Proseteye

I didn't go to any games last season due to all of the Covid stuff screwing everything up. May get out to see this game as OTC will be up in Gainesville at a Jamboree and I don't travel out of town anymore especially at night. I have never seen Columbia play live. Being an old guy I am not a big fan of Booster Stadium and the type of crowds that go there. I'm used to Celtic Stadium with a more considerate crowd of folks. But, may just go out for this one and sit on the Columbia side.

Hey Columbia Fan I know it's only an enhanced scrimmage but how do you see this going? Vanguard lost to Buchholz in the Spring Game 21-12. I believe that game was played without Vanguard's new Sr QB Ronnie Joe Gilchrist who came from the Villages. Did well last season against Bolles and against us at OTC. Any informative update on the Tigers pros and cons?

Exactly what I have been saying all along. Everybody knows it's going on but most must be OK with it. Really sad.

I think that this NIL nonsense for high school students is beyond lunacy kind of like the 300+ pound sophomore who is on the OL for many of these HS teams. Very sad what HS football has become.

Not really. How are you going to stop the privates from continuing to recruit from the Public Schools which makes many of the public schools non competitive now. Just because they are in their own separate Division doesn't mean they will not recruit from anywhere. Also, many students, that happen to be in sports, transfer to private schools for primarily academic reasons and sometimes for a different culture. Nothing can mitigate that and nothing should.

Even during the times when the FHAA limited transfers to specific circumstances only I don't believe that those rules were enforced by either the FHAA or the school administrations themselves. Evan back then the students would simply use a relative, a friend, or even invent a guardian in the district where the school, for which they wanted to play, was located. School administrations were very lax on checking the validity of the transfer, or did not want to get into the legal aspects of checking the validity, or looked the other way as the transfers enhanced their football team. The Coaches, parents, and players themselves were certainly not policing transfers for illegitimacy. I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is or even if there is a solution. If the Coaches, Parents, and Players don't care if students transfer at will, some players suffer because of it, and the team that they are cheering on every Friday is a team filled with mercenaries, then who am I to correct the situation. IMO it is truly very sad what has become of the high school culture that I used to be part of when I was growing up.

Unfortunately, and sadly, you are probably right.

They must have missed the hundreds of other ships heading in the same southern direction. Or, maybe they have already sunk.

The positives are that maybe some of those players, parents, and coaches will read this forum and get some perspective on how their actions affect others and high school football in general. Although, I don't really expect much of it to sink in with people that already have their self interest tunnel vision path forward already mapped out.

I Second the Motion.

I'm sure that this is exactly what the lawmakers planned when they implemented this legislation to allow transfers. Previously the lawmakers had been trying to get a voucher program that would allow any student to attend any school in Florida Public, Charter, Private, or Parochial and use the voucher as payment or partial payment. Not able to accomplish that they opted to allow transfers to any school in Florida so that students could get out of badly performing schools academically to better performing schools. I'm quite sure they never intended for it to expressly include transfers from schools with badly performing football teams to schools with good performing football teams.

Are they upset with the program or are they just opportunists that will transfer to any school as long as they are the center of attention? Self gratification these days trumps everything else. I'm really surprised, or maybe not surprised at all, that parents are knowingly approving of this behavior. When I was in high school during the Napoleon campaign, the only transferring there was if and when the family moved to a new city or state, which was usually rare. The teams in those days had such comradery and esprit de corps. When a team was good it was good because of local coaching and hard work by the players. Not because of groups of mercenaries that acquired the school's gridiron in the dead of night. I know that there are fans, even on this forum, and supporters of schools that accept an unprecedented amount of transferring and even recruiting to make their football team winners. You cheer when your team runs the gamut every Friday night and when they go undefeated and deep into the playoffs or even to the championship. Stop for a minute to contemplate what would your team be like if they did not accept predatory players. What would they be like if the team consisted of players local only to the school district? Then decide whether your current team, with its group of transfers, truly deserves the praise it gets from mowing down every opponent on the way to the finals. This analysis does not pertain to all schools that happen to be exceptional in football. Only the schools that find it expedient to load up their teams with the best players they can find in order to win most if not all of the time. High school football is not College or NFL football where this stuff goes on routinely and has a purpose to it. 14-17 year old's are not college or NFL landscapes. Their main purpose is to educate and formulate young minds in academics and physical attributes and not to teach how to manipulate the system primarily for self gain only.

And, IMO, why unrestricted transfers should not be the flavor of the day. Hallandale is only one example of this misguided policy, How many other schools in Florida have their rosters wiped out due to transfers? Remember, many of these schools have only one or possibly two exceptional players on the team. Take away that and a fairly good team becomes an also ran. If this is going on with the sport of football I'm quite sure it's going on with other sports. The effect is that out of hundreds of high schools in Florida only a very few become nearly unbeatable except by another unbeatable team. I don't believe that this was the original intent of institutions that help to mold young minds in their formative years.

Stacy Gage, only a Sophomore. Not quite as fast as Kaytron Allen but he has the moves.

A J Duffy, a 4-star QB out of a California HS, has enrolled at IMG for his Senior year. He has 35 offers and committed to FSU. https://www.hudl.com/profile/11674647/AJ-Duffy https://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/aj-duffy/6ffmpmS8EeuAzqREozo6lw/football/stats.htm https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2022/a-j-duffy-239024

Anyway. Allen is now on the roster for 2021. Guess it took him some time to make up his mind. One of the top RBs in the country who has many offers including Florida. . https://www.hudl.com/profile/11029525/Kaytron-Allen https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/2022/kaytron-allen-234021#school-interests

IMO every town, city, state, and country has their good places and their not so good places. Columbia Fan used to be, and maybe still is, an incredibly dedicated fan of the football team the Tigers. A few months ago something must have happened, and possibly over a period of time, to make him upset with the team and possibly those people involved with the team. He obviously knows football and is highly dedicated to the sport. Makes me think that he does a lot a research as he can produce facts and figures that I can only guess at. This being said, maybe Columbia Fan can share with us some of his frustrations in the environment with the team today and how things might have changed for the worse. A high school team cannot afford to lose a fan who is so loyal that he lived and breathed their every game.

I'm going on 81. When I went to school for the most part everybody was well educated equally. The schools were disciplined and the parents backed the schools 100%. The teachers were qualified and dedicated. They usually stayed at one school their entire career. If any student failed a subject they were mocked by the other students until they came up to par. It was an embarrassment to get a failing mark in any subject. These days, not only are the schools not teaching effectively there is absolutely no discipline and the parents, if you can find them, could care less. I know first hand that most minority students are not being educated in the public school systems. I'm sorry to say this but they are not being taught any of the basic subjects so that they can effectively matriculate in society. The reasoning behind doing poorly in high school and college, if they are lucky enough to get in, is that they are not being forced to learn in elementary schools. Without strong elementary learning there is little chance of success in high school and further on. I feel so damn bad and am angry as can be that the school system is failing many students to include a great deal of minority students. This is probably why I am so adamant that students concentrate on academics instead of primarily football. Academics is the only real key to success. The more academics the better the success. And, I am including skilled trades as academics.

Thank you, Ray, for the heads up. I need to adjust some figures that you provided in order to reach a totally realist figure. Let's focus on football. There are 1,093,234 high school football players in the United States, and 6.5% of those high school players (or 71,060) will play in college. The drop off from college to the pros is even more dramatic: only 1.2% college-level players will get drafted to the NFL. So, the actual percentage of high school players that make it to the NFL is 1.2% of 71,060 players or 853. That percentage is .007% of all high school football players that make it to the NFL. When you figure there are only on average 279 players drafted into the NFL each season the chances of a high school player making the NFL is a lot lower than chances of being hit by lighting once in your lifetime. In other words your chances are somewhere between zero and not at all. A high school student, if applying themselves and doing well in high school academically, can go on to attain a college degree in any one of a million different areas of specialization. Upon graduation one is basically set for life simply by applying your knowledge and being dedicated. Football as a profession is basically an unattainable goal for all those but the very very few.

Bringing facts to a conversation is not politics, my friend. Most high school football players will never even attend a college, either one that they play football at or a college they achieve academically at. The few that do attend colleges, primarily to play football, will never make it to the NFL. The very few that do make it to the NFL may play very little or not at all. There is extreme competition for positions and also injuries to consider. Only a small fraction of the college players that make it to the NFL ever have successful careers. The average length of an NFL career is 3.3 years. Add up all of the high school football players in the state of Florida. How many play football at the college level and especially at the D1 level. Then how many of those college players ever see an NFL stadium except from the bleacher seats. As for minorites that rely exclusively on football in high school as their path forward in life are deluding themselves. Without strong academics there will be no solid path forward. I think life itself has taught this.

Just once I would like to see a couple of these kids say that they are transferring to another school due to the other school having a better academic rating with the fans praising them for declaring it. Something that was the main intention behind the legislature passing the transfer ruling.

7A Buchholz @ 3A Trinity Catholic 8/27. A quality Buchholz team will be a measuring stick to see where the Celtics stand going into the season. We lost a bunch to graduation.

I'm aware that it's legal, in accordance with legislative rules. I'm basically referring to a person's character. These coaches know that bringing in a top flight "recruit" from as far away as California, will undoubtedly supplant one of their local players. Bringing in a half dozen or a dozen destroys the moral of a team even though it boosts the team's winning record. As coaches they are also teachers and mentors to young boys 14-18. As such, they are molding future citizens. This is one hell of a way to mold future citizens. Emulating college or NFL coaches is not the duty of a HS coach. Just my opinion but I think a very plausible one.

Can you imagine any coach agreeing to this?