If you separate the privates from publics it will kill the private school atheltic programs. Cedar Creek, OCS, and Riverside came to LHSAA for competition. Those three would survive as fine schools, but their athletics would drop off is a huge way.
I predict that Charter Schools will eventually become a problem.
Personally, I don't see a problem at all. HELLO! this is high school sports, folks. I'm as big a fan of high school sports....for all the right reasons...as anyone. Isn't it clear I LOVE my high school alma mater? But, it's still HIGH SCHOOL sports.
Don't want this this thread to change its subject, but I will state that there are high school graduates from too many schools making total fools out of themselves trying to handle college. EDUCATION!
As for the purely sports' angle, I think HS athletics is all about teaching kids positive life lessons, helping them build self-esteem, having them focus on good things, instead of being on the street getting into trouble, to have them care enough about sports to motivate them to remain academically eligible "make the grades." And to create school spirit where non-athletes can get involved by being fans, etc...
It should be ALL GOOD, and nothing negative attached to it in anyway.
Ok, so what this all boils down to is that everyone should cheer on Winnfield this Friday and in the Championship game next Friday.
But I wouldn't think it would be too severe a penality for a Class A private to play in AA...not saying they should be forced to play up by more than one class.
Four classes for football with six for all other sports would reduce the geographic size of districts with just a few exceptions and would provide 6-8 teams in most districts. That definitely has not been the case since 5A was created in 1991.
The LHSAA is about making money. It has NEVER been about what is good for high school athletics. More classes = more playoffs and more championships = a big nice headquarters and plenty of money to wine and dine the bureaucrats.
I believe Arkansas uses a multiplier of 1.25 in determining the enrollment for classifying private schools. Arkansas goes from 2A-7A for football.
Looks like the Arkansas private school multiplier is 1.4. Arkansas has only 212 football schools (about 60 less than Louisiana), but it has one more football class than Louisiana does. The classes are currently broken down 16, 16, 32, 48, 48, and 52 for football. No reason why that couldn't be reduced to 5 classes easily by making 6A the current 7A plus 8 biggest in 6A now and combining the other 8 current 6A into 5A...24, 40, 48, 48, and 52
That's what I was looking for. Again, I know its high school sports and I'm not losing any sleep over it. I just have this overactive sense of right and wrong and I hate, repeat HATE to see the little guys get shafted. This what I see. Kids that pour their heart and soul into the schools where they grow up. Not transferring to a private school because that offers them the best opportunity to get to the next level but competing for a school that they grew up loving and a town they grew up in and all the people that came before them. They have a once in a life time team and a once in a lifetime for many shot at something everyone in that town has wanted most of their lives and in reality there is absolutely no chance they can compete. It just stinks to high heaven as far as I'm concerned. I can accept losing but not when the cards are stacked against me going in. That's also why I don't gamble at casinos.
Absolutely no chance? Tell that to the Hickory Huskers!
In this case though (at least partly) the "little guys" were the private schools. If you're not a football power that actively recruits for athletics, your little private school is going to have to play bigger teams with more coaches. I'm pretty sure there was a lawsuit over the Arkansas multiplier (maybe partly because in addition to cranking up the competition level, it also sent at least one private school on some pretty long road trips).
I don't remember what the outcome of the suit was, maybe a slightly lower multiplier than was originally proposed? I bet Don or Jay would know.
Edit: Here is a pretty lengthy article on the subject from Missouri that references the Arkansas Baptist case, which seems to have been denied.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...28543521/pg_2/