LuersLady

Here is a link to the live broadcast Luers v. Eastside game, if you don't have it and want it:

Luers -6 @ EastSide-0 Terrible field conditions hurting both teams. Luers giving up a lot of penalties. Red Zone penalties on the part of Luers is interfering with their success.

FW Bishop Luers @ East Side https://youtu.be/Ps9Z1jLEIpo

Sorry. I got busy. To answer your question: Luers has not always been poor. But, the south side of Fort Wayne got hit hard in the 70s and 80s, and has become the compartaively "poor-er" side of town. And, Luers is located on the far south side. There are definitely still some comfortable, and even a couple of wealthy families (as at all schools). Never the less... 80% of all students are receive aid. Luers does a remarkable job with the resources they have, and it is because of the people. The students, families, teachers and coaches are really committed to this tradition of excellence (which also extends past football -- Luers is consistently ranked nationally for Show Choir, and Luers Academic Superbowl teams are state finalists nearly every year.) Also -- to be clear. I didn't mean to imply that Snider "recruits" for football. They don't. But, Snider, like Luers and Dwenger, does attract the kids who want to belong to football traditions. I don't say this to take anything away from the Snider coach. I know Kurt. He is a helluva guy and a great coach (as was Ike before him) But... I also won't allow for the hard work and commitment of Kyle Lindsay (or Matt before him) be discounted by saying they win because they have more money. Or because they "recruit." They attract good players because they have good football programs at schools with long traditions, and they are good coaches. All three schools have that advantage... equally.

Yep. Used to work at Snider, as a matter of fact! 😉

I used to work at Snider, as a matter of fact. 😉

1. Luers is not a private school with money. Luers is VERY POOR. Luers is Title I eligible! Well over 80% of Luers students are on scholarship. 2. The Luers coach gets paid less than the public school coaches in Fort Wayne. He is the Luers coach because he is a Luers grad. In fact, all or darn-close-to-all of the Luers football coaches are Luers grads. And several are volunteers... ( For that matter, it is not just coaches who make less at Luers; Luers teachers make just over 60% of what they would make at a public school.) 3. Refer back to my response to #1. But, long story short: I think you have the wrong idea about the Luers demographics. Also -- I understand that you are not talking about "recruiting" but I still want to point out that Fort Wayne has fully open enrollment in all public schools... so SNIDER can (and does!) pull athletes from anywhere in Fort Wayne, just as much as Luers/Dwenger/Concordia can, without charging any tuition!

Luers 45 C.Noble 0 Running Clock with 6 or so to play. C.Noble still playing hard. Full credit to them.

Luers had a lot of injuries in the regular season and they played younger kids against Snider to try to avoid injuries coming into post season. They are healthy right now (knock on wood) and up on Central Noble 23-0 early in the 3rd quarter with mostly the second string playing tonight -- only minor appearances from the seniors in several skill positions.

Luers 23Central Noble 0 Early in the third. It is a weird game

Fort Wayne has open enrollment. There is a ton of movement between schools at all times. There tends to be less movement among athletes than among the general student population... but there is massive student movement in Fort Wayne. I recently saw a student who had been in my son's class at Luers as a freshmen. He transferred out for his sophomore year, and my son kind of lost touch with him, but I noticed he was on the roster at Wayne their senior year We ran into him when we went out to brunch recently and he told me he had transferred three times before playing his senior year for Wayne. Fort Wayne has open enrollment, and kids just transfer a lot. Don't read anything extra into it.

But... remember Luers played Penn as one of their "out of conference" games back in the day. Luers doesn't try to dodge tough teams -- they seek them out! And Luers does not consider Dwenger a "big" brother. Luers opened first. Luers joined the SAC in '60. Dwenger joined in '65. The kids *like* being considered an underdog. They say "Let em sleep."

Lol. Imagine they are talking that Luers can't hang in the SAC and then the talk turns to replacing "outmatched" Luers with Huntington North. What is going on? And why ya wanna do that to poor Huntington North?? Look -- in The Fort, football is not about enrollment. It is mostly about tradition, and... more recently it has started to become about who has the money to play 7v7 and have year-round professional football training. Which is why you are seeing the rise of the schools with moneyed families (ie Carroll, and Homestead... Luers and Snider are not actually moneyed schools, but they are carried by tradition... and Dwenger is dominant because they have both of those things.) Huntington North has neither tradition nor do they have moneyed families... and I think Northrop, North Side, and the others have made it clear how that goes over in the SAC.

Lol. Okay. Please explain to be sure I can understand? What exactly is the p/p "advantage" in Fort Wayne? ???

That isn't true. I was at a CYO practice just Wednesday.

Lol. Nope. Sorry. I can see why some people might hope so. But... Luers prides itself on being an underfunded underdog and still coming out on top. Luers kids pride themselves on taking on the big boys. And, the coaches pragmatically understand that the SAC competition is the best way to prepare for post-season. And Luers athletes and fans don't need to drag themselves around the state for games. They can play fantastic football on a regular schedule and parents and friends can attend every regular game with less than a 30min drive.

Wait. What exactly are the supposed "advantages?" It cracks me up when people start talking about what they don't know about. You clearly don't know how the schools work in The Fort. Lol. I hear this nonsense and I automatically know I am dealing with someone who has no idea about Fort Wayne.

That is because there are so many privates that got so big in Indy that they could make their own league. ( IPS has closed a crazy number of schools.) That won't happen in Fort Wayne. The Catholics have a CYO league for parochial elementary schools to play each other in Fort Wayne, but the city isn't big enough to do that with High Schools. It is a totally different context than Indy.

I am shocked Concordia looked into it. Luers did NOT. It has not crossed their minds. They will stay in the SAC. It is a great fit for Luers, and they will not leave. One year they went 0-10. I remember the weight room chants the next year... over and over... "Oh and Ten, never again!"

Kyle took over in 2012. I know for a fact Luers had the victory bell in the building in the fall of 2015. Luers made it to semi-state in a class above their official size just last year. Luers was 9-5-0 last year and didn't play one single school that was within a hundred students of their size. Played several "6A" schools that were larger by the THOUSANDS. Fine... 9-5-0 may not be up to the old 15-0 dome-or-bust 4-peat days of Luers yore.... But... Jaylon Freaking Smith was on that team. 9-5-0 is hardly a terrible season. Not by any stretch. And last year is still within human memory, right? Come on... what is everyone here even talking about??

Lol... WHAT???? Um. Luers beat BOTH of those schools just last year. In fact, if you want to make the "6A" schools a series against Luers, Luers is 3-3. A 2A size school going 500 against 6As is perfectly respectable. Luers was in the SAC before half the teams currently in the league. And Luers has their share of championships, too. (The victory bell was last at Luers in 2015. Wait... this is still just 2019, right?) When actually was the last time Carroll or Homestead had it? Why in the heck would they leave?? Let's be clear: Luers has always been, still is, and will always be a "team to beat" in the SAC. They are having a rebuilding year. (Small schools have those periodically.) Also -- they have had 6-9 starters out for each game. There were a number of injuries were bad and... Luers doesn't let kids play if have pretty much any grades trouble at all or any referrals. ("Student-athlete. The 'student" comes first for a reason.") A lot of those juniors and seniors are in high-level dual-credit and AP courses. That can hamstring a smaller team at the beginning of the year ...especially a young one, if the seniors are sitting. Also, for whatever reason, Luers often seems to start slowly and build up to more success over the course of a season. But there is no way they will drop out of the SAC. There were actually two-minds about dropping back down to 2A. A lot of players and coaches wanted to get their first 3A ring. Anyway -- Luers is a top SAC team, overall, and there may be rebuilding years sometimes. Luers is big on tradition, so they will stay in the SAC. And... they will win beat both Carroll and Homestead again fairly soon. Leave the SAC?? I was shocked when I read the question. I promise: such a thought has not even crossed the Knights' minds. Lol. Luers is big on tradition. And win or lose... they love a good game and want to play good football. Plus... there is even one more young Knapke quarterback waiting in the wings.

Fort Wayne Community schools is an open enrollment district. It allows freedom of movenent within the district, and accepts out-of-district transfers. There is a permanent carousel of students moving from school-to-school at all times in Fort Wayne. This is true of ALL students, not just athletes. Actually, the athletes tend to move slightly less than NARPs, but it is VERY normal for students in Fort Wayne to move from school to school. I ran into a former Luers student who had started at Luers and was a friend of one of my older sons. He played Luers football as a freshman, but my son lost track of him after he left Luers. I knew he had played at Wayne their senior season. We were out for brunch today and saw this kid for the first time in many years. He told me that in his 4 years of high school, he transferred 3 times. He is an extreme example, but... transfers are not unusual at all in Fort Wayne.