They could have used metro suburban as a path towards that and went backwards
And you hit the nail on the head with this one.
the FHSAA Board of Directors has no interest in changing the status quo, regardless of input.
I'm only familiar with RPA but I'm sure there must be others. For those not familiar with RPA, they are a private school that enrolls high caliber athletes and their mission is to facilitate an environment that allows these athletes to train and focus on their sport while placing them as free agents at various high schools in the state but mostly in south florida. The curriculum is very athlete friendly with mostly online courses through Dade County CC. You can be a real student or a fake one, it's up to you. All you have to do is maintain a 3.0 average which is very easy due to DCCC being weighted on the 5.0 scale since it's considered dual enrollment. RPA intentionally does not field any sports teams to allow them to exploit Florida's rule where you can play at any school of your choice if your school (or home school) does not field a team.
Here's what I like about RPA:
They do a great service for their athletes and the RPA owner is highly connected with college coaches
They stress GPA >3.0
What I don't like about RPA:
By far what I don't like is they are exploiting the rules which was intended as a small amount of students, not 100s of athletes from the same school
They are a private school so they are exploiting the private school voucher program, costing us taxpayers significant $$$
Due to this abuse of the rules, some schools are loaded with RPA athletes. No exaggeration, West Boca HS might have all 22 starters that don't even attend West Boca.
It's not just West Boca. Literally every bigtime school has many RPA athletes to fill their holes
This is definitely not in the spirit of fair play, which is a key value in high school sport
I think the FHSAA needs to review this exploit and close the loop hole tightly. Maybe only allow a maximum of 5 athletes per team that don't attend your school? Something must be done because not only is it not fair play, it's not fair to students at those schools who want to play but can't compete with D1 recruits constantly transferring in.