Should all Private schools be forced to at least be in D4?

[LICKING COUNTY FAN]

Some interesting post on the public vs private thing going on over on freehuddle.com

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

coldwater got blasted today.

winton woods and maple heights in the d2, game are both public schools.

and hilliard davidson and glenville are public schools,

every thing else will be won by private schools, in my opinion.

[caglewis]

if anyone saw youngstown mooney dismantle an excellent columbus desales team, i think they'd say case closed. i doubt anybody in the state can touch mooney. do they have an unfair advantage, ask the states that have public, and private state champions, in different classes.

But YTB - BOTH Youngstown Cardinal Mooney and Columbus St Francis DeSales are PRIVATE Catholic schools!!! So how is it that you can say one of them had an "unfair" advantage over the other???
There were 3 games today - only one was a public school against a private school - one was 2 private schools - one was 2 public schools. By definition 2 out of 3 were going to have winners in the same category.
Just please quit with this tired old "public vs private" stuff!
There have always been "legal" ways for public schools to attract athletes [and other talented students], and the "open enrollment" changes to the rules made it even easier for public schools to "broaden their catchment area".
Coldwater is a very small town that has had a consistently competitive public school team in a very tough MAC HS conference that includes both public and private schools of multiple division sizes in a primarily rural area which has produced multiple State Champs over the years. Don't you figure that some of those potential student athletes might [or did] move around occasionally from school to school [public or private] over the last great many years??

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

4 state championship games in the book. 3 private schools are state champions. i rest my case.

[Orange and Brown]

It is just high school football. Private schools winning state titles won't scar our poor under privlegded public school kids for life!

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

this just in , the next winner will be a private school as well. because both teams norwalk st.paul and delphos st. john's are both private. so that will be 4 of 5 state championship games so far won by private schools, with the only game left being div. 1 which is cleveland glenville vs. hilliard davidson. so private schools win 4 of 6 state championship games. is there an unfair advantage, you tell me.

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

there is a problem, or this discussion would not be going on.

the line to be the best , you have to beat the best, may apply in college or pros , but not high schools.

there are more students/athletes in the metro area of columbus, than this is our whole fouth of the state. with no d1 schools , and nearly no private schools. explain to me how ironton barely has 40 players on a team, while kettering alter has near 90, in the same division. and this is only a tired old subject, if you are on the winning side. there may not be anymore of the public schools ironton's size winning anymore of these titles. the announcers were even talking about how it is unfair. when you live in columbus, cincy, dayton, cleveland. and the huge metro areas. if you go to a private school. you can go anywhere you want, which means more athletes per capita. the columbus schools for example move around and play at what school is loaded that year. they talked about it on the games. every game that a private school was in , they won. and i see it watching high school football, all over the country. and you know what, every state with this format, they are always debating it. how do you explain all the years we played columbus desales when they were in our division, we had 37 players. they have 100 plus players, more interest in football. not hardly. i was friends with coach jacoby. we've talked about this. i'll let it die from my end , the people you won't convince are those who know the truth, somebody said you think somebody would pay 5,000/6,000 bucks for their kid to win a state championship ring. of course they do it every year. because we cannot fathom it, does not mean , it's not done.

[wobycat]

Was talkin to a buddy of mine who officiates and he said in some states they have a money cap on schools. The way i understood it was if so many come in outside of their living township they have a ceiling on a certain amount of tuition's that can be payed in. I think this would work.

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

soccer and field hockey are sports we don't even have down here with the exception of a few schools, try again.

[TIGERS90]

What is proven every year is that private schools should be in their own division...it isn't fair...not to say that Ironton doesn't have the quality of athletes that Alter has...it's just that Ironton doesn't have the ability to get as many quality athletes in every year as they do...if Ironton had as much population and as large of an area...and recruiting was overlooked as it seems to be now in the state...could you imaging what they would do every year...just look how far they went this year...Nearly making it to the Semi's while not one kid on the starting team was from outside the school district...just think if we would have had transfers coming in from eleven schools...wow...what Bob would be able to do...

[Faclons Forever]

I think this goes beyond recruiting. By the stats gahs4ever put up, less recognized sports also belong to the private schools. I'm not saying that public schools are bad, far from it, but I think that the high academic pressure, the stricter moral codes, and the storied history of these programs create an environment that forges champions. That being said, I'm sure that there are schools that recruit, both public and private, and that there are some public schools that have the environment I previously mentioned. The state finals are to determine the best team, plain and simple. Splitting up the tournaments because the Private schools are better seems a little weak to me. I say that if the public schools think they can match the privates, let them try. Once public schools can create the winning environment, they'll win titles. I know one thing; Minford's awfully close and Ironton may be closer. If any team anywhere creates this environment, they'll start winning games, even titles.

[wobycat]

What we need to do is look at D4 and below on how many Private schools have won championships in the past 20 years. That would give us an idea if it is askew. D3 and above private and public is even because of more kids to choose from.

[wobycat]

^^^^
Thanks

Looks like d5 is the only lopsided division

[TIGERS90]

Do me one more favor...could you tell me how many private schools are in the state that compete in football...and then how many public schools are competing...this should show the obvious bias.

[TIGERS90]

Is bias another word for excellence or did you not notice the superiority of some parochial schools across the board in all sports, and not just football? And if the bias is so obvious then how is it possible that any public school can ever overcome it to win the state.....like Steubenville, Coldwater, Davidson, Upper Arlington, IRONTON, Kenton, etc etc etc???

12 of the last 17 years the DIV state champion (which Ironton is) has been won by public schools.

I am only asking what the number of private schools are...and what the number of public schools are...I believe the percentage of private schools will be less than 20 percent...and winning 60+ percent of the games...ie...when you have the ability in div 4 to pick from eleven or twelve schools of who you will accept..whether it be football...volleyball...tennis...or grades...and a public school gets what they get...there is a problem...If Ironton would be able to turn away a kid because they couldn't get the grades...or play an extra curricular activity...and could pick the people they wanted from a city the size of Cincinnati...and keep the student count down to a certain number...so they could play in a division they could win in?...I know you aren't going to tell me there isn't good athletes at Ironton...or good students?..

By the way...5 out of 17 is still almost 30%...which is still not a fair average...but closer than I would figure...however...I believe if you were to add the other divisions in..you would see that the numbers just don't jive...I am sure it is somewhere around the 60 percentile...with only less than 20 percent of the schools...

[boy of summer]

Anyway you cut it, private schools have an absolute advantage over public schools in sports.

Can you recruit student-athletes? Private, yes. Public, no.
Are you limited to kids in your school district who can play sports? Public yes. Private no.
Can you select who attends your school from an academic standpoint? Private-Yes. Public no.
Can you control the size of your student body for division classification purposes? Private-Yes. Public-No.
Can you offer scholarships to attend your school district? Private-Yes. Public-No.

I agree that public schools have and will win state championships in the future but not often. Nonetheless, while they often (as is the case with say Ironton) have great athletes, they often do not have as many great athletes as say Columbus DeSales in football or Harvest Prep in hoops as they can and do recruit kids that can flat play. They are not at the mercy in any way, shape or form of who happens to live in the school district because they have absolutely no barriers whatsoever that prevent them from recruiting the best athletes available from wherever they want. Public schools may have a QB for a year or a post player for a few years but then the talent at those positions may dry up and there is little a coach can do about it. Private schools can simply reload (its called recruiting) every year.

While it is absolutely great and uplifting that an underdog public school can occasionally rise up and slay the dragon of the private school, I fear that we will see less and less of it in the future.

[JohnKnight]

Based off statistics from 1999 through 2007 in Ohio high school athletics, public schools that
field a football team outnumber private schools 717 to 73. So basically private schools make up
about 10% of the total schools and public schools make up the other 90%. With only a 10%
representation, privates schools have managed to appear in the state final four 32% of the time
and have won the state championship in football 44% of the time. The success rates in other
sports are just as high or higher. In volleyball, private schools win the state title 66% of the time,
39% in boys soccer, 50% in girls soccer, 39% in boys basketball, 50% in girls basketball, and
46% of the time in baseball. A local private school we can relate to is the Alter Knights.
Tippecanoe High School, although very strong in athletics, has never won a team state
championship. Alter, on the other hand, has won 19.

[Westfan]

thanks for the statisticts John.

It seems like some of these guys work for the OHSAA. If you cannot look at those stats and see that they have a definate advantage then your blowing smoke in the wrong places.

Didn't they say Alter lost 30 seniors off of last years State Title Team including several D1 players? Then on the playoff show they were picked as a LOCK to win D4 again and they did. They platoon on offense and defense. Tell me how many PUBLIC D4 schools that could do that?

I think the OHSAA has a problem here. There has always been the Public/Private debate. But with the evolution of the internet and boards like this, fans are prevy to facts and figures unlike before. Fans have a way of voicing their displeasure. TV coverage allows fans an alternate way of viewing the games. Private school domination and TV coverage has caused attendance to drop. As the revenue keeps dropping, the OHSAA will be forced to level the field. Money talks.

[Panther85]

Public schools have a 53-37 advantage in state titles over the last 15 years. I wouldn't call that private school domination. (29-16 D IV-D VI, 24-21 in D III- D I) I agree this is more an urban vs. rural problem than public vs. private.

[Westfan]

When you have 10% of the schools winning 44% of the games. That's domination.