MileSplit North Carolina

A sad day for student athletes....

As stated on the News and Observer, NCHSAA member schools will vote this week on whether Cardinal Gibbons, Charlotte Catholic, Kernersville McGuinness and Christ the King can remain in the organization. It appears the key point of contention is the supposedly unfair advantage these schools have over public schools as there are no geographical boundaries / restrictions for students to attend. The vote is at the request of Salisbury, West Rowan, East Rowan, South Rowan, North Rowan and China Grove Carson.

Before I became a volunteer pole vault coach, I was a parent deciding where to send my kids to high schools. They attended parochial schools during elementary school, so our decision was very simple. Athletics never played a role in our decision. We explored other options, but none come close to Cardinal Gibbons because the students and faculty embrace the schools mission "to form men and women of faith, service, and leadership in church and community". Believe it or not, athletics is far-far from the most successful programs at Cardinal Gibbons.

To those that claim an unfair advantage over public schools, you have missed the point. Yes, these schools have some very nice facilities (please do not look at the pole vault pit at Gibbons as you may hurt yourself), some excellent athletes, but above all they have outstanding individuals... just like public schools. As a coach, I struggle to get the school to purchase poles for our athletes, even though we have the #1 NC freshman girl, # 1 NC sophomore girl, and #2 NC junior boy in the vault, or buy a top cover so the pit is safe to be used, and most pole vaulters have been the rejected athletes from every other event... just like at any public school.

Competition develops character.... Gibbons has won 34 NCHSAA state championships since 2005. Charlotte Catholic has won 20, and McGuinness has won nine NCHSAA state titles. I am glad athletics is not a priority... imagine if it was!

Competition brings out the best and the worst in people. The student athletes from Cardinal Gibbons, Charlotte Catholic, Kernersville McGuinness and Christ the King will continue to thrive wherever they go, as athletics is not the focus of their lives. They will continue to outperform their critics and their opponents in the best way they know... with respect and unwavering determination. And now with a bit more motivation!

If the vote is approved to remove the schools it will be a sad day for the student athletes of the affected schools and their fans. But not as sad as it will be for the schools that requested the vote as they are trying to better their position by claiming they are victims. These schools are looking at this issue from a position of lack and inferiority. Whatever the outcome, how they view themselves will not change. Excellent competition helps athletes find new degrees of efficiency within themselves. The 'game' whatever it is, should foster the relationship between mind, body, and spirit. We should root for our competition because it increases our personal desire to expand and improve.

The vote may force these schools out of NCHSAA, but their student athletes performances cannot be taken away. They will continue to excel at invitationals and national meets. The state rankings and performance lists will continue to show their ability to perform with the very best regardless of who else is in the field.

In the end life will continue, as athletics is just a game, a vehicle to help youth grow into the successful, kind, and respectful forward thinkers the world needs most.

@jsanmiguel Why aren't these private schools part of the NCISAA?

@Ready2Throw In the case of Cardinal Gibbons and Charlotte Catholic, they are both far larger than any other school in the NCISAA. That would be patently unfair, and in order to find competition against schools of the same size, they joined the NCHSAA. This is a common practice in many states, especially to the north of us, where Catholic schools often compete in the same leagues as public schools.

A few misconceptions that are out there that we should clear up:

The NCHSAA is NOT specifically a "public-school" league. Any school that meets its requirements can join the NCHSAA, and it is an organization that is separate from the North Carolina state government that regulates public schools.

Private parochial schools that join the NCHSAA have two extra restrictions that they must follow, which so not apply to public schools:

1. Any athlete transferring to one of these schools during their high school career must sit out a year.

2. The school cannot give financial aid of any kind (even academic) to any athletes.

On the other hand, Gibbons is clearly too powerful overall to stay in 3A. Here's an easy solution: instead of assuming that they are breaking the rules set out for them (which many public-school coaches and athletes do assume), why not bump them up one classification? Many states do that, using a "multiplier" to increase their enrollment numbers. If Gibbons and Catholic were in 4A, they would be competitive but not dominant. Ditto for McGuinness in 2A.

A MUCH bigger problem than those three schools, in my opinion: the massive influx of charter schools into the 1A classification, which has royally screwed up the reclassification in that classification. The charter schools are also attracting clusters of athletes, and they are soon going to dominate the 1A playoff brackets in many sports.

@CoachGeorgeRJR This was also part of the article and apparently on the ballet

"Also on the ballot is creating a separate NCHSAA playoff bracket for charter schools, which are publicly funded schools but are not governed by local boards of education.
Under the proposed change, charter schools would compete in NCHSAA conferences as they do now, but if a charter school qualified for the playoffs in any sport it would be placed in a charter-school bracket to compete against other charter school members.
Read more here: www.newsobserver.com/2012/04/17/2006976/nchsaa-con...."

Personally I don't care about the charter schools and Bishop being a 1A schools. I think they have made the competiton a lot better in the 1A level bringing us up to a level that allows our kids and schools to compete and be competitive with bigger schools. And of course I might be a litle old school with this thought despite being young in age but I feel like there is no reason to complain about your competition, you just need to figure out a way to get better and beat them.

That's strange that none of the Catholic schools are in Rowan County, the county where the public schools initiated the vote. If it was a real issue, why didn't the public schools in Wake County (where Cardinal Gibbons is located), Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte Catholic is located), Forsyth County (where Bishop McGuinness is located) and Cabarrus County (where Christ the King will open its new campus next school year) initiate the vote?

Jeff George pointed out something that not many people know -- the fact that the NCHSAA's transfer rule for anyone moving to one of the Catholic schools is stiffer than transferring to a public school. If you want to play at one of the Catholic schools, you have to sit for one year (NCHSAA rule and a rule that the NCHSAA monitors with reams of paper work).

Sure, those transfer rules are in place for some public schools, but they're not enforced that often (we know this without even pointing out cases of the multitudes of transfers within the public schools that happen each school year). Everyone can easily name 5-10 athletes in their own school system who have transferred from one public school to another without incurring any penalties. And, some public schools allow students to come from another county if they pay a "fee" to that public school system (the most prominent runner who did this was Carly Matthews, a 2001 Foot Locker qualifier, who transferred from Ledford in Davidson County to Mount Tabor in Forsyth County. She still lived in Davidson County, but she paid a fee to go to school in Forsyth County. It wasn't a secret because it was written about quite a bit back then by the Winston-Salem Journal, but it was okay with the NCHSAA).

I read some of the commments by the coaches and A.D's concerning the Catholic schools, but they kept mentioning recruiting, etc. (there's no evidence of that. The proof that there is no evidence is that none of the schools who initiated the vote, and none of the schools in the counties where the Catholic schools are located, and none of the schools that have been making comments, have any proof. If they did, you better believe they would hand it over. But it's just not there. And it's not there, because it doesn't happen like they think. It may be an opinion, but that's all it is. Opinions founded on nothing or very little. More than anyone, though, public school coaches know that the transfers within the public schools are very prevalent. Again, we all can name 5-10 kids within our own school systems who have transferred from one public school to another, without having to sit out).

So, with all of that said, is it really about a level playing field? No, it's about the perception of a level playing field. Unfortunately, in this case, it's a wrong perception. Perception is NOT reality. Perception is perceived reality, which is, in a nutshell, not real.

If we want our athletes to compete against the best, then we will tell them to raise the bar. We won't tell them to eliminate the bar so that they feel good about themselves. That is a false reality, a false perception and gives the kids a false sense of what they accomplished.

When the transferring within the public schools is fixed, then we can talk about level playing fields and what is or isn't right. Until then, this is just smoke and mirrors to foster someone's dislike for not being able to compete against certain schools. If it's more than that, or if there is proof and the NCHSAA is just ignoring it, then, please, someone actually provide it.

Remember, the vote isn't to enforce existing rules or to make the rules tougher, because, well, the rules are being followed. So, since the rules are being followed, the only thing they can do is just eliminate the bar. Not raise the bar, mind you, but just eliminate it altogether.

Sidenote: Strange also that magnet schools weren't addressed in the other vote? I mean, their draw is larger than the regular public schools, too.

This failed before (1986 I believe, according to one of the articles), it will fail again, probably by a very large margin, let alone get even remotely close to the 75% in favor it needs to pass. It's sad that these Rowan County folks are showing such poor taste & sportsmanship in even trying. There just isn't any kind of groundswell to do this in my opinion. Let the kids play/run/swim etc.!

For those of you who do have a problem with some schools being able to draw athletes from outside the set school by school geographic lines that most schools in the state have to stay within, what do you do about Charter Schools (I see the separate bracket attempt), Magnet Schools and "special case" schools like NCSSM that do not have "normal" type geographic boundaries? Kick them all out too? Where do you draw the line? BTW, all of those examples are "public" schools by all definitions of the word.

Again, maybe I am drastically misreading this situation, but with things like Charlotte Catholic being a member (in good standing) of NCHSAA for over 50 years and the fact that this was tried before (and failed), I think this goes down in major flames and is overwhelmingly defeated, but I guess you never know.

I have no problem with the private schools being in NCHSAA. I agree with Jeff George. Just move them up in classification. I also think NC Science and math should be moved up to 3A or 4A. If you look at that school based on juniors and seniors they should be moved up.

HWPixHend

This failed before (1986 I believe, according to one of the articles), it will fail again, probably by a very large margin, let alone get even remotely close to the 75% in favor it needs to pass.

@HWPixHend
While you were correct that the proposal failed, you were way off in terms of the support. 293 votes were necessary to remove the Catholic schools, and there ended up being 234 votes in support of their removal (vs 51 votes on the other side).

Yes, it gathered many more votes than I thought it would which, to me, is very sad, as it shows at least a lot of the administrators, coaches and parents (note, I don't mention the players as for the most part, they just want to "play the games" against the best competition possible) are, in my opinion, extremely close minded and only care about winning. This is a terrible lesson to be teaching are kids. They sound like they will do almost anything to make this winning happen, even to the point of wanting to kick out members schools who have not been sanctioned for any rule breaking. One of these schools has been a member in good standing for over 50 years. They wanted be be policeman, judge & jury with no due process at all, and thankfully, it still did NOT work, but the writing is on the wall and I for one, am glad my youngest son is graduating senior, as if this the way NCHSAA is headed, I want no part of it.

Now, maybe saner minds will prevail with the formation of the committee to look at this and maybe they will look at some of the systems from around the country that allow these kind of schools to still play by putting some multipliers in the classification rules, because, as I would again like to try and remind everybody, these are "games" that the kids play and compete in, it is for them, not for us.

@HWPixHend I wouldn't say the writing is on the wall. Did you see the comments of NCHSAA Executive Director Davis Whitfield? Personally, I think the charter schools issue is a MUCH bigger problem: small charter schools in urban districts can potentially draw from the whole county, and they are upsetting the alignment process by overcrowding the bottom of the 1A classification with schools that often don't play football. That is forcing some former 1A schools up into the bottom of 2A, as well. There are only 3 parochial schools in the NCHSAA, and yes they have a wide draw, but so do some public schools; I'm at R. J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem, and we have kids from 5 counties attending our arts magnet (out-of-county students have to pay tuition to the tune of $7000+ per year). Now, that hasn't helped our athletic program one bit, but I know there are other schools around the state in similar situations.

I still think the solution is obvious: in 4A, Cardinal Gibbons and Charlotte Catholic would be less dominant, and same for Bishop McGuinness in 2A. But still, does anyone remember the run T. C. Roberson had in the 3A classification before moving up to 4A? Should they have been voted out because they were dominating state championships across many sports? What about Broughton in the 80's and 90's (tennis, soccer, volleyball, swimming)? Mount Tabor in the 2000's? Talent has always accumulated at certain schools and certain times, and it always will.

Droppings from Peeps
1-Some states require that all private/parochial schools play up one.
2-Small 1A Charters are skewing the 1A ranks and sending the larger 1A(largest 667) into the 2A ranks. Our examples are Hendersonville and Polk with 680 and 758 respectively in 2A. The largest 2A is 996. The largest 1A is 667. The difference is 35 for Hendersonville and 91 for Polk.) We both have the equivalent of separate campuses for online course classes. These must be counted in the enrollment. Without them at least one of us might still be 1A.
3-NCSSM gets to play as 2A with an enrollment of 680 in grades 11 and 12. If they were a regular school they would have over 1000 students and be at least 3A. If I just use my juniors and seniors I have about 300-400 and would play 1A.
4-Jeff's idea of playing up is one solution.
5-I would propose a 5A playoff system. This would solve many of the problems in my opinion.
6-This would reduce the number of major sport teams making it to the playoffs with horrible records. It would also add more teams going to playoffs as desired by many coaches in the "minor sports" sports.
7-I do not care who we play as long as we have a level playing field. That includes enrollment, attendance lines, number of athletes in the school 9-12 not just 11-12.
J Alan Peoples

apeoples

Droppings from Peeps
3-NCSSM gets to play as 2A with an enrollment of 680 in grades 11 and 12. If they were a regular school they would have over 1000 students and be at least 3A. If I just use my juniors and seniors I have about 300-400 and would play 1A.
7-I do not care who we play as long as we have a level playing field. That includes enrollment, attendance lines, number of athletes in the school 9-12 not just 11-12.

Some decent ideas in your full list, unfortunately some of your credibility is lost with your comments about moving NCSSM to "at least 3A" (why not put them in 4A?) and wanting a "level playing field", while seeming to ignore many of the factors that are involved. You seem to know very little about the school (NCSSM), its students, how they are chosen, their relative abilities across all but the few sports they are good at (and only at 1A up to this point let alone 3A or 4A) and their work load before athletics even enter the picture.

Please do you some more research before you making such a suggestion next time as it hurts the acceptance of of some of your better ideas.

Harlan Hendrick

apeoples

You know, Coach Peoples, your last note in regards to the great “advantages” that NCSSM has over everybody since they only have to count their 11th/12th grade students (that’s all they HAVE) for classification purposes so they should be put in "at least 3A", has so ticked me off that I’m going to answer your reply to my response BEFORE you even make it.

First, obviously you DO seem to care who you "play" and much more so past the list of caveats you mention.....

Your profile says you are the head XC coach at Polk Country, one of the smaller 2A schools. NCSSM is scheduled to move up to 2A next year and they will be 3rd smallest school at 678, while Polk County will be the 22nd smallest school at 758.

But, let’s say I have a magic wand, and you can get your wish, you get the same “advantage” as NCSSM next year and you only have to count your 11th/12th grade students for classification purposes and you are now 1A (we’ll talk about the disadvantages that NCSSM has later), but don’t forget what that means, you don’t have any 9th/10th grade runners……

Let’s see, from NC MileSplit database what that would have meant for Polk County’s Men’s and Women’s 2011 cross-country teams…..

On the men’s side, you would not have had your top runner, 2 of your top 6 runners, 3 of your top 8 and 6 of your top 12.

On the women’s side, you would not have had your number 3 runner, 3 of your top 7 and NINE of your top 14.

And, not only would your not had these runners (to have that NCSSM “advantage”) for competitions, you would have not had them to train with your team and you would even know who they were so you could even go watch them run….

Are you still interested in this great deal?

Ok, how about some of the NCSSM disadvantages you somehow must approximate so you can have this great “advantage” that NCSSM has:

1) They only choose from students that are in the upper 1% or so of SAT scores, many who are not athletic or care a bit about athletics. This so they can concentrate on academics while giving up a lot of "normal things" so they can leave their "regular schools" and go across the state to NCSSM if they are selected through a highly competitive academic process. Then, and only then, if they find ANY spare time, they can also play HS sports.....

2) They, OBVIOUSLY, then are not being recruited for athletics in ANY shape or form.

3) They are from all around the state, some literally 5 or 6 hours away from home for the first time, home sick but also forced to go home every 4 or 5 weeks on extended 3 day weekends, some of which are the weekends of big cross country invitational meets.

4) They can’t start practice until after school starts in August.

5) They have no way to run together in the summer with the very important (training wise) summer between their junior and senior years very often spent on academic internships or endeavors that preclude any decent amount of training due to time and geographic limitations.

6) They have to spend AT LEAST 3 to 4 hours most every night on studies (usually starting at 11 PM after they have finished their housekeeping duties). They get much less sleep than the even the average top academic non-NCSSM athletes due to the heavy, heavy academic workload. This based on comparison to my two older boys who both top 5 students academically in their classes at a "regular school" (3A) while competing at a high level of athletics in addition.

7) Lots of the best senior athletes forgo athletics during their senior year so they can concentrate on their academics, college academic trips and academic recruiting.

You see, NCSSM is ANYTHING but a "regular school".

How is your "level playing field" now?

One more thing, we are talking about cross country because it is arguably the best sport NCSSM competed in this year due to luck of the draw and convergence and return (all of them) of a special senior class that was not only a group of great runners, but fed off each other in a special way to continually drop tons of time over the last 1 ½ years.

I can remember this group pleasing their coach when he said just a bit more than a year ago that for the first time he had 3 long distance runners under 11:00 for the 3200. He now is about to get 4 runners under 10:00 (currently 4 under 10:03 with PRs of 9:19.63, 9:20.47, 9:51.30 & 10:02.99) from the same group.

Somewhat an unusual group. And it is probably not very repeatable either.

Maybe we should give the coaching staff at NCSSM some credit.

Take a look at NCSSM’s other sports, pretty good in a few though it will be tougher in 2A, but somewhat weak in a fair number of others (basketball for instance), especially now that they are in 2A and of course, they do not even have a football team.

All in all, your suggestion of moving them to "to least 3A" for their so-called advantageous situation is unsupported by the facts.

Again, I'm glad my youngest is a graduating senior from NCSSM and will be heading off to Cornell in the fall, so I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore. Though it is sad for the good coaches at NCSSM and the runners that will come behind this group of seniors that they will have to probably suffer the consequences for some of this kind of thinking that is going around that is trying to attain a so-called "level playing field".....

Just let the kids run.

Harlan Hendrick

@apeoples The term "level playing field" both irritates and amuses me. There never has been one, and there never will be one. Differences of demographics (economic status, racial breakdown, even gender breakdown), weather/climate, facilities, etc. mean that some schools will ALWAYS have an advantage over others, sometimes in certain sports, sometimes in ALL sports. I think that people who focus on a few issues and cry "level playing field" are missing the bigger picture. Runs of talent can't be legislated out, and great coaching and athlete development can't be, either.

South View High School just swept their boys and girls track conference titles for the 11th straight year. Clearly they have an advantage over all the schools in their area, let's vote them out! (Actually, I think some schools in the Fayetteville area would seriously consider that if it were an option.) Quite obviously, their only true "advantage" is their coach, and that is also the case with Cardinal Gibbons and with Science & Math when it comes to their running programs (and it has also been true for Polk County over the years, I might add). We simply need to get these schools into the right classification, based on their competitiveness rather than their flat enrollment, and then if they win state titles, it's a credit to their dedication and coaching.

CoachGeorgeRJR

@HWPixHend I wouldn't say the writing is on the wall. Did you see the comments of NCHSAA Executive Director Davis Whitfield?

@CoachGeorgeRJR

Those comments did give me some hope for the future.

After talking to someone I highly respect, I have edited my two posts in regards to Coach People's comments about NCSSM. I have tried to take out the personal comments/attacks and most (but not all) of the sarcasm. I agreed with this individual that Coach Peoples is a coach to be respected even if we both extremely disagreed with him on this subject.

Coach Peoples is actually someone that I have generally agreed with on this forum and even here mentioned that I like some of his ideas and others on this subject (multipliers, but NOT 2x for NCSSM, 5A league, Charter School issues to be addressed, etc). But the fact that he is such a respected coach causes me to be even more disappointed with his lack of analysis and looking into the facts from all sides on this subject. I honestly expected a lot better from him and thus I do still stand behind my analysis and factual presentation 100% in disagreeing with his unsupported conclusions.

I do want to point out one more thing in regards to NCSSM and many other small 1A/2A schools who choose NOT to have football teams for whatever reasons (usually numbers) as opposed to small 1A/2A programs that do have football programs and even do well with them in those classifications (Polk?).

Doesn't this decision have a major affect on the other male fall sports at these schools (positive and negative) that we miss, especially on the positive side when they don't have a football program and we forget about that fact when we talk about about how strong the men's soccer and/or cross country is at that school?

Just something more to think about when trying to compare apples to oranges....