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Why one Midlands school is letting its sports teams say no to playing Gray Collegiate

Read more at: https://www.thestate.com/sports/high-school/article273402445.html#storylink=cpy

Thoughts? I am very interested in others opinions on this matter.

Last edited by Kevin Heise; 03/30/23 12:17 PM.
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I understand why FC would take that stance, especially in sports that are clearly one-sided. What I'm curious to see is, if there are no fines being levied, whether the other region schools will also do the same in sports that may not be competitive at all.


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Kevin, whether you will agree or not, you have an advantage that regular public schools do not have. That advantage has served Gray well as evident by the number of State Championships across sports, in a relatively short span of time.

If you were in my region, I would play. I think that a school should. I wouldn't play as a non-region game, (as I do now) because I don't need the beat down. Just like I play Flora as a region match and wouldn't schedule them as a non-region match. When we play them, we set other goals and strive for things other than the final score. We compete as well as we can, but they have too many advantages that my players do not have. I try to make the best of it and teach my girls a life lesson with it. It is not easy. It really gets a player down. I don't think in the end it helps our game at all.

I also wouldn't schedule you if you had a player that was on my team or lived in my zone. There is nothing worse than playing against a player that should, for all intent purposes, be playing on your team and helping your team get better.

Many have given ideas on how to fix this issue. Such as move Charter schools to SCISA, move them up a class, promotion/relegation, boycott them, are just a few. I am not sure any of them will "fix" the problem of lop-sided wins. But some of them would "fix" the idea that a regular public school has to compete against a charter school and the advantage that you have.

I think in all of this there is a bigger question?

What does an obviously superior team get out of beating an obviously disadvantaged team, 21-0? Never being on the winning side of this, I would love to hear your answer to this.


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First, let me thank you for weighing in. Second, allow me to post a few thoughts ...

To answer your last question about beating a team 21-0, there is ZERO to gain from this game for either side. I informed the officials upon arrival that this was likely to be very one-sided and to call the game at halftime (both looked at me like, "how do you know it's going to be one-sided?") ... Our starting eleven, only played three minutes and the score was 1-0 when seven of them exited (three defenders and GK remained) ... Three JV call-ups, whom had never scored in a JV match, let alone Varsity ended the night with hat-tricks - there was no one else to play ... We played restriction soccer - had to build wide and serve in with one-touch finish; no dribbling through backline to score, etc. .... There were three own-goals ... To be fair, there was not much else we could do ... The score was 12-0 at half and all starters were bundled in warmups, jackets, blankets and street shoes ... I approached the officials at half expecting the game to be called only to have a fan of the other team lobby the officials to keep playing because he had paid $6 to watch this game ... I was beside myself -- it was cold, our bus had broke down en route and we were hitching a ride back with the softball team who had already won their abbreviated game, and the host team had just cut on the lights five minutes prior to halftime after I had to go in the weightroom to ask someone to cut on the lights because the home team was in all black and we literally could not see them across the field ... The officials yielded to the 'fan' and coach that insisted we continue play.

As for the traditional public school debate ... I have been on both sides .... I witnessed first-hand kids getting off the city bus from Richland One to attend another district's school -- but not for soccer wink ... We all know countless examples of someone who has property elsewhere and their kids attend, a student-athlete who attends another district school because of IB, culinary, agriculture, etc. classes ... It's a joke and anyone that thinks this is 1980 again, needs to reassess what reality is when it comes to school choice -- whether for band, sports, English, etc. It's here and the toothpaste is out of the tube and not going back in ... I realize that a 'boycott or blackball' of Charter Schools is a 'thing' now and we'll navigate that landscape, but we are just playing by the rules the S.C. Legislature established in the late 1990s -- I was on the 'anti-school choice bill' that the SCHSSCA endorsed back then and went round and round at the State House ... I did not know anything about where my professional future might lie, but know that I got an eye-opening 'what parents want, parents get' lesson from our elected officials and knew change was imminent.

I don't know the answer the question, but would be all for a multiplier that would force Charter/Privates to move up a class, but I'm not sure if that would alleviate the 'forfeits' that come with moving up a division, particularly if the SCHSL won't enforce penalties for this measure. I can remember years ago when a forfeit of any region match for whatever reason, resulted in a forfeit of all region matches, which ultimately meant you were choosing to be 0-8 or 0-10 pending your region and ineligible for the playoffs as a result. Now, it seems you can choose who you want to play even though you are assigned a region to compete in by the governing body.

Another take on this as well is that some of these teams should have to declare that they are going to only field a JV team until they are capable of fielding a competitive or want-to-be-competitive team. If they are going to choose to forfeit it should be clearly stated well in advance so the team receiving the forfeit can schedule in place of that wasted competition.

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I have no doubt that you tried to everything possible to affect this game in a positive manner. We've known each other for a VERY long time and I have no doubt that you only have the best interest of our game in mind.

I hope this next story will give you a different perspective. As we prepared for a team that had already beat us down and have beaten us down for years, I asked my players if they wanted to pack it in or try something different. They wanted to compete! They just wanted to play, come what may. I was taken aback. I came to realize that often for the kids on the unfortunate team it is about playing. It is about just getting out there and playing regardless of the score. In the end that is the best thing for our players.

I see who is in your region and I am sure that you can have 20-0 games often if you want to push it.

Best of luck in the remainder of your season. Mine will end much sooner than yours.


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A few thoughts here.

1. I have seen on other boards, for other sports, people discuss this topic as well and there are a few misconceptions.

A. State law prohibits Charter schools from having rules placed on them that have discriminatory or adverse effects. Districts tried coming up with ideas, but these were fruitless for this reason.

B. Charters are public schools that are either approved at the county level (James Island) and thus their attendance is limited (relatively) to their county residents. Others are state level, (Gray, Oceanside) and can thus accept students from anywhere in the state.

2. Many districts in the state have open enrollment, or other means for kids to choose schools. Fort Dorchester magically gets kids zoned for Stall to play football there every year. Kids in Dorchester 2 may go to any school that offers a program their own school does not have, thus the wanna-be farmers at Ashley Ridge zoned for Summerville. Chapin has kids zoned for DF and Irmo. The list goes on.

3. Those in the Lowcountry well remember a similar issue Hanahan had with Bishop England, a private school located in their attendance zone and in their region. B-E is historically strong in the “country club” sports.

4. Perhaps the biggest grievance Lowcountry schools have with Oceanside, is not simply that they can, and do recruit, from all
over the state (in fact, Sam Hartman, former Wake Forest quarterback, now at Notre Dame, and a legit NFL prospect, transferred there for his senior year from Charlotte), but rather the schedule. What other school allows kids to go class for half the day, and then work on their sport the other other half?

On the one hand, I see many large schools complain, but they also have been recruiting (McKissick at Summerville anyone). On the other hand, the private and charter schools in 1A and 2A are so disproportionately dominant in the SCHSL, that it is understandable that schools due to what has become an obvious advantage, that I cannot blame for not wanting to force the kids, on either side, into playing such a situation. Woodland vs Oceanside hardly seems fair in soccer, where one school has one club player, and the other has nothing but ECNL/NPL. There is no way to level that playing field in a respectful manner.

As an aside, one might suggest those schools play up in non-conference games, but I do know that most schools in the Lowcountry have boycotted playing Oceanside.

The only viable solution from a competitive standpoint that I can foresee, is for those schools to petition the SCHSL to play up two levels - 1A to 3A for example. The downside, some schools would get bumped down. I am not sure that moving to SCISA is a viable option for the charter schools, it maybe for St. Joseph or Christ Church though.

This is a complex issue with know solution that won’t seem unfair to someone.

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Promotion/relegation (or some form of that regarding regions or classification) would solve a lot of these competitive issues.

With such a system in place, it would ensure that there would be a more consistent level of competitive balance across regions/classifications. For every charter/private school, there are traditional public schools with ‘built-in advantages’ for certain sports (regardless of enrollment); for example, the presence of a strong club team in town, sport-specific classes, etc.

We already do this with our tournaments in this State: The Viking Cup is for the best girls teams in the state, and has been for some time. It’s a badge of honor to get invited, let alone compete for a bracket championship or tournament championship. Why not develop a similar system for region championships and/or playoffs, but based off of merit instead of simply student enrollment?

If this were the case, a lot of programs would find more success that they could normally. This would increase the popularity of the sport in rural areas, as well as giving student-athletes (who might not have the means to play club soccer) a way to compete for something meaningful, outside of a moral victory against a stronger team.

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The SCHSL is not going to do something for one sport that is not good for all so Pro/Rel won't happen. Hell, we can't even get professional soccer in the country to do it, never mind the HLS.

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I'm fairly certain the same competitive-balance argument can be made across the board for all high school sports.

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My question is why did their softball team not forfeit to Ridge View after losing by 16 in three innings? Also their softball team won a game by 17 last year. The baseball team has won quite a few games by double digits, including one game they were up 18-0 in the first! And I understand in those two sports, it's a little tougher to stop runs coming in, but you kind of lose credibility when you complain about competitive disadvantages and your teams have run it up on other teams. Some times you just have to admit you aren't going to be very competitive in certain sports.

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