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16 minutes ago, Goose Liver said:

Apples and Oranges...

Given that I was responding to the following post, I'm not seeing it as such.

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On 1/8/2022 at 9:24 AM, Plymouthfan91 said:

In reading this topic I see some questions are being asked.  Here is what I see as someone who is around a lot...

1.  We have had a couple of classes in a row who don't play football.  The kids in those grades are good kids but they aren't football players.  I wish they could've got some wins but if you look at them through the years they just haven't been successful in football.  So lack of talent is reason number one.

2.  Our move from the option based offense that worked in the early 2000's to shotgun spread (when Coach Barron's youngest was QB) to wildcat (Jake Reichard at QB), to this past season where we didn't have an identity.  The offense switched from game to game.  None of them worked.  But we had an offense we hung our hat on and changed it for the coach's son and we still are searching for an identity.

3.  New AD over the last couple of years who had a well-known outburst after a boys basketball game that has made it difficult to get coaches to apply for open jobs. (Girls/Boys Basketball).  We will see about Football.  But on a side note even though we had limited people apply to for the Boy's Job they seem to be showing improvement and hopefully we will turn the corner there.  Joel Grindle and his staff of former basketball players are doing an excellent job.  But still there is a lot of distrust from the coaches on staff for the current AD.

4.  But our Junior High teams were both very successful this past season and things are looking up.  Will we be competitive next year?  Not unless we can get some more athletic kids to play.  But there is a chance for us to get better with the right person in place.  Patience will be key for the new hire.  I haven't heard any rumors about where the coaching search will go but I do hope we get plenty of people to choose from and if any of you are looking to apply please do and if you want any info about the school that can't be asked here, DM me on the digest and I will try to get you your answers.

I want us to be good at the major sports.  When schools see success in Football and Basketball in Indiana they seem to have better overall school culture.  So please if you are coach looking for a challenge please apply!

Agree talent key.  Assuming there is talent in the building, the coach can either pull those talented kids into the program or drive them away.  After a long stint of losing seasons the new coach will need to find a 7th or 8th grade team to invest in, endure 4 years of misery and then hopefully see the turn around.  See Norwell High school past seasons on John Harrell as an example.  Watched the fall and resurrection first hand.

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On 3/2/2022 at 11:34 AM, foxbat said:

Given that I was responding to the following post, I'm not seeing it as such.

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Ok, that is a solid argument.... the roster at Hobart has had more Montez, Flores, Guterrez, Torres, Washington, Jefferson, Smith, Brown than 20 years ago. So what is your opinion on the demographic shift ? 

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19 minutes ago, Goose Liver said:

Ok, that is a solid argument.... the roster at Hobart has had more Montez, Flores, Guterrez, Torres, Washington, Jefferson, Smith, Brown than 20 years ago. So what is your opinion on the demographic shift ? 

While there has been discussion on GID about larger Hispanic populations causing issues with football, I'm not sure that I buy it in whole.  Demographic shifts are coming in broader swaths now.  The country's recent numbers, at least as of 2020, show that, by national average, Whites are no longer the majority for public schools.  They clock in at a tad under 46%.  Hispanics check in at around 28%, with Blacks at around 15%.  Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and those that identify as two or more races complete the pie with a bit more than 11% combined.  While Indiana is still below average with regard to URMs and way above the average in terms of Whites ... at just a bit under 66% ... there's still a shift in play.

Going back to the idea that Hispanic students have a potential impact on the strength of football in an area because "obviously they play soccer and not American football," of note is that the states that have large Hispanic populations in their public schools, as a percentage, actually tend to be known for their football.  Among the states with more Hispanics than the national average in their public schools are football power states California, Florida, and Texas with roughly 55%, 35%, and 53% Hispanic students respectively.  At the same time, Nevada has around 43% Hispanic and New Mexico has roughly a whopping 63% and neither would likely be tagged as the strongest football schools in the sate.  Someone could certainly pick New Mexico and say, "See the more Hispanics you have, the more irrelevant your program would be because no one talks about football and New Mexico in the same breath."  On the other hand, the large numbers of Hispanics, as percentage, in powerhouse states says that we just can't flat-out assume a linear impact on football when there's larger presence of Hispanic students.

While the idea of demographic shifts certainly provide challenges, I think there's plenty of data out there as well as trends that show that the trend toward increased Hispanic populations isn't specifically a death knell for football in an area/state.  There's also a big issue that folks need to consider in that Hispanics are not as monolithic as they are often assumed to be ... folks who live in Florida can attest to this first-hand.  There's also the issue of FRL that people toss in there as well, but there's also data that points to that being less than definitive in football success than the linear presumption than is sometimes assumed.  Back in 2015/16, the national average for FRL was around 50%.  California, Texas, and Florida clocked in around 59% on FRL.  Note that in that year, Indiana's percentage was just a bit below the national average at around 48%.  The interesting thing though is that Mississippi clocked in at right around 75% FRL.  You might be asking, "Why would Mississippi matter?"  Mississippi ranked 7th in 2015 in percentage of their players that went on to play FBS ball with scholarship.  Incidentally, Florida was #1 in percentage and Texas and California ranked #12 and #11 respectively.  Incidentally, last year, Mississippi also ranked #1 in D1 scholarships per million residents and also ranked #1.  When the study broke down positions, that ranking was also #1 across QBs, line, DBs, and receivers.  It was only a single study, but an interesting place to start.

Caveat: With all that said, and given that various groups are not as monolithic and different specific areas/schools have very different cultures, coaching issues, communities, etc., this is very much high-level analysis.  I'm not as directly versed with Hobart and/or Portage or many other Indiana schools, so my info above is more for thought as opposed to being directly applied to a specific school. 

Here are the various sources if folks want to delve into or churn the data a bit more:

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1 hour ago, Crusty said:

Been wondering the same thing for years. Also why isn't Hobart spelled Hobert. I pronounced it the wrong wah for 40 years  

They march to the beat of a different drummer in Hobart. 

Edited by Bobref
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2 minutes ago, Bobref said:

Which has nothing to do with anything under discussion.

Neither does their field conditions or that you perceive that, "They march to the beat of a different drummer in Hobart."  So what was your point? 

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8 minutes ago, DE said:

Neither does their field conditions or that you perceive that, "They march to the beat of a different drummer in Hobart."  So what was your point? 

They have (or at least, had, for a long time) a different mindset than most programs. They did things the “Hobart Way.” That’s what “marching to the beat of a different drummer” means. Which is what we were discussing.

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I have to laugh when I see people say that Hispanics population cause a down shift in football because they play soccer.  Most of the Hispanics in high school nowadays are 3rd or 4th generation Americans, they have more football knowledge that their parents or grandparents.  Most of the kids that I know that played soccer are more white than hispanic.

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5 hours ago, Bobref said:

Hey, for decades their home field was a landfill in the making. Who does that?

Not only was it built on a landfill, Duck Creek was rerouted from a NW to SE diagonal across the field to a path around and under the visitors bleachers. That's why when Duck Creek flows out of its banks the field is flooded.

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I was a Plymouth High School Saturday night for the 4A boys sectional championship game.  Had a great Prime Rib dinner at the Brass Rail before the game.  

Best part was I sneaked into the gym without paying.  If anybody would have asked I would have told them that I was the bus driver for the Michigan City High School cheerleaders.

Always enjoy my visits to Plymouth.  Really nice town.  Kind of reminds me of Hobart.

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1 hour ago, DE said:

He was the bus driver for the cheerleaders, Bob.

 

14 minutes ago, MarshallCounty said:

Lol, your sarcasm detector needs to be turned up a bit.

When he mentioned being the bus driver for the cheerleaders, I just thought that was wishful thinking on his part. My error. 😂🤣

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/7/2022 at 6:22 AM, Crusty said:

Also why isn't Hobart spelled Hobert. I pronounced it the wrong wah for 40 years  

The way I understand it is a gentleman was driving a buggy with the Horse named Bart. When he wanted to stop he said "Ho-Bart", and that is how the town got it's name. Don't know how true it is, but I had a roommate in college from Hobart and that is the story he told of how the town got it's name.

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9 minutes ago, CJJL said:

The way I understand it is a gentleman was driving a buggy with the Horse named Bart. When he wanted to stop he said "Ho-Bart", and that is how the town got it's name. Don't know how true it is, but I had a roommate in college from Hobart and that is the story he told of how the town got it's name.

Here is what Wikipedia says, who knows if this is true or not since anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry.

Hobart was platted in 1849.[1] George Earle, an English immigrant bought land from the Potawatomi Native American tribe, who built a dam on Deep River, creating Lake George. He named the settlement that later developed into Hobart, after his brother, Frederick Hobart Earle, who never left England. The first school of the city was built in 1878.[6]

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