I guess I don't see the discrepancy in public schools matching up with private schools. I come at it from a different angle, obviously. Everyone keeps talking about how private schools can draw from such a larger pool of kids for their athletic teams. Not true. Private schools are smaller, typically, than public schools. Take Ben Lippen, for example. We have around 400 students in our high school. Woodruff has, what, at least twice that? Suppose half of those are girls. Woodruff then has twice the number of girls to pull their team from. It seems to me, then, that public schools would have an advantage in the numbers game, typically having a larger student body. After all, your teams come from your student body, not the general population. I grew up playing soccer in a AA public school, and always felt like I had the advantage, at least as far as numbers were concerned. It seems to me that the key to being successful has nothing to do with the number of people you get your students from. It should have everything to do with encouraging your players to be more involved in year-round soccer and building the program with the rescources that are available to you. I applaud Woodruff for doing just that! In fact, they beat us 3-0 this year. According to the argument I'm hearing, seems we should have had the advantage. I hope we will have the advantage in years to come if we continue to build our program the right way, the same way schools such as Woodruff and BE have, regardless of a private or public distinction.
