foxbat

When I played ball, our indoor facility, when it rained or was cold, was ... outside.

I've got five kids. I've never had marshmallows in my bowls of Lucky Charms.😃

I find it interesting that folks are highlighting p/p schools as something that this would impact most. Realize that WeBo won three consecutive 2A titles in 2018-2020. Of interest is that Luers, who WeBo beat in their third-straight appearance, said nary a word about the supposed "injustice," but I do recall a few public school posters giving WeBo a hard time about that. Also, Pioneer had three visits in a row to LOS in 2016-2018 in 1A and actually had four visits in five years 2014-2018. In contrast, Scecina had only two visits in 2011-2012, lost both, and got bumped to 2A ... the only team, in the history of SF, to get bumped without getting a blue ring in the process. While Lutheran and Mater Dei COULD indeed join the club, the programs that have ACTUALLY benefited from the set periods re-evals are public programs.

Park Tudor has two in the top 30 including a QB and LB? No disrespect intended, but there may be lots more that haven't filled out the form to be evaluated.

Hasn't Winamac actually yo-yo'd? They were 1A back in the 2012-2014 stretch ... lost a regional game to LCC after beating Tri-County, Noll, and West Central. Bumped up to 2A around the 2015-2016 seasons; culminating in a regional lost to Whiting. Dropped back down to 1A in 2017 and just recently bounced back up in 2022 to 2A.

A LOT of Chatard's kids come up through their parish schools, so I'm not sure if they are really in the space of "recruiting."

If you look at the financial aid details though, these much less tied directly to the schools and their students than meets the eye. As an example, if you look at LCSS, it states in its last annual report https://www.lcss.org/apps/pages/AnnualReport, that for 2021-2022 school year, it distributed $3.28 million in financial aid and scholarships to 617 students ... which equates to about two-thirds of LCSS student population ... for an average award of $5,320. Sounds like a lot until you consider that the financial aid component also likely includes the Choice Scholarship money ... Indiana's fancy way of re-labeling state payments to folks who attend private schools. That money is really not school-offered money for all intents and purposes. For LCSS, that was listed as $2,980,174 which leaves around $300,000 of "school money" for scholarships and financial aid ... or roughly $485 average per student who received financial aid or around $300 average per student in the system. What I'm not sure about in the inclusion of the "financial aid" is the issue of the parish offsets ... reduced tuition amounts for kids out of the system's contributing parishes. These are offered mainly to Catholic kids whose families are registered parishioners in the parishes that contribute to LCSS. As such, that money wouldn't be available for "snagging" the general public anyway even if it does or doesn't show up in the financial aid numbers.

With LCC kind of being pushed out of the HHC and being invited in to the HC, it left a natural void in the HCC. The HHC has also since expanded by picking up folks like Eastern, Taylor, and Delphi. Delphi also used to be in the Hoosier too, but left around 2016 I think. The travel aspect, when you factor in Tipton and RCHS, just had to be a pain for a 1A school that far south ... at least that's what I thought. There was rumor that Sheridan didn't want the prospect of playing LCC in the regular season or that Sheridan wanted an easier schedule, but I have a hard time believing that Sheridan would leave just to make things easier on themselves on the field. I never got that impression from Coach Wright or any of Sheridan's players. Matter of fact, I always got the opposite feeling. They'd take on all comers and didn't shy away from tough. Kind of team you liked being on the field with even if they were wearing opposing colors as they brought out the best in themselves and their opponents.

And West Lafayette wasn't always the juggernaut. Toss in RCHS in that mix, and Sheridan who departed when LCC entered, and in the last 15 seasons, the HC has sent five different programs, across three classes, to LOS to represent the conference in 14 finals and brought home 11 blue rings. And four of those five programs were 1A/2A.

I'd also toss in status and tradition too. I've known some folks who have their kids at p/p schools that are Creasters ... only attend Mass at Christmas and Easter, so it's no for the faith aspect and, as for safety, most of the schools around this area are reasonably safe regardless of the narratives. As for academic prep, that can also be debated too and, as @Robert said, that may be tied to the student. I'm aware of folks that attend p/p schools simply to tell the Joneses that their kid is going to private school. I'm also aware of some that also go because that's where their parents and grandparents went too. Sometimes those folks also are part of #2, but sometimes it's just the status or tradition that's a driving force. I'm not saying all and not saying it's primary, but I've seen enough of it across the four states where I attended or taught school to know it's not just an outlier. Two of my three kids that have completed high school, so far, started in Catholic schools, but finished homeschooled/public school mix. The third was homeschool/public all the way. My youngest two are either homeschooled or homeschool/public mix, but will eventually also come out of the public system too. All three that completed high school already were all accepted at Purdue and all accepted with scholarships as well as several college credits. The oldest two both graduated from Purdue and the other is currently there with the equivalent of a full-ride. The three that attended, attended Jeff/Ivy Tech for their public experience and their academic prep was fine. I can't say a bad thing about the prep and teachers that they had and the experiences for advanced courses in honors biology, genetics, chemistry, physics, and even their classes like econ and government as well as 4th/5th year foreign language were good experiences for them at Jeff. The extra-curriculars that the kids took from quiz bowls, to foreign exchange programs, to robotics were also great as well. I too am the product of early Catholic education that switched over to public school education as well and tend to see the college prep aspect as more situational/environmental as opposed to public vs. private. Of interest, on the college prep side, is that I recall when we went to the open house when my oldest was entering Jeff, we went to the honors biology instructor's classroom to talk with him about what to expect. While there, i noticed he had pictures of his previous student classes on the wall. When I looked at one, I noticed that I recognized some of the kids, but they weren't Jeff students ... they were from LCC. I asked him about it and he said that, at that time, some of the LCC kids took honors biology over at Jeff. That was over a decade ago and I don't know if they still do that or not.

At least DeMotte's in the same timezone with SouthNewton.

Probably not. Tri-West stepped in on an undercard game when Richmond said that they wouldn't be sending a JV team to play Harrison's JV. Harrison only has two non-con games on its schedule anyway at this point. They used to have Westfield and THS, but this last year, and for the coming season, they got West Lafayette and Plainfield. I'm not sure if that's just a home-and-home with those guys or a multi-year activity.

Harrison has played Tri-West on its undercard before, so it's not necessarily that far out there. At the same time, Harrison has also recently had other undercards like Chatard, Cathedral, Roncalli, and Brebeuf too, so there's an interesting trend there ... especially considering LCC was added as the scrimmage opponent last season.

Would it be more beneficial, even with a big school/small school split to do something akin to the Hoosier? Play all within your division, two cross-division during the season, and crossover championship based on place in division in Week 9. You could, in theory, play up Week 9 as David vs. Goliath although a couple of those Davids might look more like Goliath in some seasons. Triton and North Judson are more than capable of holding their own and, if Pioneer's able to rebuild a bit, they could be back in that mix too. Given that Bremen and Glenn played SB Clay and SB Washington, respectively, for the Week 9 game in the last couple of years, their Week 9 matchup, under this proposal, would likely do more to get them ready for post-season than the aforementioned two teams. For the 1A teams, there's a probable step up as well for Week 9.

I'm assuming there's a PO Box where we send our investments? 😀

I remember talking with my dad when I was in high school, early 80s, one time we were driving back to visit my grandmother; his mother-in-law. The discussion turned to Social Security somehow and I asked him about the idea of Social Security going bankrupt. My dad talked about the ins and outs of the financing of the program and all the bits and pieces about it and how politics often latches on to it. As we pulled into my grandmother's driveway, I recall my dad's final thoughts on the subject ... he said, even if he never lived long enough to get his benefits or they went bankrupt he was content to know that his contributions were aiding my grandmother and the "folks across the street" ... my grandmother lived across the street from the "old folks home" where she often volunteered her time helping "those old people" who were younger than her. 🙂 My dad died almost 35 years ago as a young man ... and his Social Security payments are still helping my mom.

Closer than Richmond.

That may be the case, but often the mom's of priests are often a strong contributing factor to their following in that vocation. It's one of the reasons that the current bishop fully supports girls being altar servers. As a youth coach, we realized that, typically, the most important aspect to getting a kid into football and keeping them there was engaging and convincing the moms. I think the gender shortcoming argument tends to one on shaky ground. Standard argument that I've heard against girls playing the sport is the physicality of the game. There's may be some merit to that as you get high up in the gameplay, although I think there are some guys on teams that would get their clocks cleaned by some girls that might play the game. At the youth level; however, I think the differences are less defined and might just provide fertile ground for setting the hook for folks that might eventually be ripe for candidacy for officiating.

Odd not to see an LCC guy on that defense, but somewhat expected as the defense has fallen off a bit. LCC's always had offensive guys throughout the years whether it's RBs, QBs, receivers, etc., but always quietly lurking out there was a Cronk or a Corcoran or two or Kochert or Hubertz or Smith or Schrader or two or Beardmore or two or Adams or many of the other guys that stifled teams' dreams of keeping pace with the LCC offense.

Wasn't a question of winning. It was a question of doing it because I enjoyed it that made things fun ... regardless of how hard I worked or whether I won. I ran track as a way of building stamina for football. I hate running and hated every minute of track. Have only played on one team with a losing season in my life ... it was a baseball team in 4th grade I believe. Had more fun losing in baseball than winning in track. I know some folks love running, even with no prizes, but I'd rather miss a bus than run for it.

Don't forget Bishop Sycamore.

I think maybe it's just track as I can say the exact same thing about my time in distance running.