Fact or fiction: 3, 4 or 6 classes in football
Posted by Mike Fields on December 14, 2007
What timing. A few days before the six state football championships at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, while cleaning out some old files, I came across a yellowed newspaper clipping from the Nov. 26, 1980, Lexington Leader. It was a story I had written on the possibility of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association trimming the number of classes from four to three. Almost three decades later, it reads like fiction, although I’m not sure it wasn’t the right idea then, and maybe now. Here’s the main part of the story:
From Nov. 26, 1980, Lexington Leader:
Kentucky high school football, which has been played under a four-class system since 1975, probably will return to a three-class system by 1983.
That’s the word from Billy Wise, an assistant commissioner with the KHSAA . . .
“The feeling is that there just aren’t enough football teams in Kentucky to have four classes,” Wise said. “We got by with three classes from 1959 to 1974, and it looks like we’ll go back to that.”
Kentucky currently has 201 football-playing schools. As a comparison, Florida has more than 500 (football) schools but only four classes.
December 14, 2007 at 7:47 am
Mike, Your comments on whether or not the state classifications in football are too many is interesting. Our schools in the state were on record as wanting to restructure the classes before the six class systemn was done. They made their desires none to our great booha the KHSAA and were totally ingnored as to what they really wanted. The great booha in turn decides to go ahead and give them more classes and went to the now six class system. The problem with this is as I said the wants of the schools were totally ignored in the process. All the state schools wanted was a level playing field. It was all from the public vs. private school issues. Public schools are held to bounderies as to where they can get players. Private schools can recruit, yes I said it, and bring in players from anywhere they want. They can tell me all they want that all students pay their own tuition just like the other. Yea right, I can believe that. Just take a look at the state champions not only this year but over the past say 7-8 years and tell me that the private schools do not have an advantage. If the great booha had done what they should have and not folded to the private schools leverage, whatever that is, they would have reclassified and made 5-6 classes and had one of them as a solely private school class. Then we would level the field some. Public schools with their boundaries and population classes and private schools doing their thing and having one state champion. The very good thing about the added classes is it does give more teams more chance to advance and at least one more game. One more game of experience for teams and players cannot be all that bad. Sorry for the soap box rampage, but you just struck a nerve this morning.
December 14, 2007 at 11:07 am
Again with with the same old bunk. I had to check to see if Mr. Sears was the author.
Private vs Public, Recruiting by private. Level the playing field.
This is nothing but noise. This is an excuse for the schools that don’t win titles.
Ever wonder why a small urban community, Ft Thomas/Newport, has 2 teams(Highland/NCC) playing for state titles.
I wonder did Bob Schnieder, the winnest coach in KY history, cheat/recuit all those wins.
I wonder if the junior football program that feeds both schools has any impact on the sucess of each.
HS sports are changing, and will continue to evolve. Over time new schools will develop and will win state.
If more classes are such a good idea, lets split basketball into 6 classes. Good idea, NO!!
By the way how many private schools are BB state champs.
December 14, 2007 at 2:11 pm
The presence of schools which can “attract” players from other districts, counties and even states to their programs in the KHSAA is patently unfair when the system is supposed to be set up to pit teams with similar resources against each other. While Lexington Catholic, St X, Trinity etc are very fine teams whose players play with intensity and class, it is clearly wrong for those teams to win “state championhsips” playing against teams that do not enjoy the freedom to select the very best players from virtually unlimited talent pools. No reasonable person could blame these teams for their sucess because they are presumably playing within the rules but the rules should change or, in my opinion, we should do away with the pretence of the class system. The current system preserves, rather than eliminates, the advantage enjoyed exclusively by very well heeled private schools.
December 15, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Every public school can, if its Board of Education desires, accept out of district students. And a lot of them do, particularly in the urban areas. If being able to take students from other districts was the big reason for X and T and LexCath winning, wouldn’t it hold true for the public schools in the urban areas doing the same thing? The fact is that schools like X and T and LexCath put more than lip service in their committment to football. Whereas a lot of the public schools emphasize boys basketball. They’re fine with the public’s winning most of the boys basketball championships but cry when the privates win football. Sad thing is they can’t even see the hypocrity of their claims.
December 17, 2007 at 9:50 am
From my talking to other parents from other schools at ballgames, there is litterally little to no recuiting from the schools.Most of the so called recuiting happens 1 of 2 ways. The parents and or child (mostly the parents)want 2 things out of there sports, 1.To play on a state championship team, who is winning them,that is where my kid is going to attend! Also this will give the children the advantages of being noticed by college coaches and recruiters. 2.The parents that have children already at these schools do 10 times more of the recuiting than the schools(coaches)do their selves. This is so they can promise to fullfill the first part of this statement.
So do we blame the KHSAA,or the Schools? I would have to put the blame on us as the parents, for wanting whats best for our kids. There is no perfect solution for any of this,if you seperate Public and Private then play for an overall title wichever one dominates the other is still going to complain till they can win and dominate.
The best advice I can think of is make sure what ever decision you make weather you send your child to a public,or a private school,weather you hold your child back or start them late, make sure you are doing it for them and their education,not for your glory and satifaction among your friends and peers.
December 25, 2007 at 11:02 am
First of all, Kentucky has no business having 6 classes. Second, St. X and Trinity should have a classification like Oak Hill has in Virginia where they can’t play for the State Championship. You know and I know that these two schools are more like prep schools. I mean the best in Lexington gets beat by 40+ points by Trinity. It’s just not fair. And I’m not talking about recruiting. The blogger above me is right. We all want to put our kids in the best school(academic, athletic, safety, etc.)possible. So if I had a son who played football in Louisville, I would send him to either one of those schools because of their great reputations. But the KHSAA needs those two schools money. Just like everything else in this world the bottomline is money.
December 28, 2007 at 9:24 am
Carl Marshall in his post mentioned that private schools have an advantage because they can get kids from other districts, counties and even states. Mr. Marshall, I assume you realize that public schools can AND do also get kids from other districts, counties and yes, even states. Many an Eastern Ky school has gotten kids from WV over the years. Many a public school has reciprocity agreements with adjacent school districts that allows them to enroll kids not in their district and where there are no reciprocity agreements to accept out of district students if they pay tuition. To assert that only private schools can do that is not being accurate. Admittedly in some rural county schools that option, while present, is not very practical. And even for some of those schools where it is practical it doesn’t happen too much either because A. the sports programs are so poor that no out of district student would want to go there, or B. the academic programs are so poor that no parents of out of district students would want their kids to go there.
In any event, is it really X, T or LexCath’s fault that they have very solid athletic programs (and at least with X and T, I don’t know about LexCath, exceptional academic programs? Should we lower the bar to make it “more level” or keep the bar high and make the schools not winning compete harder? Maybe I’m an old fashioned capitalist, but I believe the more competition we impose on the schools the better they will become for the kids and society.