Perspective

Thanks, all. I just needed to know whether to agree with your brilliant observations or be offended by your ignorant, uninformed conclusions.

Just out of curiosity, where do the central Florida teams fit into this debate (i.e., Orlando teams, Tampa Bay teams like Armwood and Plant and Lakeland)? Are they part of South Florida? North Florida? Or do they get left out of the debate all together?

Let me know if you need any help carrying that grudge.

Tampa Plant is scheduled to play Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27th. Gonzaga finished the 2018 year ranked 23rd in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25, 35th in the National Ranking and the 2nd rank team in the state (Maryland).

Dang, I guess I wasted my time looking for for a team who went undefeated and won a state champion one year (the year after going 4-7) and then went undefeated and won a the state championship the following year.

I'm not sure I understand this question. Isn't it pretty much the case of every high school in the state that you see a lot of "seniors and juniors on their team?" Are you looking at last year's roster or the roster for the 2019 season (that may or may not include current freshman and sophomores who may be playing varsity next year)? I'm not trying to nitpick; I'm just trying to understand how the roster composition plays into the question of how good AHD will be in 2019.

Who is Billy Turner (Chamberlain)?

CJM, when did they move the Hillsborough/Polk County line? Me thinks you meant to say [Tampa Bay] Tech and Armwood.

Agreed. The other thing worth noting about the study was the acknowledgement that the second "snapshot" was taken at the end of the season. The article states: "It is yet unclear whether these changes in the brain are permanent . . .." I don't know nearly enough about the human brain to pretend to reach any conclusions, but I know that there are many parts of the human body that heal with time. I'll be particularly interested to see what the 16 MRI's show after a couple of years, 10 years, 20 years, etc. Does the brain heal itself (assuming no more football for the subjects) or is the damage irreversible?

So, not being a football coach myself, but knowing quite a few of them, here are the types of things that I hear them saying. 1. "Reward" for the kids for 20 tough days (on top of all the conditioning that the kids may have been doing since last season ended). 2. For returning players, it's probably not that big of a deal (unless a player is going through a position change). For new kids - even kids coming up from JV - the spring game is great for evaluation purposes. Every coach has had a kid who looks like a frickin' all-state player in practice but shrinks up under the Friday night lights. Similarly, there's usually a kid or two that can't quite put it together in practice, but turns it up a notch or two in a game. Spring games help identify both. 3. Some coaches will use a spring game to make decisions on who a starter at a certain position will be, which is helpful with the short time before fall football starts and the short time between the start of fall football and the first regular season game. 4. Last, but not least, for some schools, a spring game helps them identify what their summer recruiting priorities will be. Wait, did I just say that? How insensitive of me.

Five in the first round, huh? Pretty impressive.

I'm guessing there aren't too many players on this board; I would curious what their response would be. As a parent, I don't have a problem with coaches and teachers texting my son. Perhaps I have too much trust/faith in my son. I feel pretty confident he would come to me and/or my wife if he ever got something inappropriate from a coach or a teacher. My son has one teacher (chemistry) that uses text messaging on a regular basis. And by regular, I mean once or twice a day. But (as far as I know), he always sends his text messages out to the whole class. And at the initial parent/teacher night, he allowed/encouraged parents to sign up, which I did. So, I get constant reminders about homework assignments, quizzes, tests, etc. My son thinks it's a pain, but I've tried to turn it into a running joke when I ask him if he's done his assignment or prepared for the test (knowing that we both received the same text message). Getting back to what I think your primary question/concern is: I know my son exchanges text messages with his coaches (head coach and position coach). Mostly it's logistical stuff, reminders and an occasional motivational message. Some are part of group texts, but a few are individual text messages. Knowing how many times my fairly-responsible teenage son has forgotten to make his bed, clean up his room, take out the garbage and recycling, etc., I'm OK with coaches sending out reminder text messages. I understand your point about boundaries, but it's not like the coaches are stopping off at our house late at night. Just one dad's perspective.

Muck, are you saying that the refs shouldn't have called a foul on the drive/shot by the Wildwood player or that they shouldn't have T'd up the Wildwood player for arguing the no-call? I suspect the latter. Here's the thing: I wasn't at the game. I didn't see the game. I don't know what, if anything, had happened prior to that last play. To me, it looked like the Wildwood player got bumped a little just as he caught the full-court pass and that, as a result, he was a little off balance when he went up for his shot. That said, if there was a time for the ref to swallow his whistle, it may have been then (the no-call on the drive) - especially with the amount of contact that occurred back at the other end on the shot/rebound. For all I know, however, the Wildwood kid who missed the layup had complained about prior calls/no-calls earlier in the game and perhaps even been warned by the refs. The final time may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Who knows? But, I'm guessing that when the Wildwood kid threw his arms up in exasperation, one of the magic no-no words came out of his mouth. Perhaps one that starts with "bull" and ends with "hit." Just guessing. Having no skin in the game whatsoever, I'd hate to lose a game this way, especially a state championship game. And good refs (i.e., the ones who typically get assigned the championship games) tend to give the kids a little leeway in emotional moments. But, at times they're left with no choice but to assess the technical foul when the conduct is blatant and obvious to everyone. All that said, I think we need to be careful about putting the blame on an official for a mistake made by a player. Did the official miss the call on the lay up? Possibly. But the player overreacted and/or said one of the words that you just can't say.

Um, I could be wrong, but I don't recall any of the 'really good players in Polk County' ending up at Plant . . . at least none in the last ten years. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Um, I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate it's because all the really good players in Polk County all end up at Lakeland.

Thanks. Still, to have a QB, two receivers and a RB totalling 14 stars is pretty darn impressive. I'm not sure I can recall ever seeing four 3-star (or better) skill players on the same side of the ball for a high school team.

"Losing" these kids because they're graduating or because they're transferring from Deerfield to some place else?

OK. Thanks for the clarification. But I'm still confused. I just ran across an article that said this: " St. Thomas -- one of the premier football programs in both the state and the country with 10 state championships — received an allegation of improper conduct from the FHSAA, containing the text messages from Wilson to the Dwyer student. St. Thomas investigated the allegation, determined Wilson had sent the messages and turned the messages over to the FHSAA, according to the report." So, it sounds like someone sent the information (i.e., a copy of the text message) to the FHSAA, who then forwarded that 'allegation of improper conduct' to STA -- basically saying 'OK, STA, here's what somebody sent us; please investigate this and let us know what you find out.' Knowing that they've been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and that somebody has the pictures of the crumbs to prove it, STA conducts its own internal investigation, concludes that the text was authentic, and then self-reports what was originally reported to the FHSAA from the outset. Or am I still missing something?

So, who ends up under center this year? DallaCosta or the Weldon kid from Tampa?

Let me see if I've got this straight: someone ratted out STA to the FHSAA. The FHSAA in turn passed along the allegation to STA. STA then notified the FHSAA that the allegations were true. And this is called "self-reporting?" Understand that I'm not complaining about the way the process works; I'm just suggesting that calling this "self-reporting" is a tad bit misleading. In any event, it looks like the coaches at STA picked the wrong player at the wrong school to try and poach this time.

I didn't realize Vince Dooley was coaching at Trinity now.

Just curious: what would be the downside or the argument against letting any school that wants to move up one or more classifications do so? I understand a rule that would prohibit any team from moving from a higher classification to a lower one, but is there any (good) reason why a team that wants to play up should not be allowed to do so? Put your FHSAA hat on and give me your best argument. Anyone.

Nah, it would have taken way to much effort on my part to actually find and type in the addresses of each stadium. I figured "city to city" was good enough to address the issue. Bottom line: it would take a team from Pensacola (and their fans) about seven hours or more to get to either city (and, presumably, either stadium). Not ideal, but for a "glass is half full" guy, it's still way better than the trip from Pensacola to Miami.

Everyone's right! At least according to MapQuest. Pensacola to Orlando 452 miles and a travel time of 6:46 (as of right now; I'm assuming Mapquest factors in anticipated rush hour traffic). Pensacola to Daytona Beach: 447 miles and a travel time of 6:47 (same assumptions). Or, as my Dad used to say, "six of one, half dozen of another."

I thought STA picked up their QB of the future (well, at least for the next two years). A portion of a previous post: Brady Dean, son of former UF QB Terry Dean, is leaving Collier County and transferring to STA. Here's a link to the article. https://usatodayhss.com/2019/brady-dean-transfers-sta-football-st-thomas-aquinas "Brady Dean threw for 1,195 yards, 12 touchdowns and 11 interceptions as a sophomore last season, his first as the Lions’ starting quarterback." Will he not be STA's savior?