Sustainabilty

[crimsonace1]

10 hours ago, Gipper said:

Thanks for chiming in, but as I said I don’t know them all.  Then again, most NCC schools aren’t world-beaters on the gridiron.

NCC has a couple of issues. One is that basketball rules in most of those communities, and for years, football has been seen as something to do until winter. 

The other is demographics. Marion, Muncie, Richmond and Anderson have seen *massive* population declines in the last 40 years. Kokomo has seen a bit of one. They were once thriving factory towns, but have lost population as the auto industry and other factories have closed shop, and those who *do* live and work in/near those communities are often at county schools. Mississinewa, Oak Hill, Eastbrook, Centerville, Northeastern, Yorktown, Delta, Pendleton Heights and Lapel all have strong athletic programs. How many kids walking those halls would likely have been going to the "city" school 30 years ago? In terms of Muncie - it seems most Ball State faculty/staff I know lives in Fishers or northeast Indy and commutes up I-69. You need bodies to have a good football program, and when your population is declining and your community is struggling economically, it's difficult to build the robust feeder program you need to have success. 

[Frozen Tundra]

2 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

Columbus East & North have full open enrollment, and it seems the football players have been gravitating to North in recent years (whereas they all seemed to go to East in the Gaddis era). 

I wouldn’t say they all gravitated to East during the Gaddis years. North still landed some great players because of the mentality of some in Columbus that North is the premier school and that playing 6A football is more important than competing for a 5A state title.

However, now that Gaddis is gone, it does seem almost all the talent is going to North. It also doesn’t help that the talent pool is drying up and numbers are dropping.

[Gipper]

4 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

NCC has a couple of issues. One is that basketball rules in most of those communities, and for years, football has been seen as something to do until winter. 

The other is demographics. Marion, Muncie, Richmond and Anderson have seen *massive* population declines in the last 40 years. Kokomo has seen a bit of one. They were once thriving factory towns, but have lost population as the auto industry and other factories have closed shop, and those who *do* live and work in/near those communities are often at county schools. Mississinewa, Oak Hill, Eastbrook, Centerville, Northeastern, Yorktown, Delta, Pendleton Heights and Lapel all have strong athletic programs. How many kids walking those halls would likely have been going to the "city" school 30 years ago? In terms of Muncie - it seems most Ball State faculty/staff I know lives in Fishers or northeast Indy and commutes up I-69. You need bodies to have a good football program, and when your population is declining and your community is struggling economically, it's difficult to build the robust feeder program you need to have success. 

Great points on the NCC—where basketball is king and nothing else matters.  As for Lafayette Jeff, they are experiencing a resurgence is good for them and the conference.  Will it attract a few more members?  Probably not…

[Gipper]

9 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

NCC has a couple of issues. One is that basketball rules in most of those communities, and for years, football has been seen as something to do until winter. 

The other is demographics. Marion, Muncie, Richmond and Anderson have seen *massive* population declines in the last 40 years. Kokomo has seen a bit of one. They were once thriving factory towns, but have lost population as the auto industry and other factories have closed shop, and those who *do* live and work in/near those communities are often at county schools. Mississinewa, Oak Hill, Eastbrook, Centerville, Northeastern, Yorktown, Delta, Pendleton Heights and Lapel all have strong athletic programs. How many kids walking those halls would likely have been going to the "city" school 30 years ago? In terms of Muncie - it seems most Ball State faculty/staff I know lives in Fishers or northeast Indy and commutes up I-69. You need bodies to have a good football program, and when your population is declining and your community is struggling economically, it's difficult to build the robust feeder program you need to have success. 

As a Ball State alum, it’s quite difficult to picture the kids of any of my professors playing football!

[Frozen Tundra]

9 hours ago, adambetz said:

Shelbyville and Greenwood will both soon be big fish in a 3A/2A conference next year. That should help them both. I expect both teams to fair better joining the Hoosier Legends Conference with Indian Creek, Triton Central, Speedway, Beech Grove, Monrovia and Tri-West. Might take some embarrassing lumps at first but they will find succes and success breeds success. Richmond should be better than 0-10 every year. They should at least compete with the Muncie Centrals and Marions of the world. No knowledge on Jennings County other than thats a toughish conference most years.

Any variation of the word “tough” is definitely not an adjective I’d use to describe the Hoosier Hills Conference as it pertains to football.

As for Jennings County, you’re talking about a program that’s only had six winning seasons since the high school opened in 1968. And five of those winning seasons were 6-4 or 5-4.

[Gipper]

2 minutes ago, Frozen Tundra said:

Any variation of the word “tough” is definitely not an adjective I’d use to describe the Hoosier Hills Conference as it pertains to football.

As for Jennings County, you’re talking about a program that’s only had six winning seasons since the high school opened in 1968. And five of those winning seasons were 6-4 or 5-4.

I think the HHC is akin to the NCC—basketball first.

[crimsonace1]

14 minutes ago, Frozen Tundra said:

Any variation of the word “tough” is definitely not an adjective I’d use to describe the Hoosier Hills Conference as it pertains to football.

As for Jennings County, you’re talking about a program that’s only had six winning seasons since the high school opened in 1968. And five of those winning seasons were 6-4 or 5-4.

JC seems to be another school where basketball dominates the culture. But also, it's a community that - like a lot of rural communities in Indiana - has struggled demographically. They've had some really good basketball teams in recent years - boys and girls - and their GBB coach is top-notch. 

[adambetz]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

It's an interesting question.  How many members of Mississinewa's football program actually live within the Marion government school geographic boundary?  The two high schools are only a little over 5 miles apart.

 

 

I'm not sure. I'm sure most of their football players are home grown but their student base has benefited.

[Frozen Tundra]

2 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

JC seems to be another school where basketball dominates the culture. But also, it's a community that - like a lot of rural communities in Indiana - has struggled demographically. They've had some really good basketball teams in recent years - boys and girls - and their GBB coach is top-notch. 

Having lived here for 12 years (and having family here for over 80 years), I still wouldn’t say basketball dominates the culture. It’s definitely the most successful of their big sports but, at least in my lifetime, Jennings County has always been known as a wrestling school. They’ve kind of fallen by the wayside though after the retirement of Howard Jones after the 2020-2021 school year.

[First_Backer_Inside]

41 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

MV is in the midst of a bit of a down cycle (in part because their star QB decided to focus on basketball - which was probably a good decision, given he's a strong frontrunner for Mr. Basketball this year)

So was Allen Iverson, but he still played football. Worked out okay for him...from a sports standpoint at least.

I hate this idea of "focusing on a sport." That's BS. You can play football and then go in the gym and get 1,000 shots up after. If you are really that good, you aren't going to just forget how to play basketball overnight. Is there a risk for injury, yes. There's a risk for injury walking in and out of your door everyday for school or work. There's a risk of injury walking up and down the stairs in your house everyday. High school is the only time you get to do multiple sports most times than not. College is for "focusing on a sport". It's ridiculous that coaches and parents let their kids think this way these days. 

Sorry for getting off topic. Just rubs me the wrong way seeing ATHLETES not being ATHLETES and just being basketball players or being football players or baseball players and not being ATHLETES. If I were a college coach for any sport I would want athletes because those are always the fiercest competitors, guys that want to win at everything they do.

Again sorry for my off topic rant. Proceed with sustainability lol

[Justasportsfan]

2 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

So was Allen Iverson, but he still played football. Worked out okay for him...from a sports standpoint at least.

I hate this idea of "focusing on a sport." That's BS. You can play football and then go in the gym and get 1,000 shots up after. If you are really that good, you aren't going to just forget how to play basketball overnight. Is there a risk for injury, yes. There's a risk for injury walking in and out of your door everyday for school or work. There's a risk of injury walking up and down the stairs in your house everyday. High school is the only time you get to do multiple sports most times than not. College is for "focusing on a sport". It's ridiculous that coaches and parents let their kids think this way these days. 

Sorry for getting off topic. Just rubs me the wrong way seeing ATHLETES not being ATHLETES and just being basketball players or being football players or baseball players and not being ATHLETES. If I were a college coach for any sport I would want athletes because those are always the fiercest competitors, guys that want to win at everything they do.

Again sorry for my off topic rant. Proceed with sustainability lol

Agree with everything you mentioned. Kids are (supposedly) bigger, faster, and stonger now a days and can really miss out on their calling by sticking to one sport. Back in the day D1 coaches expected their kids to play other sports due to the benefits of cross training.

[Frozen Tundra]

31 minutes ago, Gipper said:

I think the HHC is akin to the NCC—basketball first.

I think that’s fair to say for Jeffersonville, New Albany, and Bedford North Lawrence. Columbus East is football-first. Floyd Central is country club sports-first. Jennings County had been wrestling-first for years although that may be shifting towards basketball due to the recent success of both the boys and girls teams. As for Seymour, I have no clue where their priorities are.

[gonzoron]

27 minutes ago, Frozen Tundra said:

Jennings County has always been known as a wrestling school. They’ve kind of fallen by the wayside though after the retirement of Howard Jones after the 2020-2021 school year.

We wrestled them at least twice during the '21-'22 and '22-'23 seasons in a tournament at Rensselaer. My son(285) pinned Will Rowlett in :35 the first year, then pinned Kamron Carney in :25 the following year.

[adambetz]

28 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

So was Allen Iverson, but he still played football. Worked out okay for him...from a sports standpoint at least.

I hate this idea of "focusing on a sport." That's BS. You can play football and then go in the gym and get 1,000 shots up after. If you are really that good, you aren't going to just forget how to play basketball overnight. Is there a risk for injury, yes. There's a risk for injury walking in and out of your door everyday for school or work. There's a risk of injury walking up and down the stairs in your house everyday. High school is the only time you get to do multiple sports most times than not. College is for "focusing on a sport". It's ridiculous that coaches and parents let their kids think this way these days. 

Sorry for getting off topic. Just rubs me the wrong way seeing ATHLETES not being ATHLETES and just being basketball players or being football players or baseball players and not being ATHLETES. If I were a college coach for any sport I would want athletes because those are always the fiercest competitors, guys that want to win at everything they do.

Again sorry for my off topic rant. Proceed with sustainability lol

Preaching to the choir Backer. A shame that sports specialization is being preached in club programs all around the state every day.

[crimsonace1]

27 minutes ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

So was Allen Iverson, but he still played football. Worked out okay for him...from a sports standpoint at least.

I hate this idea of "focusing on a sport." That's BS. You can play football and then go in the gym and get 1,000 shots up after. If you are really that good, you aren't going to just forget how to play basketball overnight. Is there a risk for injury, yes. There's a risk for injury walking in and out of your door everyday for school or work. There's a risk of injury walking up and down the stairs in your house everyday. High school is the only time you get to do multiple sports most times than not. College is for "focusing on a sport". It's ridiculous that coaches and parents let their kids think this way these days. 

Sorry for getting off topic. Just rubs me the wrong way seeing ATHLETES not being ATHLETES and just being basketball players or being football players or baseball players and not being ATHLETES. If I were a college coach for any sport I would want athletes because those are always the fiercest competitors, guys that want to win at everything they do.

Again sorry for my off topic rant. Proceed with sustainability lol

In this case, the player suffered a substantial injury his sophomore year that cost him not only most of his football season, but nearly all of the basketball season. 

He had a scholarship offer from Matt Painter the summer before his junior year, and there is - for big-time recruits - a LOT of money at play they're risking. As I said, he'll likely be Mr. Basketball this year and probably has a very large NIL contract waiting for him at Purdue he doesn't want to risk by suffering another major injury. I fully understand why he decided to quit football. 

[First_Backer_Inside]

4 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

In this case, the player suffered a substantial injury his sophomore year that cost him not only most of his football season, but nearly all of the basketball season. 

He had a scholarship offer from Matt Painter the summer before his junior year, and there is - for big-time recruits - a LOT of money at play they're risking. As I said, he'll likely be Mr. Basketball this year and probably has a very large NIL contract waiting for him at Purdue he doesn't want to risk by suffering another major injury. I fully understand why he decided to quit football. 

I get it...but I don't at the same time. He could injure himself at any point focusing on basketball as he could playing football. Hard decisions for a young man to make especially when you start talking about money at the college level (which I could turn into another huge rant, but I'll save us all the trouble 😉 ). Like I said, I like the dudes on my football team that are athletes, not football players.

Just to clarify I understand why the kid you are talking about made his decisions, just don't necessarily agree with it.

[foxbat]

1 hour ago, Gipper said:

Great points on the NCC—where basketball is king and nothing else matters.  As for Lafayette Jeff, they are experiencing a resurgence is good for them and the conference.  Will it attract a few more members?  Probably not…

Likely not.  Even as Harrison was coming out of the doldrums there, it was still obvious that the NCC wasn't really a football conference.  When Jeff and Harrison were the strongest two teams in the conference ... the last half decade or so ... it still wasn't really a magnet for other 5A/6A schools to join from a football perspective.  The NCC will likely end up being a good destination for basketball schools, but with the mix of teams they have, they'll need to find someone with a good basketball program and a good football program that's like in the middle of all the other schools to make it worthwhile for them to jump to the NCC.  That or a few stronger 2A football teams with OK basketball looking to add a little size to their schedules ... again with decent travel times. 

[crimsonace1]

16 minutes ago, foxbat said:

Likely not.  Even as Harrison was coming out of the doldrums there, it was still obvious that the NCC wasn't really a football conference.  When Jeff and Harrison were the strongest two teams in the conference ... the last half decade or so ... it still wasn't really a magnet for other 5A/6A schools to join from a football perspective.  The NCC will likely end up being a good destination for basketball schools, but with the mix of teams they have, they'll need to find someone with a good basketball program and a good football program that's like in the middle of all the other schools to make it worthwhile for them to jump to the NCC.  That or a few stronger 2A football teams with OK basketball looking to add a little size to their schedules ... again with decent travel times. 

I can't see the NCC expanding. The only schools that really fit their footprint left the league (Logansport, Indianapolis Tech, New Castle, Huntington North) and aren't interested in returning, the travel is insane (Logansport-to-Richmond and New Castle-to-Lafayette are two big reasons why those two schools are no longer in the league). The only other schools that "might" fit are some county seat schools like Greenfield-Central, but they turned the NCC down 20+ years ago when Jeff left for the HCC and Huntington North got the spot instead. It was founded as an interurban league a century ago, which made sense when few schools played football and had a lot of the other Olympic sports, and so they needed opponents (and basketball delivered marquee opponents several games a year), but the demographics have changed. Honestly, loyalty to the league is the only thing holding it together at this point. 

[Muda69]

45 minutes ago, crimsonace1 said:

Honestly, loyalty to the league is the only thing holding it together at this point. 

Yep.  So goes Kokomo, so goes the NCC.  If the Wildkats were ever lured to a different conference the NCC would completely unravel shortly after. 

 

[adambetz]

3 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Yep.  So goes Kokomo, so goes the NCC.  If the Wildkats were ever lured to a different conference the NCC would completely unravel shortly after. 

 

Which sucks because Kokomo fits the new Sagamore so well in my opinion. Kokomo and Jeff would take the conference to 8 before the Terre Haute merger is finalized. West Lafayette could be the 8th afterwards.

[Gipper]

1 hour ago, adambetz said:

Which sucks because Kokomo fits the new Sagamore so well in my opinion. Kokomo and Jeff would take the conference to 8 before the Terre Haute merger is finalized. West Lafayette could be the 8th afterwards.

I just don’t know how keen the folks in Tippecanoe County are about making trek to Terre Haute.   The drive on 41 & 63 has some parallels to I-70 & 80 on Kansas and Nebraska.

 

[foxbat]

1 hour ago, adambetz said:

Which sucks because Kokomo fits the new Sagamore so well in my opinion. Kokomo and Jeff would take the conference to 8 before the Terre Haute merger is finalized. West Lafayette could be the 8th afterwards.

The question is whether Harrison and McCutcheon hold a grudge and work to keep them out.  After all, Jeff voted with the rest of the NCC to kick Harrison out of the league citing, laughably, drive times and competitive landscape.  Realize that 1) Jeff is using the rest of the NCC right now as a pre-post-season snack and 2) if the drive to Harrison/McCutcheon is too long, I doubt a team will feel "refreshed" ONLY having to drive to Jeff instead.

12 minutes ago, Gipper said:

I just don’t know how keen the folks in Tippecanoe County are about making trek to Terre Haute.   The drive on 41 & 63 has some parallels to I-70 & 80 on Kansas and Nebraska.

 

Harrison had TH on its non-conference schedule for a while, so it's not like they haven't done it before.  Not all that fun, but then again, it's not any worse than traveling all the way over to Anderson and Richmond.

[Gipper]

6 hours ago, First_Backer_Inside said:

So was Allen Iverson, but he still played football. Worked out okay for him...from a sports standpoint at least.

I hate this idea of "focusing on a sport." That's BS. You can play football and then go in the gym and get 1,000 shots up after. If you are really that good, you aren't going to just forget how to play basketball overnight. Is there a risk for injury, yes. There's a risk for injury walking in and out of your door everyday for school or work. There's a risk of injury walking up and down the stairs in your house everyday. High school is the only time you get to do multiple sports most times than not. College is for "focusing on a sport". It's ridiculous that coaches and parents let their kids think this way these days. 

Sorry for getting off topic. Just rubs me the wrong way seeing ATHLETES not being ATHLETES and just being basketball players or being football players or baseball players and not being ATHLETES. If I were a college coach for any sport I would want athletes because those are always the fiercest competitors, guys that want to win at everything they do.

Again sorry for my off topic rant. Proceed with sustainability lol

Rants are OK with me!  I didn’t want to all doom and gloom such as Central High can never win a game while Lakeside High wins everything.  At its heart, it begins with the athletes and their desire to be better.

[Gipper]

With that, struggling teams might want to try to emulate schools with better records.  It could take something basic like. A battle cry (such as RDP, time to fall on the sword here😉), extra practices, team building, special plays, but their losing ways don’t have to be a continual thing.

[Boilernation]

21 hours ago, Gipper said:

Not every school in the state can put out great seasons on a continual basis.  Although I don’t know them all, here are a few:

Indianapolis North Central—one of the biggest schools in the state, never that good in recent memory.

Noblesville—it’s not like Hamilton County doesn’t have any talent…

Highland—used to be a top school years ago, but the wheels have come off.

Anderson—have they ever been any good at a sport not named basketball?

Muncie Central—same deal a little further north on I-69.

Washington—yet another basketball school that can’t seem to put together a winner 

Madison—have always struggled it seems.

Benton Central—can never put it together despite having good athletes

Frankfort—the worst program in the state, a total embarrassment.  1A schools are beating the crap out of these jokers and I can’t fathom why.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frankfort has over a 50% hispanic enrollment the last time I looked, which is absolutely crazy for a small town.