September 29, 2023 Oak Hill - Wheelersburg

[fbnut]

Just saw where this game will not be played.

This is unreal. Oak Hill should be fined or something. What are we teaching our kids? Sports has life lessons in it and this is not a good life lesson.

This is one of the most remarkably stupid things I've ever seen posted on this forum. It's a health & safety issue for children. Be better. Good grief.

They said this was going to happen before the season even started. Oakhills protest to being in soc 2

[longball]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

[LoyalOak]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

Every town/city has the last name issues. As far as youth programs go, JR high the numbers are much better but the talent isn’t great. Youth lower than that the talent and numbers are a lot better than it has been in a long time. I watch everything I can Oak Hill related from high school to the youngest kids they have.

[MisterGalliaGuy2016]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

They ran probably the best player they ever had out of town when he came back to coach too. Teams basically refused to punt against OH during his Sr. year because he got that good at blocking punts.

I'm sure everybody here remembers Brad Young. Guy I'm talking about outran Young for a fumble return TD. I'm sure the OH faithful will have some old memories pop up from that one.

[Crab's Brother]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I am not the least bit close to the situation at Oak Hill, but I truly do not believe a last name effects playing time on a team with 17 players. If you have 17 players and you aren't playing, it doesn't matter what your last name is, you can't play. Period.

[purplegold]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I am not the least bit close to the situation at Oak Hill, but I truly do not believe a last name effects playing time on a team with 17 players. If you have 17 players and you aren't playing, it doesn't matter what your last name is, you can't play. Period.

TRUTH!

[transplant]

I agree, with low numbers, it's not the name game. Most of the people I know from Oak Hill, even with the right last name, have taken their kids/families to Jackson.

[MTSWNGRVSG]

When kids do not think they can compete they will think why come out to play. Oak Hill year in and year out will not complete in the SOC II! Times are different than when the Oaks were in the OVC.

[KCol]

Pikeville lost to Raceland at home. I'm not saying that Wheelersburg will win or lose but to say they won't compete with them is not correct in my eyes.

They've had three losses by 27 points combined, 16 of those to Harvest Prep who played the No. 1 team in Indiana to a respectable three touchdown loss at Center Grove. Harvest Prep is the best team in the region right now in my eyes. All three losses should be wins, but it is what it is. You play the game to get better and to win. Pikeville is a game where Wheelersburg can get better and can win.

South Range is 5-1 and their only loss is to Division II Green whose only two losses are to Division I Massilon Jackson and Canton McKinley. They are the defending champions in Division V and are playing like it this year despite their graduation losses. And they may not even be the best team in R17 -- Perry is 6-0 and has only allowed 26 points all year. D-V is going to run through them for all intents and purposes again.

If you want to get better and play for championships, you need to play opponents every week that test you. That goes for everybody playing in any sport.

very good post

That sounds great and I agree but this team is arguably worse now than they were in week 1. This team is just not competing to the point where they can beat good teams. You can feel it in the stands, the fans and team just expect to lose. Burg make playoffs at 5~5?

Thank you both for the kind words. Not to be a contrarian to your latest point, but with Burg's core of younger guys, you have to think about the future development of the program as well. It's a delicate balancing act. Some Wheelersburg fans are losing sight of the fact that you're starting or giving significant playing time to quite a few sophomores. Other teams are too, this isn't an excuse. But this goes into my next point: Wheelersburg has the numbers to compete and sub as needed on the lines. The only way the program can assess where it is at and grow is by fire; in this case, playing a tough schedule. They are doing that and I appreciate the approach.

As some (BTWNTHE is correct on this and others) have alluded too on here, the population across the Tri-State Area is really only growing in one 20-mile area (Barboursville/Hurricane/Teays Valley), the rest of the areas are losing population, so the talent pool is not as diverse/wide as it used to be. It's going to be tough to have amazing teams season after season. That's the way it is for any area that suffers a population loss.

Not saying that success shouldn't be the standard, but when things go south, it's important to be realistic as well. The run that Wheelersburg had from 2014 to 2018 is extremely rare for any program to have in the area right now. It was the right mix of an excellent coaching staff with kids who were great talents and mainly football-centric. During that time (outside of the 14-15 school year), boys soccer was down in both success and numbers as the transition from one good coach to another took place. Boys soccer has been fantastic the last five seasons for Wheelersburg and looks to only be getting better.

You have a great head coach who has won 154 career games (just 19 off the school record). Patience is the key to virtue.

[Vike73]

Joke Hill

[longball]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I am not the least bit close to the situation at Oak Hill, but I truly do not believe a last name effects playing time on a team with 17 players. If you have 17 players and you aren't playing, it doesn't matter what your last name is, you can't play. Period.

You didn’t read what I said. My point is, the numbers are low because if they’re not in the clique, they already know they won’t be given a fair chance so most of the kids don’t even bother with school activities. And the ones who have parents that can afford to move or send them elsewhere, move out of the school district.

And yes, this happens everywhere to an extent but it’s particularly bad in OH.

[Jeaux Burreaux]

Pikeville lost to Raceland at home. I'm not saying that Wheelersburg will win or lose but to say they won't compete with them is not correct in my eyes.

They've had three losses by 27 points combined, 16 of those to Harvest Prep who played the No. 1 team in Indiana to a respectable three touchdown loss at Center Grove. Harvest Prep is the best team in the region right now in my eyes. All three losses should be wins, but it is what it is. You play the game to get better and to win. Pikeville is a game where Wheelersburg can get better and can win.

South Range is 5-1 and their only loss is to Division II Green whose only two losses are to Division I Massilon Jackson and Canton McKinley. They are the defending champions in Division V and are playing like it this year despite their graduation losses. And they may not even be the best team in R17 -- Perry is 6-0 and has only allowed 26 points all year. D-V is going to run through them for all intents and purposes again.

If you want to get better and play for championships, you need to play opponents every week that test you. That goes for everybody playing in any sport.

very good post

That sounds great and I agree but this team is arguably worse now than they were in week 1. This team is just not competing to the point where they can beat good teams. You can feel it in the stands, the fans and team just expect to lose. Burg make playoffs at 5~5?

With how many teams make the playoffs now the definitely will. And they will be a tough out for whoever. As being a fan of a team that has seldomly beaten Burg, I still have belief in the staff

[Crab's Brother]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I am not the least bit close to the situation at Oak Hill, but I truly do not believe a last name effects playing time on a team with 17 players. If you have 17 players and you aren't playing, it doesn't matter what your last name is, you can't play. Period.

You didn’t read what I said. My point is, the numbers are low because if they’re not in the clique, they already know they won’t be given a fair chance so most of the kids don’t even bother with school activities. And the ones who have parents that can afford to move or send them elsewhere, move out of the school district.

And yes, this happens everywhere to an extent but it’s particularly bad in OH.

My point is, that when numbers are that low, if you have any talent at all you will be given a chance. Considering the coach is from Ironton and used to winning, I am thinking that any kid that comes out that can help, will be on the field.

Saying that kids don't come out to a football team with 17 kids because "they won't be given a fair chance" is nothing but a cop out for kids that do not want to put in the work. Period.

You obviously are closer to the the Oak Hill situation than I am so you are entitled to your opinion. But I just struggle to believe that a proud school district like Oak Hill, that has had a ton of success in various sports, is turning kids away when they are at their absolute lowest athletically ever due to what their last name is. Again....Sounds like a cop out for a kid or kids that do not want to work to get better.

[Tri_State790]

very good post

That sounds great and I agree but this team is arguably worse now than they were in week 1. This team is just not competing to the point where they can beat good teams. You can feel it in the stands, the fans and team just expect to lose. Burg make playoffs at 5~5?

Thank you both for the kind words. Not to be a contrarian to your latest point, but with Burg's core of younger guys, you have to think about the future development of the program as well. It's a delicate balancing act. Some Wheelersburg fans are losing sight of the fact that you're starting or giving significant playing time to quite a few sophomores. Other teams are too, this isn't an excuse. But this goes into my next point: Wheelersburg has the numbers to compete and sub as needed on the lines. The only way the program can assess where it is at and grow is by fire; in this case, playing a tough schedule. They are doing that and I appreciate the approach.

As some (BTWNTHE is correct on this and others) have alluded too on here, the population across the Tri-State Area is really only growing in one 20-mile area (Barboursville/Hurricane/Teays Valley), the rest of the areas are losing population, so the talent pool is not as diverse/wide as it used to be. It's going to be tough to have amazing teams season after season. That's the way it is for any area that suffers a population loss.

Not saying that success shouldn't be the standard, but when things go south, it's important to be realistic as well. The run that Wheelersburg had from 2014 to 2018 is extremely rare for any program to have in the area right now. It was the right mix of an excellent coaching staff with kids who were great talents and mainly football-centric. During that time (outside of the 14-15 school year), boys soccer was down in both success and numbers as the transition from one good coach to another took place. Boys soccer has been fantastic the last five seasons for Wheelersburg and looks to only be getting better.

You have a great head coach who has won 154 career games (just 19 off the school record). Patience is the key to virtue.

Be careful, because, if you speak honestly on ANY topic on SEOPS the mods and their good old boy buddies will ban you for weeks at a time like they did to me [ BTWN)

I didn't dox families of transfers - like what users on this site have been permitted to do without any repercussions.

I didn't openly make racist insults to Harvest Prep student athletes or coaches like what has been permitted to occur on SEOPS without any banning or censoring as a result.

I didn't personally attack a school, program, student, staff integrity without ANY EVIDENCE of the accusations regarding transfers - THAT is also permitted ad nauseum without any banning or reprimand.

Nope. None of the above. I simply talk about football, and utilize critical thinking and I remove any bias or emotional attachments regarding the topic when I share my thoughts.

And for that, I was banned. 3rd time actually for no reason.

The reason given: "btwn needs to calm down."

I need to "calm down" but all the other things mentioned never get touched for any of that.

Good old boys club per as usual. I don't have a twang or talk and think slow and I don't romanticize my emotions & emotionql attachments to a degree where it skews my ability to see things for what they are. And for that I was banned lol

Now to the topic at hand. Very true. SEO ( Ironton, Burg, portsmouth etc area) are all around about a 2% ish or so annual population decrease. Matter fact, Ironton Is only around 5k people away from not being lawfully listed as a town and becoming a village which will bring a ton of issues with it when that eventually occurs. Point blank there is just no draw to SEO for families and most significantly, young families who reproduce, which brings up at least 1 to two more factors that also play a role here. The majority demographic in SEO is 40s, male, Caucasian. For two reasons this is also not great news for SEO as a whole. #1 40 year old white males can't procreate with other 40 yr old white males ... and 40 yr.old men in general do not start making babies at 45..And white couples have low reproduction rates now anyway, and seo is majority exactly that demographic. Population. Economics. Race. Culture. All the predominant sociological traits of SEO are also the factors that now plague them and no economic or population boom is coming. The majority population of SEO is just getting older instead of younger and as our older generation departs this earth, and as families relocate to bigger, more viable locations to maximize their life's potential, we will gradually witness how population decrease ravages the local schools and sports programs.

Making things like smaller programs like oak hill vanish and programs like Ironton and Burg ( a lil bigger programs) to rely more and more on transfers in the future in order to maintain the competitive relevance they enjoy presently.

It may sound crazy to some, but a day where Ironton, Burg, etc look like Ironton st joe ( enrollement) is methodically, slowly, and gradually approaching. As these programs shrink, programs like Oak Hill ultimately vanish.

And so it goes. I'll probably get banned for this too since it's not a hallmark card full of empty praise for bare minimums. Smh. Regardless, it doesn't change these facts.

[Footballfan96]

Just saw where this game will not be played.

This is unreal. Oak Hill should be fined or something. What are we teaching our kids? Sports has life lessons in it and this is not a good life lesson.

People should realize that this age group is participation trophy generation they want all the glory but the don’t want to put in the time and effort to achieve anything

[FIDO]

The SOC is a mess and needs to catch-up with the times.

[greygoose]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I don't buy this at all, so when OH was in SOC1 play and had 40-50 kids on the team there was no existence of this "clique"? Had a couple new coaches, had assistance leave, new coach brought in you really think the guy is part of some "inner circle" that's going to keep kids away because they don't believe they'll get playing time on a team of 25?? COME ON. Only thing that's running kids out of town as you say would be the inability to win, talented kids want to go where they have a shot at winning. To act like they've ran talented kids out of town because they wouldn't play them is nonsense and sounds more like someone with an ax to grind quiet frankly.

[greygoose]

The SOC is a mess and needs to catch-up with the times.

AH the SOC the land of where no change is a good thing. The SOC when it comes to football has shown very very little ability to grow the conference, the powers to be seem to be happy with the status quo even with it being a mess. The OVC was a hot mess with everything that was going on with Ironton and they had the ability at that point to reach out to multiple teams and offer up a invitation to the SOC and didn't do it. Honestly the schools should get together and boot those in power out.

[longball]

Gotcha. I agree, if you have to cancel because of injuries/numbers, then just go ahead and cancel the rest of the season. I'm not sure how many they started with, but things aren't looking good in oak hill. I wonder what their youth programs look like.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is this clique or inner circle in Oak Hill, everyone who’s not in it knows about it and everyone who is in it pretends it doesn’t exist. Oak Hill will not be able to get their numbers up until something shifts in the village and they start treating kids outside of the circle the same. Why even go out for a team if you know you’re not going to be given a chance because you don’t have the right last name or family in the school system? They have run a lot of talented kids out of town.

I don't buy this at all, so when OH was in SOC1 play and had 40-50 kids on the team there was no existence of this "clique"? Had a couple new coaches, had assistance leave, new coach brought in you really think the guy is part of some "inner circle" that's going to keep kids away because they don't believe they'll get playing time on a team of 25?? COME ON. Only thing that's running kids out of town as you say would be the inability to win, talented kids want to go where they have a shot at winning. To act like they've ran talented kids out of town because they wouldn't play them is nonsense and sounds more like someone with an ax to grind quiet frankly.

Believe what you want, but I know for a fact that it’s definitely a factor in the low numbers.

[LoyalOak]

Numbers and talent are low because there was no rec/youth sports in Oak Hill for a long time. Hard to be handed a ball years after your opponents and think you’ll be good enough to compete. Numbers are bigger in JR high because they had youth football and other sports to play in late elementary school (talent isn’t great with that group but the numbers are trending up). Anything else is bs. If someone claims to know about some last name stuff then they were either a parent of a kid who didn’t get what they think they deserved or the kid themselves. Yes names matter in all sports but only to a certain extent and definitely don’t matter when they just need kids to show up to begin with.