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Do "County" Schools struggle to build pride, identity and community support?


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1 minute ago, Woody_Hayes said:

The positive side would be the diversity of culture for those living in Frankfort?

Correct.  Frankfort is not a "lily white" town or country community.  In fact the last count I saw were that Caucasians were a racial minority in Frankfort High School.

 

Edited by Muda69
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2 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Correct.  Frankfort is not a "lily white" town or country community.  In fact the last count I saw were that Caucasians were a racial minority in Frankfort High School.

 

You’re correct about the high school. I’ll say this from personal observation, immigrants are not only some of the hardest working people I know, but also seem to appreciate things a lot of folks take for granted. In that regard maybe the future is bright for Frankfort?

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11 minutes ago, Woody_Hayes said:

You’re correct about the high school. I’ll say this from personal observation, immigrants are not only some of the hardest working people I know, but also seem to appreciate things a lot of folks take for granted. In that regard maybe the future is bright for Frankfort?

Agreed.  I used to live next door to an apartment house in Frankfort and we never had issues with the Hispanics/Latinos that lived there.  The problems always came with the frankly "white trash" types that lived there.  Anecdotal I know,  but I think there is some truth there.

 

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On 2/25/2021 at 1:04 PM, NE8Fan said:

Combing the 3 Adams Co Schools would put the enrollment around 1400.  I think they would do very well in the 4A North.  This would probably be the Sectional they would fall into. 

Delta  FW South Side FW Wayne Huntington North Jay County  Marion  Mississinewa New Haven

I think they would do more than "very well" in the North. There is some good football being played in Adams County. Adams Central and South Adams are a good model for other small rural programs to follow. If you combined all three programs, I think they would be a dangerous team against any team at any level. 

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6 hours ago, BTF said:

I think they would do more than "very well" in the North. There is some good football being played in Adams County. Adams Central and South Adams are a good model for other small rural programs to follow. If you combined all three programs, I think they would be a dangerous team against any team at any level. 

Back to the point of the thread... All have built decent programs (Belmont again is struggling)... lots of support.  But had they been consolidated in the 70s and never had the opportunity to make all those 1a regional / semi state runs through the years... the enthusiasm and support would not be there.  Adams county today would feel more like Jay and Hunt.  1A is different that 4/5A

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2 hours ago, Purdue Pete said:

Back to the point of the thread... All have built decent programs (Belmont again is struggling)... lots of support.  But had they been consolidated in the 70s and never had the opportunity to make all those 1a regional / semi state runs through the years... the enthusiasm and support would not be there.  Adams county today would feel more like Jay and Hunt.  1A is different that 4/5A

What schools came before Adams Central and South Adams?

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22 hours ago, Purdue Pete said:

Back to the point of the thread... All have built decent programs (Belmont again is struggling)... lots of support.  But had they been consolidated in the 70s and never had the opportunity to make all those 1a regional / semi state runs through the years... the enthusiasm and support would not be there.  Adams county today would feel more like Jay and Hunt.  1A is different that 4/5A

I'm more intrigued by what would happen if they consolidated now. 

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20 hours ago, BTF said:

I'm more intrigued by what would happen if they consolidated now. 

Obviously conjecture but if they went north they would’ve been in the 4A Leo / EN sectional.  South to Delta / Marion.  Could’ve been close imo.  Someone else posted that a combined Adams county would be 5A.  Believe Dwenger sectional would’ve been ugly... not sure who would’ve been south.

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4 hours ago, Purdue Pete said:

Obviously conjecture but if they went north they would’ve been in the 4A Leo / EN sectional.  South to Delta / Marion.  Could’ve been close imo.  Someone else posted that a combined Adams county would be 5A.  Believe Dwenger sectional would’ve been ugly... not sure who would’ve been south.

Roughly 1350 students at the 3 Adams County high schools.  That would be in the upper half of 4A football, but not enough to be 5A.

Also, Blackford is another school that has students from the entire county, and they are the only high school serving that county.

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One thing, too, is basketball drives the bus at a lot of rural one-county schools. Connersville may not have much of a football tradition, but has traditionally had a very good basketball program that punches above its weight. Blackford is going through the Luke Brown experience. Jay County has long had a solid basketball program. Benton Central (which has the largest school district in the state geographically) was a girls hoops powerhouse when Jan Conner was there and remains a pretty solid program. Same with Huntington North under Fred Fields. Jennings County, Bedford North Lawrence (which encompasses about 80% of Lawrence County's population), et al - good basketball traditions. 

Franklin County (which actually doesn't encompass the entire county - a few townships go to Batesville) had a tremendous football program when Alex Smith was there and in the years after, but they've dealt with a population decline as have a lot of rural counties. 

Basketball is a *big* part of the culture in a lot of rural communities and that seems to be the focus of the youth/community development programs. In the communities mentioned above - Connersville, BNL, Benton Central, Blackford all have fairly large gyms. The community support is very good at a lot of those schools for *basketball*. It's just hard to drum it up for football for whatever reason. 

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5 hours ago, crimsonace1 said:

One thing, too, is basketball drives the bus at a lot of rural one-county schools. Connersville may not have much of a football tradition, but has traditionally had a very good basketball program that punches above its weight. Blackford is going through the Luke Brown experience. Jay County has long had a solid basketball program. Benton Central (which has the largest school district in the state geographically) was a girls hoops powerhouse when Jan Conner was there and remains a pretty solid program. Same with Huntington North under Fred Fields. Jennings County, Bedford North Lawrence (which encompasses about 80% of Lawrence County's population), et al - good basketball traditions. 

Franklin County (which actually doesn't encompass the entire county - a few townships go to Batesville) had a tremendous football program when Alex Smith was there and in the years after, but they've dealt with a population decline as have a lot of rural counties. 

Basketball is a *big* part of the culture in a lot of rural communities and that seems to be the focus of the youth/community development programs. In the communities mentioned above - Connersville, BNL, Benton Central, Blackford all have fairly large gyms. The community support is very good at a lot of those schools for *basketball*. It's just hard to drum it up for football for whatever reason. 

Also bball only takes 5 or 6 solid players vs 20.

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2 hours ago, Purdue Pete said:

Also bball only takes 5 or 6 solid players vs 20.

As I've said before, BC is a basketball first school.  With that, it's pretty impressive to see their dome rise out of nowhere on the drive southward (or is it eastward) on US 52 to Lafayette.

Edited by Gipper
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3 minutes ago, Gipper said:

As I've said before, BC is a basketball first school.  With that, it's pretty impressive to see their dome rise out of nowhere on the drive southward (or is it eastward) on US 52 to Lafayette.

That is a very cool gym to attend a game in. Pre-Covid it was anyway. Great atmosphere and not many venues can give me goosebumps. The other 2 were racetracks-Indy and Bristol Motor Speedway.

 

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1 hour ago, gonzoron said:

That is a very cool gym to attend a game in. Pre-Covid it was anyway. Great atmosphere and not many venues can give me goosebumps. The other 2 were racetracks-Indy and Bristol Motor Speedway.

 

If you want some real goosebumps go down to Zanadus and watch my mom Phyllis work the poe with Pour some sugars on me. But don’t touch her. State law!

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12 hours ago, crimsonace1 said:

One thing, too, is basketball drives the bus at a lot of rural one-county schools. Connersville may not have much of a football tradition, but has traditionally had a very good basketball program that punches above its weight. Blackford is going through the Luke Brown experience. Jay County has long had a solid basketball program. Benton Central (which has the largest school district in the state geographically) was a girls hoops powerhouse when Jan Conner was there and remains a pretty solid program. Same with Huntington North under Fred Fields. Jennings County, Bedford North Lawrence (which encompasses about 80% of Lawrence County's population), et al - good basketball traditions. 

Franklin County (which actually doesn't encompass the entire county - a few townships go to Batesville) had a tremendous football program when Alex Smith was there and in the years after, but they've dealt with a population decline as have a lot of rural counties. 

Basketball is a *big* part of the culture in a lot of rural communities and that seems to be the focus of the youth/community development programs. In the communities mentioned above - Connersville, BNL, Benton Central, Blackford all have fairly large gyms. The community support is very good at a lot of those schools for *basketball*. It's just hard to drum it up for football for whatever reason. 

It is what it is.  They are all great basketball communities and its in their DNA to the core.  We dont want to lose that in Indiana

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On 3/4/2021 at 6:40 AM, crimsonace1 said:

Bedford North Lawrence (which encompasses about 80% of Lawrence County's population), et al - good basketball traditions. 

BNL basketball, at least on the boys side, isn't what it used to be. 

I would also argue that the reason why basketball was so successful in Bedford, and football was not, was due to single-class sports and the structure of BNL's feeder system. BNL was a giant among midgets in the single-class era, but in football they always had to play against similar-sized schools. Likewise, having multiple junior highs produced a large pool of basketball players but created a staffing problem in football. 

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