palestine fans there Friday night. The crowds for NP games have been huge all season (and every game for several years). This is a football-crazed community.

About 17,500 in the school district as of the 2010 census, and that number is almost assuredly over 20,000 now.

That's the case every week at New Pal. Home or away, there aren't any empty seats. The community support for football here is off the charts.

The IHSAA does number the regionals, but it's not really used as popularly since there are only four in each class. You'll notice the regionals numbered if you go to the IHSAA website. I believe the accepted style the AP (and thus print and broadcast) media use is to use the sectional number for that round, but to just refer to the following rounds as the "regional" and "semistate" without attaching a number. In basketball, the sectionals are also numbered, but I always only use the host school in naming the sectional ... e.g., "3A at New Castle" instead of "3A sectional 27."

That, IMO, was the primary reason the success factor was initiated (and notice that both times the points threshold to stay up in a higher class has been changed, it's happened when Cathedral football would've dropped to a lower class without the change. I'm not sure how related those are, but the timing is pretty notable).

That's a bit more severe, but a good deterrent.

Curious how this gets enforced, if it's clear the repeated fouls are intentional. Warnings/ejections or can you simply award a TD (or safety, depending on the circumstances)?

New Palestine has ONE starter on the roster who didn't attend New Palestine as a freshman, and that was because of a family move as the family business had more opportunities in the Indianapolis area, found a home in the New Palestine district. That was *very* well-documented in the Muncie paper. Family moves for job opportunities happen *all the time*. Like Mt. Vernon, Whiteland, Fishers, Brownsburg, Carmel, Center Grove, Avon, Plainfield, Zionsville ... New Palestine is in a *very* rapidly-growing area that borders Indianapolis and is experiencing growth. People are going to move into the district - many more for non-sports reasons than for sports.

Pendleton Heights and Mt. Vernon hired coaches from the MIC the last couple of years. To say they don't have that level of commitment to football is laughable. Delta has an incredible commitment to football. All of those programs are well-coached and have solid traditions and communities. New Palestine's players and coaches have created a special culture. But to hurl that level of invective against some solid, well-coached, well-run programs is really unfair.

Another incredibly uninformed, throw-a-dumb-idea-against-the-wall take from Driven Dakich. First off, there have been dominant teams in the HHC in the past - Delta & Mt. Vernon in the late 1990s/early 2000s, most notably. While some of the conference teams have been on down cycles, Pendleton Heights, Mt. Vernon and Delta are all trending toward being at that level of being teams who could make a deep run. The HHC sponsors 20 sports. There are dominant teams in a few of them. Should Yorktown & New Castle be kicked out because of their volleyball prowess? Delta has won 20+ tennis titles in the conference. Should they be kicked out, too? The bottom line is, the Hoosier Heritage Conference is a solid group of eight schools who are geographically compact and roughly the same size. One could argue the football team isn't even the most dominant team at New Palestine, given the softball team has won six state championships since 2004. Over time, as HoosierFB_JG noted, Mt. Vernon, New Palestine and Pendleton Heights could significantly outgrow the more rural schools in the conference and that might cause some realignment. Greenfield-Central will experience some growth, but probably not to the level of those three, who are closer to the growth explosion in Indy and Fishers/Noblesville. But that's not happening anytime soon. New Palestine is a member in good standing in the HHC, which has more sports than football, and has state championship-level teams in several of them (the HHC had *four* IHSAA championship teams last year - New Castle & Yorktown volleyball, New Palestine football & softball ... and Yorktown was the state runner-up to NP in softball).

Brett Law had a ton of two-point conversions, but Spegal now also needs 92 points (16 more touchdowns, or 15 TDs and a conversion) with at least four games left in his career to break Law's record of 952 career points.

It is a known fact that those who participate in extracurricular activities are more likely to stay in school, graduate, et al. Football provides opportunities for some students that might not be available to them in other areas. A kid who might be an offensive lineman is probably not playing soccer or running cross country. Denying them the opportunity to perform in front of their friends and family, learn teamwork, because of some nebulous "goal" might seem like a good thing, but in reality, it's making things worse. You're not going to improve things by denying people opportunities to participate in an activity where participation is paramount. Football is still THE flagship sport and thus the primary extracurricular activity at just about every school.

Both schools were trying to do the best thing for their student-athletes by finding more competitive games that week, but any schedule change was contingent on both teams finding an opponent. Unfortunately, both teams were unable to find opponents and one school jumped the gun on announcing a game. All of the ADs involved were conversing. The discussions about motivation and spite is false. The Indy Star summed it up - it's a non-story, and the motivations of the schools was the proper one.

I still don't believe we allow someone to use this forum as a tool to state that reducing opportunities for student-athletes is somehow going to make football better. This isn't the NFL. Reducing from 32 to 28 teams isn't going to cull out the worst 200 players. This isn't college - players aren't just going to transfer if their school's program disbands. Some will, but many won't. DT has this delusional view that HSFB is like college, and that people choose their schools and will flock to programs. Instead, the number of programs we want to target in INHSFB should be 400+ - the number of IHSAA schools - not some arbitrary number that one message board poster has decided is "good." Contraction won't help many, but it will hurt the vulnerable kids in rural schools for whom football is an outlet and for many, a lifeline. This is education-based athletics, not big-time college sports. Opportunity is what matters. What happens from 3-5 p.m. every day on the 100-yard classroom matters. You can learn a lot of life lessons as a JV player on an 0-10 team that you'll NEVER learn by going home and playing video games all day because football was taken away. Not every program is going to be Center Grove. You're going to have a few who struggle, and that's OK. In the case of Shelbyville ... they have great alumni support, good admin/community support, have never canceled a game, and they've been largely competitive for the last 20 years and are going through a down cycle. Some of that might be due to demographic changes, younger players choosing other sports, et al, but that's a good, traditional community that loves its sports. Football will *always* be a part of their athletic menu.

They're struggling thanks to a few years of a down feeder system, but are rebuilding at the elementary level and their numbers are up at the junior high. A large 4A school in a legacy community with a proud tradition IS NOT CONTRACTING despite DT's wishes to see fewer opportunities for Indiana high school football players.

Postseason, it wouldn't be allowed for the player to play, as a team has to submit its entry list before the tournament and cannot make changes to it. But as long as the IHSAA approves the transfer, the student is immediately eligible.

I believe one of Troy's sons is a student at Purdue. He's from New Castle, went from Owen Valley to Greenfield-Central to be closer to home, left there after winning a conference title in his first year, but then had a couple of down years. He had a *great* run at South Putnam. IIRC, he left coaching when his son was playing at Plainfield, then got back in after he graduated. Frontier, obviously, is a lot closer to Lafayette than Evansville. Some coaches really enjoy the 1A environment. Troy is a fantastic coach and a great guy.

Without a doubt ... that's likely on the host school AD.

I'm not sure it was an "official shortage" issue as much as it was "the contracted officials didn't show up" issue.

I think it's time to contract some posters who have nothing to add but ridiculous Dan Dakich-like takes from the GID, but that's just me.