gatorman-uf

It was becoming hard to remember all the hirings and openings when they were on so many different posts. I think I have all the hirings/openings correct now.
Hirings
American Heritage (Delray Beach) - Jonathan King Andrew Jackson (Jacksonville) - Bobby Ramsay Arnold (Panama City Beach) - Jason Griffin Auburndale - Antonio Thomas Baldwin - Don Velvet Blance Ely (Pompano Beach) - Terrance McFadden Braden River (Bradenton) - Eric Sanders Calvalry Christian (Clearwater) - Wes Safford Carol City (Miami) - George Stubbs Celebration - Jed Ebersole Chamberlain (Tampa) - James Wilder Jr. Chiefland - Adam Gore Citrus (Inverness) - John Capel Crystal River - Bill Vonada Cypress Creek (Orlando) - Ryan Mills DeSoto County - Cliff Lohrey Dr. Krop (Miami) - Vernon Wilder Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) - Willie Smith East River (Orlando) - Adam Chappell Eustis - Joe Burnett Fort Meade - Maurice Russell Freedom (Tampa) - Ron Perisee Glades Central (Belle Glade) - Omar Haugabook Godby (Tallahassee) - John Holston Golden Gate (Naples) - Nick Citro Graceville - Richard Koonce Hardee - Darren Bryan Hillard - Matt Yancy Innovation (Orlando) - Leroy Kinard Jackson (Miami) - Max Edwards Lake Howell (Winter Park) - Dazzie Morris Lake Placid - Jay Del Castillo Lake Region (Eagle Lake) - Jermaine King Lake Worth - Eric Lee Leesburg - Frank Scott Lemon Bay (Englewood) - Jason Mensing Leto (Tampa) - John Hurst Melbourne Central Catholic - Willie Tillman Northwestern (Miami) - Terry Bridgewater Oak Ridge (Orlando) - Anthony Smith Jr Pensacola - Wade Mckinney Pine Ridge (Deltona) - Greg Miller Plantation - Darell Strong Poinciana (Kissimmee) -Taron Mallard Ridgeview (Orange Park) - Marlin Smith Sandalwood (Jacksonville) - Brad Kessel Santa Fe Catholic (Lakeland) - Gabe Walker Sarasota - Anthony Campbell Southeast (Bradenton) - Curt Bradley Stanton Prep (Jacksonville) - Ryan Carter Tampa Catholic - Mike Gregory Taylor County - Jesse Braswell Vierra (Melbourne) - Tony Gulla Wesley Chapel - Bruce Patterson Wildwood - Lorenzo Fields Openings
Belen Jesuit (Miami) Bozeman (Panama City) Celebration (Part 2) -  Everglades Prep (Homestead) FAMU DRS (Tallahassee) Fernandina Beach Florida Christian (Miami) Gateway (Fort Myers) - Marlin Roberts? Maybe, I read the ad wrong and t was for middle school or assistants? Gulf Breeze Gulf Coast (Naples) Mainland (Daytona Beach) Miami Beach Newsome (Lithia) North Florida Christian (Tallahassee) North Marion Santa Fe (Alachua) South Miami University (Orlando) Wekiva (Apopka) Windermere Prep
 

And if that same newsletter asked the Osceola County Sheriff Department, what do you think the response would be?
If you asked, members of the Chamber of Commerce? (Essentially a union of businesses)
If you asked a group of nurses?
If you asked a group of lawyers?
Also a union cares about the working conditions of their members, but the working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of students as well.

People are attracted to careers because of the values that come with those careers.
Political Parties attract people based on their values.
So it shouldn't be surprising that certain professions attract certain people in certain careers. You act as if the principal's first question when we have a 5,000+ teachers shortage in this state is "who do you vote for? And are you a member of the union?"

You missed the point of my union post. Teacher unions in strong union states have power. Florida unions have zero. They cant strike and the school board can implement a contract without the unions approval. Florida unions are not preventing any raise in Florida. The state has attacked a straw man here. 

As a general rule, I am not a big supporter of unions in the public sector in particular.  They certainly had a place in the private sector during the industrialization of our nation, but today not so much.  I have no first-hand experience with unions representing our local law enforcement or firefighters but my interaction with the teachers union over several years in that profession is the basis of my opinion.  

Teacher unions are just like any large organization. They have positives and negatives. The negatives is obvious, they protect horrible workers and resist any kind of real change. However, strong union teacher union states get paid much more than Florida and usually have less students per teacher. Any talk of Florida teacher unions doing anything is a joke. They have zero power. Roughly 60% of teachers are even in the unions in Florida  and the number is dropping because they really cant protect workers when everyone is on a yearly contract. The only teachers who have a continuing contract are teachers who have been teaching in same district since 2008 and were already on continuing contract when 2010 law passed. The only thing teacher unions do now is negotiate contract and the school boards can refuse to really pass a contract and implement their own contract after the impasse and mediation fails.  Throw in the new state laws decertifying teachers unions when they fall below 50% membership and the removal of taking dues out of checks and the days of any teacher unions are numbered. Of course the new state union laws don't apply to police and firemen because they are political friends of the hacks in Tally and no wonder teachers cant run away from state fast enough once they have experience. 

Unions want their members compensated. Districts are slow to compensate teachers and coaches, period. Because ultimately coaches/sponsors are extracurriculars, and not the primary focus of the district despite what some on this board would have you believe. Make it easy, ask your local principal how many teaching openings they have this year in their faculty, ask how much turnover will exist in their ranks this summer, and when they replace them, how many will be highly qualified teachers. Ask the AD how many of their coaches are not highly qualified. The problem from the district and unions' perspective is that there isn't a coaching shortage, somebody always wants to be a coach, but few want to be a math teacher or special education and have their career tied to a test that they have no control over. So just like in the business world, you should pay more to get a person to do the job if nobody is willing to do it.

Now if you want to blame the unions, blame them and the districts for not being flexible in salaries for areas of critical needs/shortages. Despite their being a shortage, it isn't a universal shortage. Florida isn't struggling for social studies teachers, PE teachers, or elementary teachers, but secondary math, science, english, special ed (all levels), and world languages. Unions/districts have been reluctant to give extra pay to those subjects to entice people to enter the field, but notice, PE teacher isn't on that list.
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To give an idea of what will happen, let's use Madison County (since they were mentioned in an above post).
Madison County has 30 head coaches and JV/assistant coaches (including cheerleading). The total amount of salaries that they put to those positions is %66,706. Madison County had a budget of $24 million, so .27% of their total budget. If the proposed bill passes, Madison County would spend 322,500, which represents 1.34% of their budget, about 4.8 times more than current. Now, if the state legislature would simple just add the $260,000 onto the budget, the unions wouldn't care other than making sure that all assistant/jv/and non mentioned coaches from the PB Post article are included. But that isn't what will happen, instead it will be a specific line in the budget from the state legislature, similar to technology or textbooks, money will be required to be spent on the salaries and the state will offer no additional funding (or they will only do it for 2 or 3 years, and when there are new priorities, they will still require it but provide no funding for it). Now, if they offer no additional funding, what happens is that money comes from somewhere in the budget. Considering that that this be part of "teacher salaries", that means it will be pulled from general instructional salaries portion of the budget, which means less money for teachers. So yes, teachers will be upset when the state legislature yet again promises something and then underdelivers (see making the starting salary $47,500).

Hey, why can't we just have the FHSAA and MaxPreps come up with a secret formula to rate all the teachers and then pay them based on that? 

This bill has zero chance of passing. No way Florida will ever pay  teachers and coaches well. State does not give a crap about education so good teachers and coaches leave the state in droves. Dont get me started on the crazy laws about movies, books and what is taught in schools.  The last big raise was all for new teachers and gave the veteran teachers squat. 

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/sports/high-school/2024/03/09/possible-bill-would-mean-big-raise-for-florida-high-school-coaches/72896876007/]
 
underpaid teachers, underpaid coaches, why in the world would this pass?  
anyone want to make some extra money, start a high school coaches moving company.  get a couple uhual trucks and make a ton of money driving to georgia weekly.
will be interesting to see if this thing were to pass, 

I would also say by the state leadership personally assigning a voting majority to the FHSAA board of directors it's clear going forward everything the FHSAA does will be in the best interests of the people in Tallahassee not the athletes attending schools or the athletic directors or coaches who put in hours upon hours of their lives to help those kids be successful
In general I feel politicians should stay out of high school athletics especially when they don't actually know what the current climate of athletics in this state is and the meeting when they reversed metro suburban showed how out of touch they were 

I don't hate this as a concept if you just look at it as just "more football" for kids/coaches/fans.
 
I personally wouldn't hate having a "B" bracket so long as the winner of said bracket is not considered a state champion...because they're not. But more football isn't a bad thing, it is just all about perspective. You cannot call these teams state champions. 
 
I am concerned this is just a cash grab from the FHSAA though. If they can "prove" that it works in the rural divisions, then they can have more football games at the higher levels of classification and rake in the money....

I have said a million times that promotion/relegation system is the way to go, but I also understand that many communities/coaches don't understand the benefits of a system like that for the vast majority of programs. I feel like this is dipping their toe in the water of it to prove it is viable. 

One of my contentions is that pro/rel allows teams to be competitive against likewise teams (based on previous years). The "B" division essentially is that (except for that year). Now, would I call this specific group "state" champions, probably not, but that is the least of my concerns. If they are doing seeding, of course there is greater # of mismatches. That is why you are doing seeding, so that the #2 doesn't play the #1 seed in the first round. I don't think the goal is to get 64 teams per class into the playoffs, I think the goal is to show that we can make a competitive system based on MaxPreps rankings.

Now, I do like the idea of taking the rural class as a whole and making it just the North and South and removing regions as a whole. That is something @DisabledAccount aka ColumbiaFan often promoted.

It was becoming hard to remember all the hirings and openings when they were on so many different posts. I think I have all the hirings/openings correct now.
Hirings
American Heritage (Delray Beach) - Jonathan King Andrew Jackson (Jacksonville) - Bobby Ramsay Arnold (Panama City Beach) - Jason Griffin Auburndale - Antonio Thomas Baldwin - Don Velvet Blance Ely (Pompano Beach) - Terrance McFadden Braden River (Bradenton) - Eric Sanders Calvalry Christian (Clearwater) - Wes Safford Carol City (Miami) - George Stubbs Celebration - Jed Ebersole Chamberlain (Tampa) - James Wilder Jr. Chiefland - Adam Gore Citrus (Inverness) - John Capel Crystal River - Bill Vonada Cypress Creek (Orlando) - Ryan Mills DeSoto County - Cliff Lohrey Dr. Krop (Miami) - Vernon Wilder Dwyer (Palm Beach Gardens) - Willie Smith East River (Orlando) - Adam Chappell Eustis - Joe Burnett Fort Meade - Maurice Russell Freedom (Tampa) - Ron Perisee Glades Central (Belle Glade) - Omar Haugabook Godby (Tallahassee) - John Holston Golden Gate (Naples) - Nick Citro Graceville - Richard Koonce Hardee - Darren Bryan Hillard - Matt Yancy Innovation (Orlando) - Leroy Kinard Jackson (Miami) - Max Edwards Lake Howell (Winter Park) - Dazzie Morris Lake Placid - Jay Del Castillo Lake Region (Eagle Lake) - Jermaine King Lake Worth - Eric Lee Leesburg - Frank Scott Lemon Bay (Englewood) - Jason Mensing Leto (Tampa) - John Hurst Melbourne Central Catholic - Willie Tillman Northwestern (Miami) - Terry Bridgewater Oak Ridge (Orlando) - Anthony Smith Jr Pensacola - Wade Mckinney Pine Ridge (Deltona) - Greg Miller Plantation - Darell Strong Poinciana (Kissimmee) -Taron Mallard Ridgeview (Orange Park) - Marlin Smith Sandalwood (Jacksonville) - Brad Kessel Santa Fe Catholic (Lakeland) - Gabe Walker Sarasota - Anthony Campbell Southeast (Bradenton) - Curt Bradley Stanton Prep (Jacksonville) - Ryan Carter Tampa Catholic - Mike Gregory Taylor County - Jesse Braswell Vierra (Melbourne) - Tony Gulla Wesley Chapel - Bruce Patterson Wildwood - Lorenzo Fields Openings
Belen Jesuit (Miami) Bozeman (Panama City) Celebration (Part 2) -  Everglades Prep (Homestead) FAMU DRS (Tallahassee) Fernandina Beach Florida Christian (Miami) Gateway (Fort Myers) - Marlin Roberts? Maybe, I read the ad wrong and t was for middle school or assistants? Gulf Breeze Gulf Coast (Naples) Mainland (Daytona Beach) Miami Beach Newsome (Lithia) North Florida Christian (Tallahassee) North Marion Santa Fe (Alachua) South Miami University (Orlando) Wekiva (Apopka) Windermere Prep
 

I asked this earlier, but if public schools don't have to be members of the FHSAA or even if they do and decide to go independent, what stops schools from creating their own "state championship" similar to what SIAA has been doing. I know the SIAA has been mostly "small" schools and for the most part schools that can't really compete for state championships and this gives them something to compete for.

I truly believe this is a reaction to the state's meddling in the FHSAA and basically kowtowing to private schools and other favored interests. But please don't think for a second, that small schools aren't recruiting or trying to find ways around the rules. Look to Williston football and basketball, look to Bradford, look to Madison County. 

I have said for years, create a promotion/relegation system that moves good teams up and bad teams down and allows mediocre teams to compete among themselves. Allow the teams that are bent on winning at all costs, compete against each other. It hurts to lose a player you built for 3 years to another school. It hurts twice as hard to have that player line across from you for a district or regional game on the line. 

I asked this earlier, but if public schools don't have to be members of the FHSAA or even if they do and decide to go independent, what stops schools from creating their own "state championship" similar to what SIAA has been doing. I know the SIAA has been mostly "small" schools and for the most part schools that can't really compete for state championships and this gives them something to compete for.

I truly believe this is a reaction to the state's meddling in the FHSAA and basically kowtowing to private schools and other favored interests. But please don't think for a second, that small schools aren't recruiting or trying to find ways around the rules. Look to Williston football and basketball, look to Bradford, look to Madison County. 

I have said for years, create a promotion/relegation system that moves good teams up and bad teams down and allows mediocre teams to compete among themselves. Allow the teams that are bent on winning at all costs, compete against each other. It hurts to lose a player you built for 3 years to another school. It hurts twice as hard to have that player line across from you for a district or regional game on the line. 

TEDDY BRIDGEWATER  -  new HC at Miami Northwestern 
 
Teddy Bridgewater lands head coaching job at his alma mater (msn.com)

Twitter Confirmation

Former head coach Mike Gregory reportedly has been hired as the "new" head coach at Tampa Catholic. 

Thanks Gatorman. Good stuff with the links attached

Somewhat real question for a second, but I don't feel like researching it. 
1) I am almost positive the state legislature allows schools to be in multiple associations. 
2) I thought there used to be a requirement that all public schools had to be members of the FHSAA.
3) I don't think number #2 is true anymore, but even if it was, but as long as #1 is still true why not create a parallel association, where you are independent in the FHSAA (to satisfy any state requirements), and then create the association you want with the rules you want. 

Southeast - Curt Bradley
Leading to a vacancy at Braden River
 

Somewhat real question for a second, but I don't feel like researching it. 
1) I am almost positive the state legislature allows schools to be in multiple associations. 
2) I thought there used to be a requirement that all public schools had to be members of the FHSAA.
3) I don't think number #2 is true anymore, but even if it was, but as long as #1 is still true why not create a parallel association, where you are independent in the FHSAA (to satisfy any state requirements), and then create the association you want with the rules you want. 

On a positive note (at least to me), they didn't make the 1A to 4A classes half the size. So yay! But if they got rid of 7A and just made each class, eleven teams bigger, it would make it a little better.

On a positive note (at least to me), they didn't make the 1A to 4A classes half the size. So yay! But if they got rid of 7A and just made each class, eleven teams bigger, it would make it a little better.

No, enrollment-based classification was used as recently as 2021, before the last two years of Metro-Suburban.  So we have complaints about Metro-Suburban, complaints about enrollment-based, complaints about mandatory district play.  And anyone thinks there's a chance of coming up with a system that makes 500 schools happy?  But I'll agree with your last paragraph.