Multiplier 2.0 Needed to Level the Playing Field

[Titan32]

33 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

As I said above, if we really have access to all these advantages, we're pretty bad at taking advantage of them -- considering those loooong losing streaks to the likes of Reitz, Jasper, Castle, and Mater Dei.  I had asked how this real-world (and not very ancient) history squared up with your "once in a decade" idea.  But you never answered. 

And you won't address my hypothetical above resulting in more trophies, because you know its a fact.  Please don't take my posts as any sort of anything directed at Memorial specifically.  I do not intend that at all.  I wasn't even thinking about Memorial other than my All SIAC comment. 

My "once a decade" comment was all things being equal a private will punch above its "enrollment" every time when it has all the other things in place.  It has a HUGE unfair advantage in quality human capital per capita in the building.  All sports...all he time...especially the ones it can attract like minded customers for that are willing to pay for the service.  

 

[MHSTigerFan]

22 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

And you won't address my hypothetical above resulting in more trophies, because you know its a fact.  Please don't take my posts as any sort of anything directed at Memorial specifically.  I do not intend that at all.  I wasn't even thinking about Memorial other than my All SIAC comment. 

My "once a decade" comment was all things being equal a private will punch above its "enrollment" every time when it has all the other things in place.  It has a HUGE unfair advantage in quality human capital per capita in the building.  All sports...all he time...especially the ones it can attract like minded customers for that are willing to pay for the service.  

 

I did address your hypothetical.  Scroll up.

As for my question to you -- which wasn't a hypothetical...it actually happened -- you really can't square it with your stance.  Saying "Well, I didn't have Memorial in mind" doesn't get you off the hook.  And that's part of the problem of dealing in generalities as you are.  It would make no more sense for me to address "public schools" as a monolith, lumping in the athletically slumping Harrison with normally strong programs like Castle and Jasper.

If private schools really have advantages that result in a predictable elevation in athletics, then there's absolutely no excuse for one of them having decade-plus long losing streaks to several public schools in their conference, isn't there?

Moreover, why are we (or Mater Dei, etal), perennially crap at so many other sports?  I mean, wouldn't you expect that we'd have a bunch of basketball trophies?  We've never been to the state finals in boys basketball.  And we rarely win the SIAC.  Our T&F has never been anything special.  Our volleyball has normally been pretty weak - with last year being a notable exception.  Our wrestling is typically a comedy show -- yet Mater Dei's is phenomenal.  Moreover, our soccer is a powerhouse...but Mater Dei's, not so much (boys, anyway...their girls have been great of late).  Our biggest SIAC challenger in recent years has been Castle.  An SIAC school has produced the last 4 state champion teams in girls golf.  It's not Memorial or Mater Dei, though.  It's North.  Are we just not utilizing our advantages well enough in these other sports?

But I still come back mostly to our long period of losing records in football.  That's what we're here to discuss.  We went years getting our teeth kicked in, despite these advantages you say we have.  There's another conversation about Roncalli elsewhere.  Apparently, they had an extended down period too.  This year, they're great -- and that has some people talking about doing something about it.

[Muda69]

5 hours ago, MHSTigerFan said:

Did you see what Justice Souter said about this?  I posted it above.

tl;dr

[MHSTigerFan]

30 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

tl;dr

Heh...it was, like, one paragraph.  Simply put, the court found that the TSSAA was closely “entwined” with Tennessee’s version of the DOE, counted all of the public schools and corps in Tennessee as members, frequently traded staff with the public education infrastructure of the state, and offered taxpayer-backed pensions to employees.

Hope that’s concise enough.  Again, I don’t know if the courts would find the IHSAA similarly situated.  But, again, I think it’s interesting to recall that there were discussions when the SF was adopted about separating out the PP schools in their own class.  It didn’t happen.  I’m not sure why - but it seems plausible that this holding played a part.  That would’ve made them subject to an equal protection claim.

[Muda69]

10 hours ago, MHSTigerFan said:

Heh...it was, like, one paragraph.  Simply put, the court found that the TSSAA was closely “entwined” with Tennessee’s version of the DOE, counted all of the public schools and corps in Tennessee as members, frequently traded staff with the public education infrastructure of the state, and offered taxpayer-backed pensions to employees.

Doesn't sound like the TSSAA was a private entity at all, not really.

 

 

[MHSTigerFan]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

Doesn't sound like the TSSAA was a private entity at all, not really.

It was, and still is.  Here's a synopsis of this holding

Quote

Synopsis of Rule of Law. A private organization can be considered a state actor if there is sufficient entwinement between the state and the organization, such as here where the majority of members are public schools, and the leadership and governing body is made up of public school officials acting within their official capacity.

 

Discussion. The Constitution usually applies to only state actors, but there are certain instances where private organizations must be treated as state actors.  State action may be found if, and only if, there is such a “close nexus between the State and the challenged action” that seemingly private behavior “may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.”  The court does not look to one factor, but a totality of the circumstances when determining if there is such a close nexus.

Here, since 84% of the membership is made up of public school, which are not private actors, and each school is required to send an administrator of its school, and the governing body is made up of those individuals acting within their official capacity as state employees, “there is no recognizable Association…without the public school officials”.  In addition, these school officials not only make up membership, but also control the association, making the separation between the association and the public schools” indistinguishable”. 

Again, I do not know if this was discussed during the deliberations which saw the creation of the Success Factor.  I do know that the ruling was issued prior to those deliberations.  And I do know that some people were advocating for a separate class for P/P schools (which you're doing here).  And I also know this was not implemented.  It seems pretty plausible that the IHSAA legal counsel advised them that they'd be considered a state actor in any litigation, which would bind them to the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

Discriminating against Private/Parochial schools would be a pretty clear violation of the EP Clause.  As such, the success factor rule they implemented applies to all member institutions.

 

[MHSTigerFan]

4 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

It was, and still is.  Here's a synopsis of this holding

Again, I do not know if this was discussed during the deliberations which saw the creation of the Success Factor.  I do know that the ruling was issued prior to those deliberations.  And I do know that some people were advocating for a separate class for P/P schools (which you're doing here).  And I also know this was not implemented.  It seems pretty plausible that the IHSAA legal counsel advised them that they'd be considered a state actor in any litigation, which would bind them to the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

Discriminating against Private/Parochial schools would be a pretty clear violation of the EP Clause.  As such, the success factor rule they implemented applies to all member institutions.

 

Glancing at the 2020-21 Board of Directors, there are 19 members.  Eighteen of them are from public school systems.  One seat is explicitly held for a representative from a private school member.  Same composition of the Executive Committee -- 19 members, 18 from public schools.  Paul Neidig, the Executive Director, spent 31 years in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation.

I don't think there's any question that the IHSAA meets the above listed criteria to be considered a state actor.

They can't institute a policy that would be a violation of the members' constitutional or statutory rights.  Due process, equal protection, the relevant sections of Title IX, all that applies to the IHSAA just as it would the IDOE.

[MDAlum82]

15 hours ago, MHSTigerFan said:

I did address your hypothetical.  Scroll up.

As for my question to you -- which wasn't a hypothetical...it actually happened -- you really can't square it with your stance.  Saying "Well, I didn't have Memorial in mind" doesn't get you off the hook.  And that's part of the problem of dealing in generalities as you are.  It would make no more sense for me to address "public schools" as a monolith, lumping in the athletically slumping Harrison with normally strong programs like Castle and Jasper.

If private schools really have advantages that result in a predictable elevation in athletics, then there's absolutely no excuse for one of them having decade-plus long losing streaks to several public schools in their conference, is there?

Thank you taking the time to craft a thorough, thoughtful response.  If these "advantages" are so great and so obvious, why don't they manifest themselves in other sports?  This argument flies directly in the face of those who, unable to support their "Obvious P/P Advantage Thesis (bias?) with real-world data, resort to the  "you just don't want to admit you have them" defense.  There is an easily proven variation in success btwn and among each "group" -  Publics, Privates & Parochial schools, that varies from sport to sport, conference to conference, - all over Indiana. 

[Muda69]

22 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

It was, and still is.  Here's a synopsis of this holding

 

Sorry, an organization that provides taxpayer-funded pensions to it's employees can't really be a private entity.   The TSSAA claim that is still a private organization after this "entwinement" with the Tennessee state government is just a smokescreen.

 

[MHSTigerFan]

1 minute ago, Muda69 said:

Sorry, an organization that provides taxpayer-funded pensions to it's employees can't really be a private entity.   The TSSAA claim that is still a private organization after this "entwinement" with the Tennessee state government is just a smokescreen.

 

This didn't become part of the entwinement test established by the court.  And, besides, it's entirely possible that all employer contributions to these pensions were made by the TSSAA -- it just so happened that they were invested into the state pension system.  I don't really know.

But it's neither here nor there.  As I said, the court established an entwinement test -- and employees having state pensions wasn't part of it.  It was primarily the composition of the entity and the enmeshment with the state public school infrastructure.  As I just said, 18 of the 19 members of the Board and the Executive Committee of the IHSAA are employees of public school systems.

So, after looking into the Brentwood holding and the IHSAA's structure, I'm very confident that the IHSAA would be treated as a state actor.

[Muda69]

12 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

But it's neither here nor there.  As I said, the court established an entwinement test -- and employees having state pensions wasn't part of it. 

Then frankly IMHO the court established a flawed test.  A private entity providing taxpayer-funded pensions to it's employees is just wrong, full stop.

   

[MHSTigerFan]

42 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Then frankly IMHO the court established a flawed test.  A private entity providing taxpayer-funded pensions to it's employees is just wrong, full stop.

   

You realize that the court wasn't asked to address the rightness of the TSSAA's pension system, right?  They were asked (at this point) to determine whether or not the TSSAA was a state actor and thus obligated to honor constitutional protections like any other state actor.  Courts don't usually answer questions they aren't asked.

And, again, it seems entirely possible that not a single tax dollar actually went into their pension accounts -- merely that they used the existing state pension system rather than recreating the wheel.

Anyway, flawed or not, the test they established is the one in force.  So, like I said, I'm pretty confident that the IHSAA would be considered a state actor in any lawsuit.

[Muda69]

2 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

You realize that the court wasn't asked to address the rightness of the TSSAA's pension system, right?  They were asked (at this point) to determine whether or not the TSSAA was a state actor and thus obligated to honor constitutional protections like any other state actor.  Courts don't usually answer questions they aren't asked.

And, again, it seems entirely possible that not a single tax dollar actually went into their pension accounts -- merely that they used the existing state pension system rather than recreating the wheel.

Anyway, flawed or not, the test they established is the one in force.  So, like I said, I'm pretty confident that the IHSAA would be considered a state actor in any lawsuit.

I'm not.  

[MHSTigerFan]

Just now, Muda69 said:

I'm not.  

Naturally.

But, of course, it doesn't matter what you or I think.  There's a reason the IHSAA declined to separate out the PP schools into their own class(es) back in the c.2012 deliberations that produced the Success Factor.  And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they were advised that such a policy would be grounds for an Equal Protection lawsuit.

[Muda69]

1 minute ago, MHSTigerFan said:

Naturally.

But, of course, it doesn't matter what you or I think.  There's a reason the IHSAA declined to separate out the PP schools into their own class(es) back in the c.2012 deliberations that produced the Success Factor.  And it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they were advised that such a policy would be grounds for an Equal Protection lawsuit.

Bad advise.  And the leadership of the IHSAA back in 2012 lacked a backbone.  They probably still do.

 

[Titan32]

18 hours ago, MHSTigerFan said:

I did address your hypothetical.  Scroll up.

As for my question to you -- which wasn't a hypothetical...it actually happened -- you really can't square it with your stance.  Saying "Well, I didn't have Memorial in mind" doesn't get you off the hook.  And that's part of the problem of dealing in generalities as you are.  It would make no more sense for me to address "public schools" as a monolith, lumping in the athletically slumping Harrison with normally strong programs like Castle and Jasper.

If private schools really have advantages that result in a predictable elevation in athletics, then there's absolutely no excuse for one of them having decade-plus long losing streaks to several public schools in their conference, isn't there?

Moreover, why are we (or Mater Dei, etal), perennially crap at so many other sports?  I mean, wouldn't you expect that we'd have a bunch of basketball trophies?  We've never been to the state finals in boys basketball.  And we rarely win the SIAC.  Our T&F has never been anything special.  Our volleyball has normally been pretty weak - with last year being a notable exception.  Our wrestling is typically a comedy show -- yet Mater Dei's is phenomenal.  Moreover, our soccer is a powerhouse...but Mater Dei's, not so much (boys, anyway...their girls have been great of late).  Our biggest SIAC challenger in recent years has been Castle.  An SIAC school has produced the last 4 state champion teams in girls golf.  It's not Memorial or Mater Dei, though.  It's North.  Are we just not utilizing our advantages well enough in these other sports?

But I still come back mostly to our long period of losing records in football.  That's what we're here to discuss.  We went years getting our teeth kicked in, despite these advantages you say we have.  There's another conversation about Roncalli elsewhere.  Apparently, they had an extended down period too.  This year, they're great -- and that has some people talking about doing something about it.

You didn't address it.  How will GS perform minus the kids that you guys don't have to deal with as a 2A private school?  Do you think they will collect any more hardware or wins in general in the sports they chose to focus on or get community support in?  What would their football, girls basketball, softball and soccer results look like?

Do you think that paying for an education earns you the right to that advantage?  Assuming you sent your kids to Memorial, why do you?

Your "real world" examples don't really prove your point.  The first one (Mater Dei) another private, might work to prove my point more so than yours.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Jasper is 4-7 with an average point differential in those 7 losses of 19 points.
Memorial enrollment 609. Jasper enrollment 1105.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Mater Dei is 4-7 with an average point differential in those 7 losses of (oddly enough) 19 points.
Mater Dei enrollment 497.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Reitz is 5-6 with an average point differential in those 6 losses of (yes you guessed it 19 points)  Reitz enrollment 1378.

In summary Mater Dei competes with Memorial at literally the same level as does Jasper and Reitz, by your own admission two history and tradition rich programs.  They do this with less than half the enrollment.

Wouldn't it be interesting if there were a public school in the SIAC with an enrollment of 500-700 kids with some of the criteria we here on the GID say are necessary to have a successful program?  If there were I KNOW what the results would look like and you do to.  Perhaps Vincennes is going to be a nice representation of just that.  Let's sit back and see how the SIAC works out for them in regards to their record against the privates.  I'm not making a prediction...but it's going to be interesting none the less.  Vincennes enrollment 735.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Titan32

[MHSTigerFan]

24 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

You didn't address it.  How will GS perform minus the kids that you guys don't have to deal with as a 2A private school?  Do you think they will collect any more hardware or wins in general in the sports they chose to focus on or get community support in?  What would their football, girls basketball, softball and soccer results look like?

Do you think that paying for an education earns you the right to that advantage?  Assuming you sent your kids to Memorial, why do you?

Your "real world" examples don't really prove your point.  The first one (Mater Dei) another private, might work to prove my point more so than yours.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Jasper is 4-7 with an average point differential in those 7 losses of 19 points.
Memorial enrollment 609. Jasper enrollment 1105.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Mater Dei is 4-7 with an average point differential in those 7 losses of (oddly enough) 19 points.
Mater Dei enrollment 497.

Since 2010 (in 11 Seasons the following is true)
Memorial vs Reitz is 5-6 with an average point differential in those 6 losses of (yes you guessed it 19 points)  Reitz enrollment 1378.

In summary Mater Dei competes with Memorial at literally the same level as does Jasper and Reitz, by your own admission two history and tradition rich programs.  They do this with less than half the enrollment.

Wouldn't it be interesting if there were a public school in the SIAC with an enrollment of 500-700 kids with some of the criteria we here on the GID say are necessary to have a successful program?  If there were I KNOW what the results would look like and you do to.  Perhaps Vincennes is going to be a nice representation of just that.  Let's sit back and see how the SIAC works out for them in regards to their record against the privates.  I'm not making a prediction...but it's going to be interesting none the less.  Vincennes enrollment 735.

 

 

Ah, but when looking at our record against Jasper, Reitz, and MD (Jasper just joined the SIAC, but we have played them every year for quite some time), most of the wins we've gotten recently came by way of the "once in a decade" situation you referenced earlier.  We had our flourish with the Lindauer/Combs era.  Prior to that, we had lost a slew of consecutive games to these opponents.  It was, literally, around 10 or so.

Your point about the "once in a decade" thing was intended to be the other way around, wasn't it?  In other words, private schools would perform at a higher level than their enrollment might suggest on a relatively consistent basis.  But a typical public school would only enjoy that success when they happen to get the rare phenom or group of phenoms.

In this case, it worked the other way.

[Titan32]

9 minutes ago, MHSTigerFan said:

Ah, but when looking at our record against Jasper, Reitz, and MD (Jasper just joined the SIAC, but we have played them every year for quite some time), most of the wins we've gotten recently came by way of the "once in a decade" situation you referenced earlier.  We had our flourish with the Lindauer/Combs era.  Prior to that, we had lost a slew of consecutive games to these opponents.  It was, literally, around 10 or so.

Your point about the "once in a decade" thing was intended to be the other way around, wasn't it?  In other words, private schools would perform at a higher level than their enrollment might suggest on a relatively consistent basis.  But a typical public school would only enjoy that success when they happen to get the rare phenom or group of phenoms.

In this case, it worked the other way.

You skipped over several question marks.  In my Hypothetical if a public had the exact same set up and enrollment as a private...I said the public might win once every ten years due to the 15% of the public population the private doesn't have to deal with.  In the real world case...Mater Dei performs almost identically to publics over twice it's size.  And you don't need me to explain this stuff...I know you get it.  My work here is done.

[Titan32]

2 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

You skipped over several question marks.  In my Hypothetical if a public had the exact same set up and enrollment as a private...I said the public might win once every ten years due to the 15% of the public population the private doesn't have to deal with.  In the real world case...Mater Dei performs almost identically to publics over twice it's size.  And you don't need me to explain this stuff...I know you get it.  My work here is done.

That said...thank you for the respectable debate.  You never hit below the belt and that is rare on here.

[George Orwell 2]

I think we can all agree that there are multiple variables which lead certain high schools to football success and enrollment is only one of those.  So, let's represent Football Success in the form of an equation with the sum of multiple variables equaling Football Success.  

x + y + z = Football Success

Now, I think we can all also agree that each variable is not equal.  Some variables are more determinate than other variables.  Therefore, each variable must have its own coefficient which represents the extent to which that variable affects Football Success.  

Ax + By + Cz = Football Success

But, I think we can all further agree that there aren't three variables involved here; there are dozens of variables to take into consideration (e.g. head coach, youth league, depth of interest, tradition, community support, quality of players, etc., etc., etc.).  Therefore, a more accurate representation of the Football Success equation would be as follows:  

Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + Gq + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success

The solution proposed in this thread changes the Football Success equation to:

Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + (2G)q + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that this solution will not bring about the distributive justice desired by its proponents.  Just a guess.  

[Bobref]

17 minutes ago, George Orwell 2 said:

I think we can all agree that there are multiple variables which lead certain high schools to football success and enrollment is only one of those.  So, let's represent Football Success in the form of an equation with the sum of multiple variables equaling Football Success.  

x + y + z = Football Success

Now, I think we can all also agree that each variable is not equal.  Some variables are more determinate than other variables.  Therefore, each variable must have its own coefficient which represents the extent to which that variable affects Football Success.  

Ax + By + Cz = Football Success

But, I think we can all further agree that there aren't three variables involved here; there are dozens of variables to take into consideration (e.g. head coach, youth league, depth of interest, tradition, community support, quality of players, etc., etc., etc.).  Therefore, a more accurate representation of the Football Success equation would be as follows:  

Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + Gq + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success

The solution proposed in this thread changes the Football Success equation to:

Ax + By + Cz + Dn + Eo + Fp + (2G)q + Hr + Is + Jt + Ku + Lv + Mw = Football Success

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that this solution will not bring about the distributive justice desired by its proponents.  Just a guess.  

When I signed up for the GID years ago, they told me the same thing they did when I applied to law school: “There’ll be no math.” And that, too, was apparently a lie.

[PHJIrish]

Up to 9 pages now!  Keep up the good work!🤣

[Esso Ayche]

After slogging through this discussion over the past several days I thought I would do a little digging and give myself more background on the topic (I know, weird).  Admittedly, I am not an Indiana native, and over the past decade or so I've had to peruse my way through many-a websites, forums, almanacs, and more to try to keep pace with the ins, outs, abbreviations, and nicknames (I still can't read a STC thread on the EIAC to save my life)... let alone feel brave enough to post confidently in any PP-themed topic.  So today I did what I do best:  Look up a bunch of stuff, put it in a spreadsheet, and try to make sense of it.  Some (most? all?) of it may not be completely relevant to the topic at hand, but I at least want to share the empirical data that I was able to glean out of my research.  Frankly, it was very interesting to me and I'd hate for it to go go to waste for anyone who is like me... interested, but ignorant.  I'm assume much of this has very likely been covered in bits and pieces all over this forum over the years, but I feel compelled to share this non-biased information (these are those fact-things people keep talking about) to those that might appreciate it and may not be aware of everything out of this particular set of data.  This isn't a resolution, just information.

To start I put a time frame on it, somewhat arbitrary, but hopefully enough to at least gather a representative sample size.  So the past ten years of Indiana football, 2010-2019.  I broke out all of the PP schools listed at the start of this thread, separated by current enrollment (no SF figured in, just enrollment for a base line), and then proceeded to populate the schools' post-season results.  I used Almanac Sports (I can't thank this man enough for putting THAT thing together) to populate the spreadsheet, year by year, to see how well each of the schools did in any given season.  I also tried to help myself understand how teams were beat, versus how far they went.  For example, for 2015 Brebeuf I note "LS Chatard" so that it told me "Lost Sectional (to) Chatard" and I could at least see that, while they may have been knocked out early, it was by the eventual State Champs.  It has pretty colors, all that jazz.  Someone's probably done this before, but hey, I had free time and a beer or two in the fridge.

Anyway, what I was most surprised to find (and maybe/likely not a shock to many/most) was the 2010-2012 back-to-back-to-back State Championships from 1A LCC, 2A Luers, 3A Chatard, and 4A Cathedral.  Not being from here, remember, I have little to no background on the history of football in the state, so this was a bit of a shocker.  I mean, I've known they were good in stretches and all that.  But this?  I'd be interested to dig deeper on these dynasties going back another decade, but I'm not that big of a masochist.  Maybe.  We'll see.

To put a finer point on it, 12 of the 15 State Championship games (the other three being won by the 5A schools of Fishers, Carmel, and Lawrence Central in that span) were by four teams.  That's 80% for those keeping track at home.  Now, it looks like there are about 20 PP schools right now and about 300 public schools (I know, some ebb and flow with schools over the decade, but bear with me for the sake of keeping things mathematically easy from 2010 to 2019). That means ~6% of the teams are PP and ~94% public.  Out of that whole 100% (320 schools), 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 80% of the football State Championships in that period.  OR, if you take the 5A out of the equation since they were still playing by class... 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 100% of the championships they were able to play for.  That blows my mind.  I'm not passing judgement here, I'm looking at this very objectively... with a very blown mind.  Not to mention the State Runner Up teams... in the 1A-4A sample, that's 19 PP teams playing for 12 championships... only five public schools were even in the mix.  Crazy.  

So then comes 2013 and all the "fixes" (equalizers?) that were brought to the table.  To be fair, it did look to shake things up on the spreadsheet.  Maybe not enough if you're in one camp, maybe too much if you're in another camp.  No camp has said it has been perfect, to the best of my knowledge, and that's not what brought me here anyway.  I just wanted some data and background.

In the past seven years 1A has seen five different champs (four of them public); but LCC still added two more trophies after a short stint in 2A.  

2A has seen five new champs, four of them public, and none of them Luers again.  Ritter was able to bring home two in Leurs' absence. 

3A has had three public schools win in the past seven years, but Chatard keeps doing Chatard things (two more 3A trophies), Memorial added one, Andrean added one.

In 4A there have been six different champs in the past seven years, three of them public.  Dwenger added two to the case, Roncalli added one, and Memorial added one.

5A has seen stints from Roncalli, Cathedral (back-to-back 5A champs), and Dwenger, but otherwise has had four public schools share the other five trophies.

6A had a two year stint from Cathedral, and doing pretty well at it.  No hardware.  Yet.

In the first sample (2010-2012) the PPs make up 80% of all State Championship winners, 63% of all SSC winners, 42% of all RC winners, and 23% of all Sectionals Champs.  Since 2013, PPs now make up 33% of all State Champs, 25% of all SSC, 23% of all RC, and 18% of all Sectional Champs.  The SF has certainly changed the landscape at the very top level, but there are still years where PPs (6% of the schools) bring home 50% of the State Championships (three times in seven years, to be exact).  But what I find interesting is that the sectional champion piece of the pie really hasn't budged much (was 23% in 2010-2012 to 18% in 2013-2019).  The rest of the hardware take home, by round, has more than halved, but sectionals are still somewhat similar.  I can't quite wrap my head around what to infer from that yet.  Perhaps sectional alignments and SF bumps just let another PP fill the void where they normally have trouble getting that Sectional win.  Swap a great PP for another really good PP, so to speak.  Always the bridesmaid, never the bride... until SF.

Frankly, there is quite a bit on the spreadsheet with SF points, etc. that made it very interesting for me, but I don't know that muddying the waters further at this point with more numbers really advances the conversation.  Much of it probably covered elsewhere at some point in the past, but I did enjoy working through each team's history, line by line, to bring myself a little more reference to these threads.  Again, this isn't an argument one way or the other, but more of a "Hey, I was today year's old when I learned this...".   Nor is it an exhaustive work... I could have certainly missed some things since I didn't proof anything, plus I'm no statistician in the mathematical sense.  I think it is fairly accurate, but don't go citing me in your thesis any time soon.

TL;DR version... PPs are good at football, collectively.  SF dampened the top end of PP state champ dynasties.  Sometimes.

 

[sr1]

On 11/17/2020 at 3:18 PM, Titan32 said:

Even at a 4 star public like GS with very low free and assisted numbers...I recently asked a GS grad (super smart kid), what he thought the percentage of kids who don't participate in ANYthing at all and simply just take up space.  His guess was 15%....although this isn't very scientific, my estimation is that it's pretty close.  I'm not even going to finish this point because you know the truth and you know it affects outcomes in athletics when using enrollment alone as classification criteria.

Hypothetically take those (15%) kids away from GS and classify the school as a 2A private.  Would GS be any more successful in any sports boys or girls?  My guess is that across multiple boys and girls sports we start to look like super hard working Catholic kids (that attend Mass and tithe) with amazing coaches that work for pennies in meager facilities AND collect a LOT more trophies.  But that is just a guess.

 

 

If you took away 15 percent of the kids at Gibson Southern they would still be in 3A in football. You would have to take away around 23 percent to drop down to 2A

[fenderbender]

7 hours ago, Esso Ayche said:

After slogging through this discussion over the past several days I thought I would do a little digging and give myself more background on the topic (I know, weird).  Admittedly, I am not an Indiana native, and over the past decade or so I've had to peruse my way through many-a websites, forums, almanacs, and more to try to keep pace with the ins, outs, abbreviations, and nicknames (I still can't read a STC thread on the EIAC to save my life)... let alone feel brave enough to post confidently in any PP-themed topic.  So today I did what I do best:  Look up a bunch of stuff, put it in a spreadsheet, and try to make sense of it.  Some (most? all?) of it may not be completely relevant to the topic at hand, but I at least want to share the empirical data that I was able to glean out of my research.  Frankly, it was very interesting to me and I'd hate for it to go go to waste for anyone who is like me... interested, but ignorant.  I'm assume much of this has very likely been covered in bits and pieces all over this forum over the years, but I feel compelled to share this non-biased information (these are those fact-things people keep talking about) to those that might appreciate it and may not be aware of everything out of this particular set of data.  This isn't a resolution, just information.

To start I put a time frame on it, somewhat arbitrary, but hopefully enough to at least gather a representative sample size.  So the past ten years of Indiana football, 2010-2019.  I broke out all of the PP schools listed at the start of this thread, separated by current enrollment (no SF figured in, just enrollment for a base line), and then proceeded to populate the schools' post-season results.  I used Almanac Sports (I can't thank this man enough for putting THAT thing together) to populate the spreadsheet, year by year, to see how well each of the schools did in any given season.  I also tried to help myself understand how teams were beat, versus how far they went.  For example, for 2015 Brebeuf I note "LS Chatard" so that it told me "Lost Sectional (to) Chatard" and I could at least see that, while they may have been knocked out early, it was by the eventual State Champs.  It has pretty colors, all that jazz.  Someone's probably done this before, but hey, I had free time and a beer or two in the fridge.

Anyway, what I was most surprised to find (and maybe/likely not a shock to many/most) was the 2010-2012 back-to-back-to-back State Championships from 1A LCC, 2A Luers, 3A Chatard, and 4A Cathedral.  Not being from here, remember, I have little to no background on the history of football in the state, so this was a bit of a shocker.  I mean, I've known they were good in stretches and all that.  But this?  I'd be interested to dig deeper on these dynasties going back another decade, but I'm not that big of a masochist.  Maybe.  We'll see.

To put a finer point on it, 12 of the 15 State Championship games (the other three being won by the 5A schools of Fishers, Carmel, and Lawrence Central in that span) were by four teams.  That's 80% for those keeping track at home.  Now, it looks like there are about 20 PP schools right now and about 300 public schools (I know, some ebb and flow with schools over the decade, but bear with me for the sake of keeping things mathematically easy from 2010 to 2019). That means ~6% of the teams are PP and ~94% public.  Out of that whole 100% (320 schools), 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 80% of the football State Championships in that period.  OR, if you take the 5A out of the equation since they were still playing by class... 1.25% of the teams in Indiana won 100% of the championships they were able to play for.  That blows my mind.  I'm not passing judgement here, I'm looking at this very objectively... with a very blown mind.  Not to mention the State Runner Up teams... in the 1A-4A sample, that's 19 PP teams playing for 12 championships... only five public schools were even in the mix.  Crazy.  

So then comes 2013 and all the "fixes" (equalizers?) that were brought to the table.  To be fair, it did look to shake things up on the spreadsheet.  Maybe not enough if you're in one camp, maybe too much if you're in another camp.  No camp has said it has been perfect, to the best of my knowledge, and that's not what brought me here anyway.  I just wanted some data and background.

In the past seven years 1A has seen five different champs (four of them public); but LCC still added two more trophies after a short stint in 2A.  

2A has seen five new champs, four of them public, and none of them Luers again.  Ritter was able to bring home two in Leurs' absence. 

3A has had three public schools win in the past seven years, but Chatard keeps doing Chatard things (two more 3A trophies), Memorial added one, Andrean added one.

In 4A there have been six different champs in the past seven years, three of them public.  Dwenger added two to the case, Roncalli added one, and Memorial added one.

5A has seen stints from Roncalli, Cathedral (back-to-back 5A champs), and Dwenger, but otherwise has had four public schools share the other five trophies.

6A had a two year stint from Cathedral, and doing pretty well at it.  No hardware.  Yet.

In the first sample (2010-2012) the PPs make up 80% of all State Championship winners, 63% of all SSC winners, 42% of all RC winners, and 23% of all Sectionals Champs.  Since 2013, PPs now make up 33% of all State Champs, 25% of all SSC, 23% of all RC, and 18% of all Sectional Champs.  The SF has certainly changed the landscape at the very top level, but there are still years where PPs (6% of the schools) bring home 50% of the State Championships (three times in seven years, to be exact).  But what I find interesting is that the sectional champion piece of the pie really hasn't budged much (was 23% in 2010-2012 to 18% in 2013-2019).  The rest of the hardware take home, by round, has more than halved, but sectionals are still somewhat similar.  I can't quite wrap my head around what to infer from that yet.  Perhaps sectional alignments and SF bumps just let another PP fill the void where they normally have trouble getting that Sectional win.  Swap a great PP for another really good PP, so to speak.  Always the bridesmaid, never the bride... until SF.

Frankly, there is quite a bit on the spreadsheet with SF points, etc. that made it very interesting for me, but I don't know that muddying the waters further at this point with more numbers really advances the conversation.  Much of it probably covered elsewhere at some point in the past, but I did enjoy working through each team's history, line by line, to bring myself a little more reference to these threads.  Again, this isn't an argument one way or the other, but more of a "Hey, I was today year's old when I learned this...".   Nor is it an exhaustive work... I could have certainly missed some things since I didn't proof anything, plus I'm no statistician in the mathematical sense.  I think it is fairly accurate, but don't go citing me in your thesis any time soon.

TL;DR version... PPs are good at football, collectively.  SF dampened the top end of PP state champ dynasties.  Sometimes.

Bishop Luers is an interesting case.  Have not won since the Lindsay coaching change.