|
|
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 422
Goal
|
Goal
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 422 |
Quote:
It is also obvious that you do have something to do with Blackville like coaching maybe?
I actually don't, but I have spoken with their coach before on a few occasions and he has said the program has come a long way in 3 years since he took over. He worked with what players he had. If I remember correctly, he told me that half his kids were football players or kids that have never touched a ball before. Be proud of a 12-0 beat down? No, but don't make it sound like the work they did put in to get to State was pointless.
It sounds personal from my end because I have been part of a team that was on the receiving end of a 10-0 drilling and I have been with a team that scored 9-0 on a team. The program is only a a few years old and a lot of the kids are still developing. When you say that if the team isn't competitive and can't compete with higher level teams, then they should drop the program, then I ask when can the program grow? Sure, if their isn't improve evaluate the coach and the talent and make what changes you can, but if the kids want a team and want to play soccer are you going to tell them, "No" and your reason being is that "You aren't good enough."
Blackville, 2002, I agree was a good team but a lot of good things happened at one time. Back then there actually was a decent recreation league for the county that had a lot of support, so kids had been developing the basics. They also had a foreign coach for a about 2 or 3 years. So for that team they probably could work on more advanced things. When the kids have little to no fundamentals at all, then it is going to be a slower learning process. What they did in 2-3 years in '02 will probably be 5 or 6 years now because of what they have.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204
Corner Kick
|
|
Corner Kick
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204 |
Quote:
So neither one of you have bothered to notice the fact that more competitive teams from areas like yours have been developed, including Blackville. Whining about socio-economic disparity is well and good but it does not reflect what great coaches and leaders have demonstrated. As stated earlier 2002for Blackville, Lincoln high school and others have demonstrated the this. I sincerely hope that the good kids and people of Blackville do not buy into this "victimization" mentality. From what I see they are extremely proud and have a rich history in sport. If you want to make excuses for what happened on Saturday and you want to take pride in beating teams that were a little worse that yours than so be it. It is also obvious that you do have something to do with Blackville like coaching maybe?
I am going to guess that the team in 2002 that won wasn't facing an elite private school filled with club playing players but another small public school similar to them.
You seem completely tone deaf to this.
Does the fact that a 1a team can play and beat 4a teams seems strange to you?? One of the smallest schools in the state beating one of the biggest?? Not odd to you?? There is no way a 1a school should be beating 4a schools. The whole point of setting up different levels is so teams compete with teams of similar size, ability and opportunity.
And remember we are talking public schools which are you get what you get and not let's recruit good players or create a school where good players come because we have a highly paid coaches or because they can get into a good college. We are talking about people who go to the school because they live in that town and have no choice.
Shouldn't the students who go to these small public schools have a chance to play against and beat teams similar to their own???
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 26
kick off
|
|
kick off
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 26 |
PJay, So how do schools like Bishop England, St. Joseph's Christ Church...etc. go about playing in the 3A or 4A class of SCHSL given their current enrollments?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 422
Goal
|
|
Goal
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 422 |
Hence the question about relegation and promotion come up. How would things look if there was a system that aided with the teams being more level to each other?
Last edited by Coach Navarro; 05/23/13 05:44 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204
Corner Kick
|
|
Corner Kick
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204 |
Quote:
Darn, I like to think my son's a pretty good player, and I'm decidedly middle class. Dollars may create opportunity, but they do not a player make.
Does your son play club ball??
Ever go to a soccer camp?
Play soccer when school is not in session??
If so then he probably has more opportunity to play and learn than 90% of the kids in Blackville.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 11
bench
|
|
bench
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 11 |
Christ Church was in 10 straight state championships and the worst blowout was a 9-1 win against Williston Elko in the first 1A state championship in 2001. Coincidentally Blackville-Hilda played Christchurch in 2002 for the state championship and lost 4-1. The BH team from that year had a record of 12-9 with a schedule made by playing some pretty good teams from various classifications. The Christchurch team from 2002 had an All-American Duke signee and had beaten a number of very good teams from bigger schools, including two state finalists that year. The following two years Buford played Christchurch and competed. Academic Magnet and Lincoln were in the state finals in the years following and were involved in very competitive finals.
Lincoln was a on a lower socio-economic level than Blackville. The schedule for BH in 2002 included South Aiken, Elite private schools and other schools with a tradition in soccer from various classifications.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204
Corner Kick
|
|
Corner Kick
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204 |
Quote:
PJay, So how do schools like Bishop England, St. Joseph's Christ Church...etc. go about playing in the 3A or 4A class of SCHSL given their current enrollments?
Change the system??
A lot of people like the euro system where you win you move and if you lose you move down.
Might not work on a statewide level, but it could work for private schools.
Simple solution:
1. All private schools start at the same level they are playing now. Unless the team wants to play at a higher level.
2. Any private school that wins either the upper or lower state championship two years in a row gets moved to the next highest bracket. (or wins its region 2 years in a row if you want to make it easier to move them up)
3. Any private school teams that comes in last or second to last in its region 2 years in a row can be moved to a lower division, unless its enrollment exceeds that division.
Put something like this in place and in a few years the private school will be playing against other schools with similar skill talents. And the small public schools won't have to face the best teams in the state.
The overall goal here isn't to punish the private school kids, but to create a system that is fair to everyone from the smallest school to the largest. In such a system it looks like St Joseph would end up a 3a school which is probably where they belong. At that level they will face teams they can beat and teams that can beat them. And when they win a state championship it will have more meaning that beating a team like Blackville.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204
Corner Kick
|
|
Corner Kick
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 204 |
Quote:
PJay, So how do schools like Bishop England, St. Joseph's Christ Church...etc. go about playing in the 3A or 4A class of SCHSL given their current enrollments?
St Josephs beat JL Mann, Riverside, Dorman and Mauldin all 4a teams, they also beat 3a Greenville.
The only losses they had were to 4a JL Mann, 3a Chapin and 3a Eastside the upper state champions.
Looks like they are already playing these teams and beating them.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 26
kick off
|
|
kick off
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 26 |
I agree with your approach of a promotion/relegation system, however I don't think it should be limited to private schools only.
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3
bench
|
|
bench
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3 |
As a parent of one of the St. Joe's players I recognize that I’m risking life & limb by throwing in my two cents here, but so be it…
Playing in the 1A Division – I can guarantee you that nobody at St. Joe’s enjoys playing 1A soccer; not the players, not the coaches and certainly not the parents. It’s unfair to the other teams, and it’s unfair to our boys. Unfortunately it’s not up to the school – the rules are driven by enrollment, and by those rules St. Joseph is a 1A school. Trust me when I tell you that the boys would much rather beat up on 4A schools ;-). Of course, if they had played 4A this year and won (which they would have) the complaint would still have been that it’s unfair; they’re rich and play club soccer and that the school recruits the best players, which leads me to...
Recruitment – St. Joseph DOES NOT recruit players, and although they do offer scholarships and/or financial aid to families, it is offered to everyone based on need. There is no special category of aid for athletes. If you were to think about it for a minute you would realize that they don’t need to recruit. As mentioned in previous comments, St. Joe’s tuition is quite high (don’t I know it!) and it requires a certain amount of financial stability to send your kids there. High end club soccer (premier/academy level) is also very expensive so parents that can afford to have their boys play club soccer can (mostly) afford to send their kids to a private school. What really drives recruitment at St. Joe’s is a combination of their previous success (good soccer players tend to want to play for quality, winning programs) and their proximity to CESA. These boys already know each other from club soccer and the decision to go to school together is an easy one. Finally…
What to Do – Bluntly speaking, there’s probably nothing that can be done. It would be great to be able to implement Paul Schleifer’s proposal, but there’s a bunch of 3A and 4A schools that would block it at every turn. An alternate solution would be to allow schools to petition to move individual sports to the appropriate level, but it would have to be sport specific – a school like St. Joseph, which can complete at the highest levels in sports like soccer and baseball, could not complete in resource intensive programs such as football at the 4A level. What St. Joseph does now to manage the situation is to schedule as many games as possible against class 3A/4A schools. It’s not clear what can be done about the scores during conference play; during the Blackville final Kucinic pulled all of his starting juniors and seniors, and the remaining players still scored five goals.
Update: I like pjay's proposal -- it would allow a school like St. Joe's to move up without impacting existing 3A/4A schools.
Last edited by Emilio; 05/23/13 07:18 PM.
|
|
|
|
