foxbat

Their call. I wouldn't want some third party forcing me into not continuing if I thought otherwise or wanted to try something different to effect change.

Nothing at all, but you were the one that made the blanket statement that magnets don't attract polished football players. Used to hear the same thing in the 70s about academic and college-prep schools ... that was also incorrect.

So shifting the conversation a bit, is this more like taking a tag off of a new garment or pulling at a thread on a well-worn sweater? In the former, it impacts, at most a couple of conferences. In the latter, it provides a potential domino effect.

You implied that arts schools don't attract athletes. You're wrong. While Clay has specific issues, you've extrapolated out their condition to others. My niece, an accomplished pianist and a heck of a basketball player, attended a public magnet school for the arts and received a college scholarship to play basketball.

What are you say, eh? Another segway? What the heck does that have to do with the statement that a school with strong arts doesn't attract football types?

This is how the 10-team Hoosier Conference works. Two 5-team divisions. You play four games against the others in your division, two against teams from the other division in a rotating fashion over the seasons, and then a crossover game in Week 9 ... 1st East vs. 1st West, 2nd East vs. 2nd West, etc. Two games left over to schedule at will against traditional rivals or anyone else.

👍 It's a unique person that plays football. It's not for everyone though ... and that's OK. When I coached youth ball, we used to tell them that football is one of the few sports that when just about anyone on the team doesn't do their job, they are literally risking injury to another. It's a very high level of responsibility. I've played many different sports from singles to doubles to team during my life from youth to high school to adulthood and football holds a very special place for me and many of the things learned there resonate even today.

Just curious as to what this has to do with my post on the issue of deaths due to mismatched teams and the fact that there are more stories, right here on GID ... following your lead ... about deaths from everything else EXCEPT mismatched teams. One thing of interest that I did see from the 2017 article was "Over the arc of time, since the NFSHS started tracking participation, boys basketball — not football — has dropped dramatically. There are about half as many boys basketball players in Indiana today (11,000) as there were in 1969. In football, that year, there were 27,569. No one I know is concerned about basketball going away."

I'm also not a big fan of not providing options. University of Oklahoma is well-known for its arts programs as well as its 7 Heisman Trophy winners, 5 Outland Trophy winners, 7 National Championships, and 3 collegiate Butkus winners. Incidentally, the young lady in the first picture dances for the Fort Wayne Ballet now. 2018 2005

How about we get to this point before we throw the baby out with the bathwater? Or even just provide the option with qualifications.

?? 😵 Indiana teachers' pay is the 14th lowest in the country.

I can guarantee you that there are some folks in the wings waiting to do this. 😀

Would agree. For a while, folks were willing to say that schools like Pike and North Central had trouble growing "in the shadow" of schools like Carmel and Center Grove. Once the shadow has been removed, those schools are going to have to snap to or end up in contraction threads.

I'm not sure it's gutsy. It's just the logical position to take in a dog-eat-dog world. The idea in a situation like this is to "control the narrative." Not everyone's going to buy the narrative, but it beats the alternative of "We wish the MIC all the success as we leave them behind ... bless their little hearts."

Does that really matter in state with an open football tourney? Are the other sport tourneys all-in as well ... at least the big sports? I could see it in a place like Texas where the top four teams in a district go to post-season and everyone else just goes home. It would seem that having a CG and/or Carmel in your conference pushes you to be better. It would seem to be a very short-sighted reasoning.

Would lead me to believe the MIC is going hunting for others and needs to control the narrative in that case. Assuming folks believe the first release, it sells better to say "We booted them," than "They found our conference wanting, but we'd like to have you." 😀

So what does "culturally align" mean? I'm hoping it's not a dog-whistle issue. So the questions, from a purely football perspective, is "Where do Carmel and/or Center Grove land?" and "Who does the MIC court for replacement?" So could the NCC go smaller-school and have Jeff and Harrison and perhaps Kokomo and maybe McCutcheon join with Carmel and Center Grove in a new league? That would open up things in the NCC for the remaining schools and provide better competition for Jeff/Harrison. Perhaps not so much for Carmel and Center Grove. Guess it depends if HCC opens up for Carmel / Center Grove.

My statement wasn't about low numbers, but instead about the idea that there are so many things that CAN go wrong in football, it's a wonder that we play it at all. If we do, then there is a risk component that has been weighed in. Without seeing exact numbers, I'd strongly suspect that more kids have died in Indiana and across the country from heat-related items in football than by mismatched team sizes on the field on Friday night. There's a really easy fix for that that involves moving the season back into late-September or October even, but we don't do that for some reason. Not to be disrespectful or morbid to those who may have experienced death of a kid, but like you, I've been around GID for a while too ... at least a decade+. I've seen more posting about deaths of football players from being shot or dying in car wrecks riding with their classmates on the weekends than I've ever seen about in a game ... regardless of the size of a team they were playing. I've seen postings about deaths of players from heat-related items or in practice from heart arrhythmia, but again that's not tied to opponents' numbers. The original premise of this whole thread was about minimum numbers to compete and then safety was thrown in to try to make the case. I didn't buy in to the arbitrary numbers and, while concussion is certainly a serious issue, I'm not seeing evidence that teams with lower numbers significant levels of concussion tied to playing bigger teams. Case in point, the Oklahoma concussion article referenced the equivalent of four of the largest 25 schools in the state of Oklahoma. The case can't possibly be made that somehow the 12 largest school in the state boasting a roster of 70 plus makes the case for limiting team ability to play in a season based on the the idea that you need at least 40 to play 5A ball.

The issue about concussions in football, although the article mentioned is sports in general, is much different than concussions in football caused by mismatched team sizes. The two teams mentioned in that first paragraph, Putnam City and Norman are both 6A schools and rank in the top dozen teams in a state that has 332 football teams, including 8-man teams, in a state that's about 2/3 the size of Indiana. These schools would be equivalent to the top 5A schools in Indiana clocking in at roughly 2,000-2,100 students each. Norman is the 13th largest school in the state and boasts some 75+ kids on the numbered roster. Putnam City is the 14th largest school in the state and boasts 60+ on the numbered roster with another 20+ listed unnumbered. Putnam City schools actually consists of three different 6A schools Putnam City, Putnam City West, and Putnam City North. West and North are classified as 6A-II with around 1,500 - 1,700 students each. West is the 19th largest school in the state and North is the 25th largest school. As for you question about training services, don't have a direct answer on that one. Coaches that have received their coaching certifications from the state also must obtain the medical certification from a licensed athletic trainer or from courses from an accredited college or university. Additional info pertaining to Oklahoma high school sports and concussions can be found below: http://www.ossaa.net/docs/2021-22/OSSAAInfo/MF_2021-22_Rules.pdf http://www.ossaa.com/SportsMedicine.aspx

Given this argument, we really shouldn't be playing football at all given all of the things that could go wrong and actually DO go wrong that we have lots more data on.

Just curious how many kids, in Indiana, died this past season due to mismatches in numbers of players? Any call on how many kids from Midland died in 1926 when Linton beat them 156-0? I'm assuming that the local mortician was able to retire after that game. In all seriousness, and I'll ask again, although you say it's pure common sense, what are the numbers? I'm not making light of this, but I suspect that more kids in Indiana have died of heat-related conditions. And, again, how many deaths are attributed directly to the mismatch in team sizes? Also, on a somewhat related set of numbers, do we have concussion numbers for Indiana? If so, it should be fairly easy to determine how valid the concussion appeal happens to be as we could look at numbers and apply them to sizes of teams and see if there's any correlation ... although as I'm sure that @Bobref will point out, and rightly so, correlation isn't specifically causation. It would, however, be a decent starting point for determining is it really the issue or not.

LCC had one, Kim Cahoon, that played varsity. Linton's Dyllanne Deischer kicked for Linton and racked up 200+ points in her career and was named to the All-Wabash Valley team as its first female player.

I think changing its title to something like Indiana Player of the Year as opposed to Mr. Football opens it up to that, provided that the rules are changed, and also would (hopefully) minimize some of the career stuff that tends to creep in in both discussion and, likely, voting, too.

Then why not just let nature take its course? If ADs aren't fanatics, they'll put more into their other sports. If communities are waning in their support, then the sport will fall by the wayside. As for football zealots, you would probably have more of a convincing line in Texas, Florida, and perhaps Ohio, but as folks point out often, in Indiana basketball is king. Are there football fanatics? Sure. Are they "coming out of the woodwork" to force a school to spend their money without putting up their own dollars? Not quite to the extent that you might think and certainly not to the point that there are massive numbers of communities held hostage by a few football folks against the vast majority of the folks who don't want football. There are two IHSSA schools in the Lafayette and near-Lafayette area that don't field football teams and have put their resources into other areas: Rossville and Faith Christian. Faith tends to do decent in soccer, but not too well in other male sports. Rossville has found better success in soccer, basketball, and baseball. Rossville, in particular, came together as a community and decided across all levels to focus their resources on other sports rather than football. They actually don't have any decent-sized footprint, if any, in youth football. There's an example of an AD and an entire community making that decision. Again, I don't disagree with any of the general ideas that you are proposing ... outside of the IHSAA canning teams over arbitrary numbers. I just think that it is a decision for local communities to make rather than dictated to them. In your original proposal, you stated that a team could petition to not play for a couple of years ... I think that's what Noll is doing. If I'm not mistake, there are schools that have had football, dropped football, and are now reviving football while others have dropped football and left it dropped. Again, their call, their agency.

I know that these often focus on folks that get to LOS, but I wanted to focus on some of the ones that weren't as visible and would certainly miss consideration based on more conventional methods. These aren't likely COY in the eyes of the state, but in the eyes of their communities, schools, and players the deserve a bit of recognition. Brad Bevis at South Newton - The Rebels were 1-45 for the last five seasons. This season they finished 5-5. Plenty more road to cover, but certainly a good season to build on after some handfuls of dirt were surely ready to throw on the "contraction coffin." Blake Betzner at Carroll (Flora) - Carroll hasn't seen a sectional title since 2003. To put that in context, Frankton and Lapel were still 1A back then. In his first season at Carroll, Betzner took the Cougars to a 9-4 and their first sectional title in just under a couple of decades. Andrew Tetheroh at Tri - First trip to semi-state in more than two and a half decades. Tri has typically not been a name on the radar screen in post-season, but this season they got there. Brett Jennings at Whiting - When Cain left Whiting, the program went on much harder times; especially with a mere four-game season in 2020. They were 3-11 in the last two seasons and, while 5-7, this year's finishing record, isn't great, the Oiler's scrapped their way to a sectional title showdown with Andrean. Rob Gibson at Owen Valley - OV was 12-39 over the last five seasons and hadn't seen a sectional final in more than two and a half decades. Gibson led OV to a sectional title and a 10-2 season record. I'm sure that's not all of them. Anyone else have any others?