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Burden of proof will continue to be an issue especially when the language has never been updated to include social media. Have evidence, REPORT IT! FHSAA Improper Contact Allegation Form

I am sure some kids choose to play for the powers. However, it seems that today, many coaches and players recruit the players from other schools and never get punished for it. You have coaches liking players on social media and not a darn thing happens to them. CHEATERS. Lakeland can play with anybody when they get transfers but when they were limited after probation, they were just another average team. Need an open division with about 36 teams and that would force the powers to beat each other up. Pick on someone their own size.

First off, comparing high school athletics to college is an apple to an orange. Colleges are supposed to recruit as they offer scholarships for coming to play for them. Secondly, the purpose of school choice was started for academic purposes, so parents can find the best option for their children. I personally support the concept, but what we see happening with athletics wasn't what school choice was intended for. As I stated earlier, I have no problem with a transfer when there is indeed a legitimate move. But what I have observed is certain schools poaching players from neighboring schools through one tactic or another.

What is often missed in these discussions is the fact that, almost always, players/families CHOOSE to play for the powers. We see families pick up and move to a new area just so their kid can play for a particular program. Or, they willingly commute a further distance to play for a preferred program. This narrative of there being bad guys at a few programs going out and rounding up all the best players through bribes or coercion is silly. Players seek the best opportunities for themselves, just like they do when they pick a college to play for. No one expects college teams to end up with equal talent. No one sees Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State etc ending up with a disproportionate share of talent and thinks 'Gosh, they HAD to have cheated. How else would they get all those good players?" Those programs have a proven record of success, and players often seek THEM out. For some reason, when it comes to high school, people get up in arms if a handful of programs end up with the best players. They demand an equal share of talent for high schools. This despite the fact that they do NOT think this way when it comes to other areas like academics or the arts. No one begrudges the parents who seek residency in the zone of top academic schools. No one accuses the top academic schools of "cheating" when they end up with a disproportionate share of motivated and/or gifted students. The logical inconsistency is amusing and annoying.

You are correct. But here's the point that I think is being made. 'Back then' the teams in the metro areas were, in theory, constrained by district boundaries. A kid could only go to Central if they lived in the Central district (again, in theory). So, Central's talent pool was limited to the kids who lived in the Central district. Just like Pahokee's talent pool was limited to the kids who lived in Pahokee's district. Now, with school choice, and as a practical matter, Pahokee's talent pool (and the talent pool of all the other rural schools) is essentially still limited to the kids who live in that relatively-sparse geographic area. Contrast that with Central, who now has the ability to legally pull in any kid from Dade County. Yes, they are competing against other schools, like Northwestern, for that top talent, but recent history seems to suggest that only a small handful of teams are going to end up with the vast majority of the top talent. To oversimplify, if one rural high school football team has a thousand kids to pick from (including gamers, trombone players, theater buffs, etc.) and a metro high school football team has a hundred thousand kids to pick from (because district lines really don't matter any more), which team is more likely to end up with a group of thirty talented football players? Now, it wouldn't surprise me at all if a rural team, like Pahokee, could beat the bottom-feeder teams in the metro area, because all the talented kids from those metro teams ended up at the super-power de jure. But when it comes time for playoffs, the rural team likely won't stand a chance against the metro power. And, yes, there will be exceptions along the way, but for the most part, the numbers won't lie.

Pahokee is about as rural as it gets yet they were able to compete with anybody in the state for years in the first decade of the 2000's. People weren't sending their kids from the metro areas to attend that school.