SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer Woodruff

I didn't mean to say that SC schools couldn't compete, just a statement that I would love to see a game. From the information given, it looks like SC schools can compete with TC Roberson. They still have an amazing record and stats.

goal08,

The Fort Mill Invitational in March 2009 will feature eight schools from South Carolina and eight schools from North Carolina.

The eight schools from North Carolina will all play one game each against a South Carolina opponent. The eight schools from South Carolina will play one match against a North Carolina opponent and two matches against two South Carolina opponents.

North Carolina schools that have expressed an interest:
Charlotte Catholic
TC Roberson
Lake Norman
Marvin Ridge
Weddington
Ardrey Kell
Butler
King's Mountain

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.

Rob:

I mean no disrespect, but the issue is the ENTIRE ATTENDANCE area from which private schools can draw—not the school size.

The reason we have A, AA, AAA, AAA is to correct for the draw WITHIN a school.

Again, there is research that private schools have advantages due to the ATTENDANCE area discrepancy, along with the inherent affluence advantage found in most private settings.

The research, which I have posted before:

http://ohiosportsgeography.tadherold.com/hsfoot/publicprivatesxyears/publicprivate.htm

cat,

In terms of competitive high school girl's soccer, I think WHERE you are specifically located trumps how LARGE your attendance area may be.

Bishop England is very good because they are located in the heart of the Charleston market, where many good club teams develop players that may be inclined to attend BE.

If someone was to do this level of statistical work on SC, MAYBE, the SCHSL, might, on an off chance, if the stars are lined up, might think about this subject.

The evidence is clear as well as the circumstances in SC, and NC.

I wish you luck, playing up hill is never fun. Since we play in AAAA, we just get Mauldin, Dorman, Spartanburg, etc etc every year, fun fun fun...

The same argument could be made for Greenville having soccer in middle schools and Spartanburg having football. The relative dominance of the respective county to which sport it supports in middle school says volumes. Spartanburg just ignores Title IV and kicks butt in Football.

No disrespect taken, cat. I see your point and appreciate the research you've done. It is interesting to see this type of research from Ohio, and would love to see someone do this same type of research to see if these same things hold true in SC. I do agree with Hurst, that there is something to the notion attendance area isn't always the main factor, as much as WHERE your attendance area is. We have an advantage being in Columbia, BE has an advantage being in Charleston, but private schools in other areas where soccer has not taken root don't have that same advantage, despite having a larger attendance area. However, I do see your point and must concede that private schools do have at least an edge there. Thanks for putting this out there and making that research available. Hopefully someone will take this and run with it in our own great state.

Coach Brown, and others:

YES—many factors, whether soccer or academic success. We should all keep these issues in mind.

Location is also key, and we still often fail to identify the disparities within public, such as location and enrollment differences (some counties have open enrollment for the whole county/district while most do not).

Thanks for providing the data; really interesting stuff. I didn't read in detail, but I did scan through it. I thought several points were worth raising.

>>[cat's cradle] I mean no disrespect, but the issue is the ENTIRE ATTENDANCE area from which private schools can draw—not the school size.

The problem as I see it is the practical one of defining what that theoretical attendance area might be. One approach might be to find whether the farthest flung student commutes from -- a more accurate one might take the mean of all areas in a 360 degree analysis (not not assuming a simple circle/radius because of differing population densities.)

As the author notes, there is a lot of current unknowns used in trying to understand geographic data -- and there are even more issues when taking into account competing schools (e.g., Academic Magnet, for example, which was recently ranked as a top US high school by Newsweek) that draw from the same potential population of that area.

>>The reason we have A, AA, AAA, AAA is to correct for the draw WITHIN a school.<<

Is it to correct for draw or is it to correct for enrollment?

>>Again, there is research that private schools have advantages due to the ATTENDANCE area discrepancy, along with the inherent affluence advantage found in most private settings.<<

With respect to the affluence factor, I absolutely get it. Of course, as you've shown often with the poverty index, there is a wide distribution of affluence within various schools, both public and private, in our state.

After scanning through this, I find that I still don't understand the basis of the quantitative analysis for attendance pools using a theoretical draw model -- there just appears to be too many unknown variables.

Trying to compensate for theoretical draw would seem to me to be less effective than trying to compensate for actual affluence level of the enrolled population. That way we don't have very poor areas competing with very rich areas. It's my guess, and only my guess, that this would be a more effective way of equalizing teams than through some factor based on draw area.

>>The research, which I have posted before:

http://ohiosportsgeography.tadherold.com/hsfoot/publicprivatesxyears/publicprivate.htm <<

BE has 800 plus students and bost a record 7 state titles in various sports this year alone .The 1.5 ratio works for Christ Church and Ben Lippin . But BE has twice the number of students. BE boys soccer have won 13 titles and the girls have won 7 in a row.
It's not a coincidence .Be dressed 27 quality players for the title game.That being said my daughter, a member of the woodruff soccer team looks foward to playing BE again,the game was a lot closer than the score
Congradulations to BE girls soccer team, ladies you played a great game