Lysander

Bit of a haul. Who travels? 1 game deal or 2?

True. The Deanery school teams used to run whatever they wanted. I assume that is still the same. If I recall correctly, when Doyle was Freshman coach at Chatard even he didn’t run the varsity offense (players may correct me on this, though).

Totally agree. I have never not seen this as an advantage. P/P participation rates are generally high. Chatard football participation rates are insanely high by any standard....including P/Ps. Yet Memorial last year kicked Chatard’s butt and supports 2 State Championship level Men’s Fall sports. The year prior Danville (a public) did the same. High participation is great but you still only field 11 players at a time.

Heck....it’s worse for an old adult in the stands. Felt like I was watching a shell game at LOS. I loved watching your offense....even though I never knew who had the ball.

Random thoughts: 1. P/Ps do not limit school size for athletics. Aside from financial and likely physical constraints (nowhere to build), the argument begs against common sense. As has been stated, it’s a struggle to keep class sizes up. If they could grow to Carmel size, they would. 2. I agree with Irishman in that special needs kids that aren’t ever going to play a sport shouldn’t be counted toward totals for the purpose of classes. 3. I argued against the Success Factor from the beginning making many of the arguments @MHSTigerFan is making today (and I still agree with him). It’s Orwellian and reminds me of “Harrison Bergeron”. I always said just move all P/Ps up a class and be done with it (because the same untruths and complaints will always promulgate....as we are seeing here now). That thought didn’t get much traction either, though. But today, I think we are stuck with the Success Factor because for some, it’s now a point of pride. I have a feeling that New Pal, Columbus East and Cathedral all want to compete “Up” these days to show their stuff. I’m personally PO’d that Chatard didn’t stick in 4A (which still had New Pal, CE and Dwenger in it at the time) although I think 3A has been better than 4A the last few years (I personally think Memorial’s success there helps evidence that). Still, aside from the reason for its creation, there is a whole new contingent of teams that like being bumped up.

Chatard’s football numbers are pretty public as are the affiliate feeder schools. The varsity roster is 76-77 (forget which) and the Freshmen team has 35 for a total of 111 kids. Assuming roughly 700 kids that’s 16% of the entire student body or 32% of all boys if the school is divided 50/50 boy and girls. Chatard’s situation is unique (possibly shared with Cathedral) in that it is very typical for parents to strongly encourage their Freshman boys to go out for Freshman football as a head start in getting to know their male classmates (assuming they don’t participate in any competing Fall sport). The role of the Freshman coaches (which was lead by Coach Doyle up until 3 years ago) was obviously to teach and coach up kids but a very important role of the Freshman coach was to make it fun and RETAIN kids for the next year move up to Varsity. The fact that parents almost utilize Freshman football as a pre-Freshman summer camp for their boys sets the stage for markedly higher football participation rates than normal.....even for a P/P. Funny thing is that sometimes that 98 lb hopeless Freshman who didn’t quit before he even started, sticks with it, then has a Jr. year growth spurt and turns into a gorilla his Senior year. Doesn’t always happen but it does happen. That said, are we supposed to penalize/punish/bump up (pick your word of choice) schools for high participation rates? Maybe, rather, we should seek to model that. Edit - God forbid what Chatard would be like if it wasn’t splitting almost 50% of its North Deanery football players with Cathedral and Brebeuf. Could you imagine combining Chatard and Cathedral into a single North Deanery parochial.....

Outside of a Ralph coming in, it’s probably going to have to be a system based solution. You can’t just plug in a cookie cutter system like the other HCC schools and expect a new result. There lies madness. No tradition there....none. Going to take a bottom up fix there.

Not only that, the whole South bracket is HUGELY lopsided. I absolutely believe there was method to the madness but it had nothing to do with competitive balance.

I totally agree with you. I also think that whatever Noblesville does, it needs to go a different direction - like CG has with their offense.

That’s my point. Center Grove’s success is built into their system - it is organic.....although it was a coaching and administrative decision to go that path originally. CG competes at the highest level each and every year against schools that are multiples of their size. That aside, simply attributing New Pal’s success to one player sells them short. A great coach came along roughly 7 years ago and built a hugely successful program up almost overnight. I don’t doubt for a second that he would have found a way to win these last few years without a great RB. But there lies the difference - New Pal has a brilliant coach that harnessed existing talent.

Explain 3A then.

Errrr......do you mean like Center Grove does.....every year? If you are looking for a “model” it’s been staring at us for some years.

Sad to say, but most years those teams listed aren’t even competitive enough to contend for a 3A title. It’s really hard for the remaining schools to get too bent out of shape regarding their travails. You mentioned Castle earlier. Castle can’t even win the SIAC where they are the only 5A school. Dissecting and re-dissecting 6A until you give out 32 trophies isn’t the cure.

5A was incorrectly established for this very purpose. Yet, who has absolutely “OWNED” 5A? 4A schools. The problem isn’t so much size as it is tradition with almost all of the 5A schools (excepting Snider).....which many of us stated would be the case at the time. Make classes 2A - 5A 64 team classes and 1A a 32 team class.

It was literally a contingency of my wife’s acceptance of my marriage proposal some 32 years ago.....along with having to ask her dad. It was not something I had even considered at the time but was critical to her. As it turned out, it has become a center point of our lives in every possible way. A very happy accident for me. Sports was never, ever a consideration.

Agreed. It’s just built into the entire relationship. Very active parents that hold their kids feet to the fire who are generally deferential to coaches and admins.

Really have to respect what Memorial has done, though.....P/P or otherwise. It seems they literally cobbled together a State Championship run from play to play starting the first Friday in Sectionals. Amazing stuff. I cannot give them enough credit.

I’m still hoping you can find those toilet seat horseshoes from back in the day (it’s been 9 years, Bro....damn.......unbelievable.) Sadly, John Deere Grandma and Grandpa have passed since then. Hell.........not so sure about myself these days.

Heck, they forgave him (and Lorenzano) for being Cathedral guys. Dick is a perennial speaker at Chatard events or broadcast games. BTW, he covered the Hamilton Heights/Chatard Regional in 2010. I’ll never forget that day since our home was robbed the morning of the game.

CalPreps (which I think ends up becoming MaxPreps) has the following overall ranking: 1. New Palestine 2. Carmel 3. Bishop Chatard 4. Cathedral 5. Avon I’m down with that. Funny factoid. The Chatard Seniors played the New Pal Seniors as Freshmen. Chatard also played Avon in scrimmage this year. The only team Chatard has NOT played (scrimmage or prior years)as far as I know is Carmel.

Well....there is that as well. That said, I am “privileged” per DT’s declaration on the vacated Roncalli page and any thought I might ever have is clearly suspect. Guess that wooden, outdoor, dugout “sh!tter” in elementary school in Metamora, Indiana I had to use somehow disqualifies me as privileged simply because I could later send my kids to a private school I could afford to pay for.....and have indoor plumbing. Go figure...

First - Can’t be fixed unless you continue to keep carving it down until every big school is a winner...............errr....yeah rah! Despite the fun that many of us might have (me included) as regards declarations of Carmel “softness”, the reality is that outside of certain “trades” (I used the blue collar “word” just to piss off uppity Carmel folks), a ton of folks who have migrated to Carmel came from hard-scrabble, tough minded-beginnings. Their parents were often the successful first generation college competitors who came from small towns and ended up in Carmel. Their kids will be tough and competitive as well. Though I love the “soft” stereotype.....I’ll push it to HSE and Zionsville. Among the uppity ritzy schools one lives to hate.

Congrats to your son. It’s a special thing.

Your a good dude....always known that.