foxbat

... but she'd already been bagpiped.

I'm pretty sure he has the legs for it ... just don't look underneath if he's a real Scot.

One of them petrified pterodactyl eggs, huh?

I was fertilized and hard-boiled by 30+ years ago and I can tell you that it is something that's been happening easily for the past 30+ years. It's not always about football and, most of the time, it has little to do with football.

West Lafayette has a youth program and a junior high program. Matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, they were one of the founding members of the program that LCC, McCutcheon, and one other program, along with West Lafaayette formed back in the 1980s or so. They used to play in the same youth program with LCC, Harrison,, Benton Central, South Newton, and others. When Harrison broke off to form its own self-contained league, HYF, West Lafayette used to play with their league too. They also have a flag league in the area as well that feeds into their youth tackle program. Public, definitely. Run differently, not that much.

Non-participation? Is that another DTmism? I'm pretty sure that HC members have posted about the conference and specifics about their teams/players. The HC also has the annual CFWM Pick 'Em on GID which I would bet is one of the few on GID that actually has a PHYSICAL plaque presented to the winner. From the NCC side, yes I have have had involvement in two conferences with kids at three different schools so far, we've had NCC posts concerning teams as well as weighing in on fantasy ideas from posters talking about members of the HC joining the NCC.

Or have them contract/ consolidate.

Except that @Donnie Baker has a thing for the Woofs.

This can definitely be city folks as well though. When I lived in Houston and then again in Dallas, the idea of hour commute to work was nothing. When I lived in the Dallas area, I lived on the north side AND worked on the north side and it still factored in that it was going to be 30-45 minutes in in the morning and 45 minutes to an hour home in the evening. And God forbid I had to travel from DFW Airport ... I had American Airlines as a client and they were fond about scheduling meetings on Friday at 3:00 pm out at the airport on Friday afternoons. When I lived in Houston, it was about an hour in to downtown where I worked and 75 minutes to get home in the evenings from/to the suburbs.

A good carpenter could help you with that.

Goes to protected class status, right? And "handed-ness" is not a protected class.

Did a very quick check, so this may not be complete, but take a look: Adams Central - Had a regional in 98, another in 99, and a state in 2000. I'm not sure if I'd classify after that as a falloff. They did have the next two years without a sectional, but then had a regional in 2003, a sectional in 2004, a regional in 2005, a sectional in 2006, and then four seasons through 2010 without a sectional. Leading into their last state appearance in 2021, there were two regionals in 2018/2019 and no sectional in 2020. Sheridan - This one probably ends up being the one we'd expect without looking at the data given that they've had lots of state runs and haven't been back in the mix in the last 5-10 years. Sheridan had a 4-peat visit/3-peat win cycle at LOS from 2005-2008. The following two seasons, they didn't have a sectional, but did have regionals in 2011 and 2012, before running into LCC both seasons in semi-state on the backend of LCC's four-peat run. Since then, they've yet to secure a sectional. Linton - Linton had a run of moderate success in the latter part of the 2000s and into the 2010s. Prior to getting to state, they had a run of three straight regionals followed by a sectional from 2011-2014. There were two state visits in 2015 and 2016 resulting in a blue ring and an "invitation" from Uncle SF to come take a look at 2A. Enrollment has kept them in 2A, so even though Uncle Sf came for them, they would have probably only had a another couple of years in 1A before the crystal flower in their palm started to blink ... Last Day. Pioneer - Like Linton, LCC, and Sheridan, also received a visit from Uncle SF. Like Sheridan in their heyday, you can make an argument that they were power program rather than just a really good class. One thing that you do have to take into account, when looking at their data is that it is going to look "lighter" than it really is due to the fact that Pioneer and LCC tended to be in the same sectional or regional and often knocked each other off in the early part of the tourney even though one or both were likely ranked top 5 at the time. As such, there are a couple years, like 2009, where it looks like Pioneer didn't even win a sectional game, but when they lost to LCC that season, I think Pioneer was ranked #1. You can probably argue that the 1997 state champ team was a class and year item given that the three seasons before and the three seasons after, they didn't win sectional titles. A sectional, regional, sectional, semi, section title run from 2013-2015 preceded the three-peat visits / 2-peat win LOS trips in 2016, 2017, 2018. Then Uncle SF came calling. LCC - LCC won state in 1999. From 1994-1998, LCC did not win any sectional titles. From 2000 - 2004, LCC also did not win any sectionals. A lone sectional win in 2005 and then no titles again from 2006-2008. The four-peat run hit from 2009-2012 resulting in four blue rings. Then Uncle SF came calling. LCC actually picked up a regional in the second year of the two-year cycle in 2014. Back down to 1A in 2015 with a state title followed by a sectional in 2016 ... run ended by Pioneer. Then Pioneer struck and knocked them out of sectionals in both 2017-2018. A state title in 2019, followed by a regional in 2020, and Uncle SF came calling again. Scecina - Looking at just their 1A time, Scecina, prior to the 2-peat visit to LOS in 2011-2012 had no sectional titles from 2003-2010. Scecina has the distinct "pleasure" of being the poster child for the exception for Uncle SF in that he came calling before they could place that blue ring on their hand. They are the only team to be SF'd who did not pick up a blue ring on the way to their next-class invitation. Scecina grew in size and never dropped back down to 2A . They've had moderate success in 2A with three sectionals and two regionals sprinkled over nine seasons in 2A. South Adams - This might be the one team that actually gets closest to the criteria and the spirit of the question asked, but we are too close to the results to know the answer. Had a sectional in 2019, a state visit in 2020, and a sectional in 2021. Lutheran - Been around since 2005. Had a sectional in 2009 and then a streak of four regionals and a sectional from 2014-2018 en route to a showdown with LCC in 2019 at LOS and then a 2021 state title. As such, I would say that the idea of build-up and let down isn't necessarily applicable here either. There may be more that are in play and may reveal a match to your criteria, but these are the ones that we'd been looking at to start with. Notice that, in the above mix, of the eight listed, four of them were SF'd, with LCC being SF'd twice, Pioneer not yet bouncing down, and Linton and Scecina growing into staying. Of the other four, Sheridan might be the only one where you could argue that the program dropped off, but even in that case, Sheridan had a pair of semi-state visits in 2011 and 2012 AFTER the four-peat visit/three-peat win in the period 2005-2008.

That argument about public schools somehow being hobbled because they don't have youth programs and CYO having the "secret sauce" doesn't hold water other than in situational aspects. I'm pushing six decades now and I started playing tackle football in second grade in the public parks program in New Orleans. Mind you that New Orleans is a city where roughly 1/3 of its schools are p/p. Youth programs, en mass, have been around for a long time. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of p/p schools in New Orleans when I grew up saw their players play youth ball in the public park system. I went to Catholic elementary school and, while the Catholic elementary school had a team, I played ball, along with many of my peers, in the park system. The idea that somehow CYO came up with this. As a side note, when the LCC youth program started, it was actually formed by LCC, West Lafayette, McCutcheon, and I'm forgetting the name of the fourth program, but it was a public school system. There was nothing CYOish about, but just a bunch of folks from the area that decided to bring youth ball to the area for the kids back in the 1980s or so. When I came to Indiana, coming from Louisiana and Texas where youth ball was a staple across the area, I found it quite odd to hear that youth ball was not, in the latter part of the 20th century, a foundation of an area with a 6A, 2 5A, and a 3A school. I wonder if that was attributable to the Indiana basketball focus for so long. Like I said, six decades ago in Louisiana and Texas, it was fully-established and a staple.

Whatever happen to old Turd? And speaking of such, probably need to pull that old thread out of the archives.

But those various arguments exist in publics as well ... we've already seen it in GID as well talking about the FRL/SES aspects ... although we often tend to lay that yoke on P/P or successful publics. To show you how skewed this goes, and I kid you not on this, when I played ball in Texas, I went to a very, predominantly White school public school ... the demographics of that school have now shifted away from that demographic predominance. We were a fairly well-known school in the area/state/nation for academics, sports, arts, etc. One year, something happened to our schedule and, rather than playing our traditional suburban schedule, we played a school from the inner-city. After having our *sses handed to us on a platter in that game, I recall some of my teammates grousing on the LONG bus ride about how unfair the pairing was because that school was very, predominantly-Black and had all the "natural athletes."

Well then we are in agreement. I even acknowledged the same in the post that you grabbed a single sentence out of: From the same post: Ultimately, I like the idea of success factor rather than multipliers because it treats all on the basis of PROVEN advantage or PROVEN outcome as opposed to conjecture. Frankly, if we are being really honest, we should be able to look at the contents of the unmarked box and determine if there an true impact on the balance. Ultimately, I think that comes in the performance. Yes, SF is flawed and doesn't adequately do that right now, but put a four year window on it and a couple of other tweaks, and I think we are closer to making it more pragmatic than punitive.

Then why hasn't Noll had a winning season since 2006? And again, I pointed out Faith Christian. Why aren't they dominating IHSAA in the sports in the ones that they play? As I pointed out, there was an Orwellian situation where we had a thread here on GID talking about this very issue of blanket multipliers in one thread and, in another thread, at the same time, someone calling for Noll to be put out of their misery and contract/just stop trying football. A 2.0 multiplier system would take a 2A school with roughly 500 students, which incidentally hasn't won more than one game per season in the last seven years, and thrust them into 4A. Can you honestly state that is what you are looking for? Or are you looking for, as you mentioned, schools like Mater Dei or Chatard or LCC or Cathedral to have to play up? If it's the former, then it's a more punitive system; if it's the latter, then it's more based on outcome. If we are really looking at that idea of fairness/balance/etc., then again, a performance-based/outcome-based system tends to be better at addressing the REALIZED advantage. And it also, very quickly does away with the p/p vs. public threads and also does away with subjectivity or having to convince folks of anything. Right now, we keep rehashing this topic like the blind men describing the elephant and trying to determine whether we should keep it in the garage. The guy who feels the trunk says, "It's just like a snake, so sure, let it in." The guy who feels the ears says, "Well, it's probably not going to like it in a garage because it can't fly around, but what the heck." The guy who feels the tail says, "It's just like rope and there's already rope in the garage, so sure let it in." On the other hand, if we all agree, without even seeing what it is, that if it crushes a car when it sits on it it shouldn't be in the garage, then frankly I don't care if it's an elephant or a bird or a snake or rope. It doesn't go in the garage. Similarly, I don't care if it's p/p, a rich public school, a really big consolidated school, a rich school that only cares about the arts, or a really poor school that only cars about sports, inner-city/country, urban/suburban, or an average school that really only cares about academics, but likes to have some EC activities. If it crushes the brackets, so to say, then it moves up. If it has no impact on brackets, then why make the school dedicated to the arts potentially have to play up a couple classes if it's interested on football on the same level that some sports-crazed schools are interested in the chess teams?

OK, we gotta give folks time to at least get home before having to run back to the stadium to pick up the kids. We had gotten used to dropping the kids off at the football game, then going to eat, then going to pick the kids up after dinner. I recall the first time that Jeff hit that mercy rule with someone. We'd just ordered and the kids texted and said, "Second half just started and they said something about a running clock." My wife asked what that was and I said, "We've got 24 minutes to have Applebee's cook it, we eat it, and we get back to Jeff before the kids start lighting up the chat with 'Where are you?" If we go to first half, we won't have time to make it through the Taco Bell line on some games. 🙂

I agree it sounds logical and makes sense that if you have one, you should have the balance ... I'm just not sure if you put it to a vote of the membership, there would be many takers. And the fact that there's logic involved makes it now questionable 1) if the IHSAA would consider it in the first place and 2) if they did, how they could make the SF look like the Golden Rule in contrast ... a relative Midas Touch they sometimes have.

I think the problem with this is that you are talking about a paid professional sport vs. an extra curricular activity where many of the participants are unpaid, volunteer if you will, participants. I think there are differences in that ability to get the similar results as an apple-apples comparison.

This has been bantered around, but I suspect that it would be hard to get the backing on this, if it's something like SF where applied, . It's one thing to put a badge of honor on a team and say, "Hey, you're really good, so we are going to move you up" compared to "Hey, you guys really aren't all that good, so we're going to put you over here in a room with the safety scissors until you can prove to us that you won't put someone's eye out." OK, I'm be a bit / a lot facetious, but I think you'd get buy in from teams that will never ever have this apply to them to "help the other teams." Kind of like the coach's son is always the first one to vote for extra laps for anyone who's late to practice because he's riding with Dad and knows Dad's never going to be late. I think most teams/programs in the mix for possibly succumbing to this new badge of "special recognition," would vote against it ... especially if there's ANY chance that it's first few attempts get enacted half-*ssed, pardon my French, the way that SF did. The tweaking is getting better on SF, but it still needs more work and there are REAL bodies/kids that are in the lab in real time as the experiment is worked out. If it's something where you'd be eligible and could "opt" for it, I think you might have even fewer teams that would openly ASK to move down. Most would like to have the ability to say, "They made us move down" or "Well, that's the rule" as opposed to "Can we please move down a level?"

I don't think it's all that silly or illogical. I've often thought the same thing ... that there's something more than an arbitrary 300-mile rule and that there was something else tied to it. If the discussions concerning haves/have-nots WITHIN conferences, regions, classes, holds then an open-travel policy would seem to exacerbate that for the tournament. I wonder, if you plot that 300-mile radius, what does it provide in the way of average-/large-metro access. I did a quick set of 300-mile radius circles using Evanasville, Gary, Terre Haute, Ft. Wayne, and Lawrenceburg as surrogates for end-points of the state. Here's the link to the tool if you want to play around with it further: https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php. It tends to provide relative access to the Midwest. One other interesting thing that I noticed in this is that it tends to be, with the exception of Kentucky/Tennessee and some parts of Missouri, focused on Big Ten country. Of course, it would be more questioning to have something that excluded Kentucky being on the border, but 300-miles seems to be somewhat conducive to showcasing in front of the heart of the Big Ten ... at least geographically ... without making it overtly obvious ... and just biting the bullet that a couple of SEC states might get a look. Might be as silly/illogical, but folks have done stranger things for a lot less.

Shouldn't success factor, if done better/correctly, be doing this? If so, then you don't need a multiplier for just p/p. If the idea is truly fairness, then it makes sense to spend some time and find the REAL issue tied to imbalance and address it as opposed to just using easy surrogate items like p/p. Faith Christian is a p/p and, though they are now IHSAA, I can pretty much assure you that they are not "stealing" anyone right to get a blue ring ... in anything. We also already know that p/p doesn't equate to automatic advantages ... we already had an Orwellian thread a while back that ran alongside the many-times-annually-p/p-Dead-Horse-Athon about how Noll should just hang it up in football. Faith never had football and probably never will ... and it's not due to the fact that they are a baseball/basketball/*fill-in-the-blank* powerhouse and have just chosen to exploit their neighboring public school victims in that "power sport." Ultimately, I like the idea of success factor rather than multipliers because it treats all on the basis of PROVEN advantage or PROVEN outcome as opposed to conjecture. Frankly, if we are being really honest, we should be able to look at the contents of the unmarked box and determine if there an true impact on the balance. Ultimately, I think that comes in the performance. Yes, SF is flawed and doesn't adequately do that right now, but put a four year window on it and a couple of other tweaks, and I think we are closer to making it more pragmatic than punitive.

And yet here we are. Deja vu all over again.

That's what were doing at LCC. I spent 18 years there and started before I even had boys. Many of the guys who coached with me stayed on with the youth program even after their boys had moved on to junior high, then high school, and even after they graduated. We had a guy who was a mainstay for a long time there, that had two girls and no boys, but spent over two decades coaching in the youth program. We also had LCC alums who stayed in the area and went to Purdue or Ivy Tech come out and help us coach while in college. If you can build that kind of culture, it's big. The interesting part at LCC was that, while the varsity coaches were always supportive of the youth program ... always lending players to come talk to the kids, coming out to watch the games, helping with the use of the varsity field for games, they always left the running of the youth program to the guys that had been doing it. As a courtesy, we'd always ask incoming coaches, if there's anything that they wanted us doing at that youth level and they all said, do what you've been doing, teach good/safe skills, and keep the kids engaged and having fun ... we'll teach them the plays when they get to varsity.