Hwy17
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Posts posted by Hwy17
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36 minutes ago, PinellasFB said:
I watched highlights from several games around the country. Valdosta (GA) @Massillon (OH), Bishop Gorman (NV) @Lone Peak (UT) and a few other games. I just can't believe the stadiums, bands and atmospheres at these other states. Texas HS football is absolutely insane. The Massillon game had a college like stadium and atmosphere complete with fireworks. Are there any schools in FL that match this kind of atmosphere where the community rallies around the team? Metro teams tend to be terrible atmospheres just because there are too many teams within a short distance of each other so there is no sense of community. Pinellas County is really dead. My son's team played at North East HS two years ago and I counted 7 band members and not even enough people in the home stands to add up to the amount of parents of the players on the field, and Northeast had a 9-1 team that year.
So two questions. One, why is there seemingly a lack of school spirit in Florida and two, where are there great atmospheres in this state? I assume it can only be a rural area.
There use to be before it was ruined by the transfer rules
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Is Lake Wales going to be down this year? Did the lose a lot of players off last year's team?
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Anybody what happened? I read on Facebook that the game was called at halftime due to a fight.
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15 hours ago, Nulli Secundus said:
Maybe Hardee has a younger demographic than DeSoto.
I suppose.
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36 minutes ago, Perspective said:
One thing to keep in mind is that, when it comes to building new schools, counties have to plan for future growth based on population trends. The process of identifying a projected need, finding a good site, acquiring the land and building the facilities takes time - sometimes years. If you wait until the need is actually there, it's too late and you end up with an overcrowded school doing double-sessions. Sometimes the county school boards gets it right and sometimes they don't. When they anticipate growth that does not happen, you end up with two relatively under-populated schools.
One other thing to point out: if you merge schools, there's a chance that a good number of people are going to lose their jobs - something that has a greater impact on a small community than a large one. All of a sudden, your neighbor is no longer a high school principal and the your kid's best friend's dad is no longer head football coach because two schools merged into one.
Some small counties, like Gadsden or Glades for example can't grow much because the government owns large portions of land that is off limits for development.
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1 hour ago, nolebull813 said:
Just pulled up the square miles of each county. These are the square miles of land for each of these counties who only have 1 high school
Gadsden 516 sq miles (43,000 Pop.)
Baker 585 sq miles (27,000 Pop)
Wakulla 606 sq miles (31,000 Pop.)
Desoto 637 sq miles (34,000 Pop.)
Hardee 637 sq miles (37,000 Pop.)
Okeechobee 768 sq miles (39k Pop.)
Now look at these counties with 2 high schools and see if this makes any sense?
Gilchrist 349 square miles (16,000 pop.)
Gulf 582 square miles (15,000 Pop.)
Washington 582 sq miles (24,000 Pop)
Where did you get Hardee County having a population of 37000? The 2020 census says we lost population from 2010 and are around 25000. I disagree with the accuracy of the census and think the actual population is probably around 30000. I find it interesting that we've always have a slightly smaller population than Desoto but we seem to always have more kids enrolled in our schools.
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How does that NIL work? We getting a lot of money from Mosaic. Need to buy us some players.
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3 hours ago, DarterBlue2 said:
I guess it's not my community, then!
Chump change in Naples
https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/naples-real-estate-market/
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5 hours ago, Perspective said:
Wait, I thought recruiting was illegal?
Depends on who is doing it
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28 minutes ago, VeniceIndianFan said:
Agreed. The rich will always get richer. The kids on the playing field are infinitely more important than how many kids are in your school. If you’re going to get 8+ high-end transfers a year you should be able to compete with virtually anyone in your classification. This is why I think that the metro/suburban split wasn’t necessarily a mistake, but adding a ninth classification to the system certainly was.
If limits are not going to be placed on transfers, or a rule isn't going to be made to require them sit out a year, then I think the only other fair option would be an adjustment to classification.
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7 minutes ago, VeniceIndianFan said:
We need fewer classes. Too much power became consolidated into too few teams when the FHSAA decided to expand to 9 classifications. This is why you can practically write in the state championships now. These teams will mostly have cakewalk regions to get there. If a team gets transfers and is able to compete with Cocoa in 2S then so be it. Cocoa is going to steamroll until proven otherwise.
I've been saying this for years, why do a population report for classification when multiple transfers aren't factored in? I said it back when Cocoa was 4A that they really should have been in 6a or 7a
- VeniceIndianFan and KeemD321
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On 7/14/2023 at 7:16 PM, VeniceIndianFan said:
Although facetious, your analysis is undoubtedly correct. The FHSAA is corrupt from top to bottom, and they want no part of trying to solve the competitive imbalance. They don't care about teams having to travel 2 hours for district games, 50+ point playoff blowouts, or kids potentially getting injured due to playing teams that are vastly physically superior. None of it. All they care about is padding their own pockets. More playoff and state championship games = more money and that's all they care about.
It wouldn't surprise me if the FHSAA found a way to get a 10th classification out of all of this nonsense.
Let some other public school in 2S recruit up a team and that school ends up beating Cocoa and you'll see demands for an investigation quick.
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1 hour ago, Dr. D said:
Yes, Florida's geography offers some unique challenges. Welcome to life in the Panhandle - do you know how far it is from Niceville to Tallahassee for a district game? In some cases, it would be as simple as combing adjacent districts, particularly in metro areas. Often times, teams are already playing teams in adjacent districts in non-district games. In other cases, the solution may be a little more complex. But you're basically talking about adding one or two 1-to-3 hour round trips every year. I know, traffic can be bad on a Friday night in Tampa (or Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami). Maybe start the games at 6:30 or 7:00 like they do in some parts of the state. And I think you can work around one Thursday night game per year. Ironic that on another thread we see that Lakewood has FIVE cross-state games on their schedule. Is that because no one locally will play them, or do they just want the competitive challenge? In some cases, larger districts would cut down on travel; in other cases, it would increase some. It is a good topic for debate, but in reality, change seems unlikely. A more relevant question is whether the Metro-Suburban divide survives the next reclassification cycle in 2024 and/or whether a 5th Metro class will be added.
And yet traveling a long distance is a reality for some regardless if those games are district games or non district. Likewise a former athletic director told me we had a problem years ago because we were in a 4 team district while some of the neighboring schools were in a 5 team district. That meant they had a district game and we had to either find a long distance game to fill that week or play a 9 game schedule.
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3 hours ago, PinellasFB said:
It's easy to point out three team districts as a problem without offering a solution that addresses the actual reason why there are three team districts and that is travel distance/time. How can you consolidate to 4+ team districts without creating excessive travel times? I know we have debated this before and some seem okay with getting home after midnight on a school night (Thurs night games) but anyone who cares about academics should not like this. To me, the only way you can create reasonably sized districts without impacting budgets and travel time is to reduce classifications. This is a different discussion all on its own because you now will also have to figure out what to do with private schools that are hugely advantaged over public schools. Anyway, interesting off season discussion at least.
Was done once before and it worked. In fact, was probably the best format fhsaa ever used: 1999-2000 district cycle. Six classes, 3 districts per region; most districts had 6-8 teams. Travel wasn't really an issue. District Champs and runner-ups automatically got in with 2 wildcard spots. Obviously it would need some tweaks since we now have 9 (or 10) classes. Then again the smaller classes don't need districts as fhsaa has gone that route before and it seemed to work.
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2 hours ago, Dr. D said:
I fail to see the equity in earning a district title in a 3-team district, versus a 5- or 6-team district. As an example, take 4S-District 3 -- Bartram Trail, Buchholz, Creekside, Fleming Island, and Oakleaf, and 4S-District 16 -- Gulf Coast, Immokalee, and Palmetto Ridge. The first five are traditionally and recently significantly stronger than the latter three, yet one of those three teams can potentially be a district champion by going 4-6, and winning one district game and the power ranking tiebreaker? All districts should be 7-8 teams with playoff slots decided head-to-head on the field, but if you have bought into the fallacy of power rankings, then so be it. Plus, large districts will never happen as teams would not be able to schedule 8 home games or cherry-pick their opponents (good or bad).
3 Districts per region instead of 4
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What I see happens is when one player transfers others follow to the same program.
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On 6/26/2023 at 6:59 PM, Manatee Magic said:
So let's say a player on junior varsity at a powerhouse school wants to play on Fridays but gets ousted by out-of-town transfers and can't make the varsity squad. Sounds fair, right? So do you ask your parent(s) / legal guardian to move and transfer you to a worse school just so you at least get chance to play somewhere before you graduate?
Sit the bench at Manatee or start at Bayshore? Tough decision
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On 6/23/2023 at 10:21 PM, Manatee Magic said:
At the time I was in school, I always had this ideology that the players were all local from around town. Some years you might get a few stud players, other years you’ll be down and re-building. It was more of a local game, my side of town versus yours type deal.
The way it should be
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7 hours ago, Ray Icaza said:
HEAR EVERDAY?? Where, in your imagination. Almost all newspaper media in FL are owned by McClatchy, Chicago-Tribune, Poynter Media and Gannett which feed us as you refer to it " Left-Winged BS". Local TV networks are more of the same. So please, spare us the hysteria.
What I find most fascinating from the party that says it espouses small government, is they pass legislation that increases the size and cost of government, takes away local control, and ignors the constitution both the Federal one and the State one. In fact, they're every bit as "progressive " as the other party. Corrupt too.
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My own take on the education system: too much centralized power in Tallahassee and Washington. There is no local say or control anymore. Your local school board has very little authority at at all. Too much emphasis on standardized tests and over emphasis on STEM at the expense of language arts and humanities.
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I seriously doubt this law will get challenged. In my opinion the state legislature doesn't have authority over FHSAA. It didn't have authority in 1997, yet it got away with it. Neither did the state legislature have authority in 2012 nor now. The FHSAA is a voluntary organization that wasn't created by the state government. So the state government shouldn't have any authority to decide how it is ran. Secondly the state government has no say over private schools, who make up a fair amount of the FHSAA membership. Third, while the state government does have authority over public schools, no where is there a legal requirement that says a public school must be a FHSAA member. That's an assumption, but I cannot find where that is specified. What I can find however is the latitude given to local government (county school districts included) to voluntarily enter into agreements with others. That said, I seriously doubt anyone will challenge this law in court. Nor do I seriously see a mass exodus from the FHSAA. Instead it will be lay down and take it. However, I see nothing that says if a group of schools, public or private wanted to form a new league, conference or join another (like SSAC), that anything could stop them.
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17 hours ago, PinellasFB said:
I think I have a minority opinion here, but I actually like the watered down classifications. It reduces the chance of multiple high end teams put into the same district which is awful for normal teams that don't recruit transfers. Something really needs to be done about transfers BTW. I know a kid who transferred to a local football power for his senior year this year and then transferred back to the school he left after the season concluded. Total bullshit.
Agreed. The abuse of the transfer policy is the issue. Not more classes.
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On 5/4/2023 at 6:03 PM, Dr. D said:
The recently released minutes from the February Board of Directors meeting included this interesting item:
TASK FORCE COMMITTEE
Mr. Kenna moved, Mrs. Patricca seconded, for the Executive Director to form a Task Force Committee to review Classification and the Metro/Suburban process. Motion carried 15-0.
Concerns regarding the Metro/Suburban Classifications were noted by the Board for the Task Force Committee to consider:
- Large enrollment gap.
- Some districts have as few as 2 schools.
- Suburban has 4 classes plus Rural, while Metro has 4 Classes in football - possibly add a fifth class to Metro.
- Consider schools on border lines.
- Some schools have difficulty finding 10 games.
- Why is Football the only sport that uses Metro/Suburban classifications?
Seems like they could have reasonably foreseen these issues when this system was enacted, but whatever. Or maybe they have been reading the many posts on this board in the last year which have pointed out these very observations. But wonderful news, we now have a "Task Force Committee" to look into this mess. Hang in there, Metros - relief may be on the way.
A fifth class for metro? So now there would be a total of 10 classifications. Oh boy!
- Dr. D and DarterBlue2
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Watching some of the national games from this weekend was a stark comparison to FL HS football atmosphere
in The Huddle
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I know some. Here in the Heartland area fans from neighboring communities will support another school when they make the playoffs or have a big game.