Public vs. Private , the continuous conflict.

[Bastogne]

Can someone name every state title for any sport or gender in Southeast Ohio? I would say it would be a fairly small number when looked at from the perspective of state champions being crowned starting around 1922. Nearly 100 years, and I can only name about 15 off the top of my head. Portsmouth boys bball, Ironton football, Burg baseball, football, Paint Valley baseball, Waverly baseball, South Webster boys bball, Oak Hill boys bball, Nelsonville York football, Adena volleyball, (girls bball maybe), Westfall softball.

I dont count cross country, or track as team sports, IMO.

Clay softball - 3 state titles, 2 runners-up
wheelersburg baseball (3), football (2), and softball (1)
Valley baseball
East baseball

link not totally up to date but it is close
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ohio_Conference

[IVCguy]

What is a state title? Does it actually mean anything? These are high school kids learning life skills. If you never win one, does it invalidate your hard work?

I have made this point many times on threads like this. My two kids played in 4 final 4s between them. My son lost in the semi-finals to eventual champ Georgetown in 07 by a point in a game that had so many weird things in it that it should be an episode of the Twilight Zone. My daughter got all the way to the championship game 3 times. Lost as a frosh to Africentric. Had an 18 point lead at half and lost by 7. Lost as a soph to HP (who later had to vacate that championship due to violations). Game was tied with a minute to go and our senior laden team made a half-dozen panicky mistakes in that time and lost by 4. Lost as a senior to Arlington - whose star had 0 points at half, but two girls who averaged 5 ppg between them had 21. My daughter's team executed the game plan almost perfectly and still lost by double digits. Arlington had their own plan, and just didn't want to cooperate with our plan. Lol.

I can barely get either of them to go to a game anymore when they are home. All of those medals and trophies are in boxes in my basement collecting dust. They don't want it or really care about it. They moved on to adulthood and it's just not that important anymore.

I think a healthy perspective is this: When they were playing, I told them that if they are practicing or playing a game, that is the most important thing in the world, and that they should give it their full attention, focus, and effort. But the minute its over, there are millions of things more important. And then appreciating what HS sports greatest value is, it is in teaching life skills. My kids were taught through basketball that if they are on time, they are late. They show up for work to this day 15-30 minutes early - and their employers love them for it. Good habits like that have way more value than what medal or trophy they won.

So, when we talk about competitive balance, I would like to see us deal with it in that context. Competing for a state championship is a big deal, so not saying it has no importance - but the things kids take with them into adulthood from participating in wins and losses, is of far greater importance.

My wild guess is that 98% of high school athletes in Ohio will never play for a state title. 90% won't get within sniffing distance. Schools that perpetually compete at state level are complete statistical outliers. OHSAA Legislation that completely levels the playing field for this distinct minority of schools is not realistic.

Yeah, I think you missed my point. As a parent who had kids in the 90-98%, I don't think it really matters -at all - in the context of what really matters.

[formerfcfan]

The issue that I have with the "put private schools in their own [all-in-one] division" argument is it accomplishes nothing; nor is it practical, either. Portsmouth Notre Dame with Bishop Hartley, Archbishop Alter, and Cincinnati Moeller? Yet, the public school supporters who advance this idea want there to still be four divisions for public schools. Yeah, okay... the difference between Portsmouth Notre Dame and Portsmouth Clay is one requires you to pay tuition and the other doesn't. As if the tuition somehow affords a competitive advantage over the school that costs nothing to attend.

In fact, I would argue that every private school feeding into the southeast regional (sans Harvest Prep) is at a disadvantage against their nearby public school peers: similarly sized or not. A handful of the D4 private schools up Columbus way, particularly the Catholic schools, are just fighting to stay alive. With uniform requirements, more stringent rules, the stresses of paying tuition, the lack of "new/state-of-the-art" buildings and the fact that private schools oft aren't as high-profile athletically as public schools, one has to wonder why exactly someone would enroll into Little Sisters of the Poor just to play sports.

[yabbadabbadoo]

The issue that I have with the "put private schools in their own [all-in-one] division" argument is it accomplishes nothing; nor is it practical, either. Portsmouth Notre Dame with Bishop Hartley, Archbishop Alter, and Cincinnati Moeller? Yet, the public school supporters who advance this idea want there to still be four divisions for public schools. Yeah, okay... the difference between Portsmouth Notre Dame and Portsmouth Clay is one requires you to pay tuition and the other doesn't. As if the tuition somehow affords a competitive advantage over the school that costs nothing to attend.

In fact, I would argue that every private school feeding into the southeast regional (sans Harvest Prep) is at a disadvantage against their nearby public school peers: similarly sized or not. A handful of the D4 private schools up Columbus way, particularly the Catholic schools, are just fighting to stay alive. With uniform requirements, more stringent rules, the stresses of paying tuition, the lack of "new/state-of-the-art" buildings and the fact that private schools oft aren't as high-profile athletically as public schools, one has to wonder why exactly someone would enroll into Little Sisters of the Poor just to play sports.

Why would the private schools need to be in an all-in-one division? Split them up in to 3 or 4 divisions, just like the public.

As for the tuition for the private schools, word on the street is that certain schools have “sponsors” that are paying for certain players tuition. If Portsmouth Norte Dame had that luxury around here, you might get some better talent being recruited in.

[formerfcfan]

The issue that I have with the "put private schools in their own [all-in-one] division" argument is it accomplishes nothing; nor is it practical, either. Portsmouth Notre Dame with Bishop Hartley, Archbishop Alter, and Cincinnati Moeller? Yet, the public school supporters who advance this idea want there to still be four divisions for public schools. Yeah, okay... the difference between Portsmouth Notre Dame and Portsmouth Clay is one requires you to pay tuition and the other doesn't. As if the tuition somehow affords a competitive advantage over the school that costs nothing to attend.

In fact, I would argue that every private school feeding into the southeast regional (sans Harvest Prep) is at a disadvantage against their nearby public school peers: similarly sized or not. A handful of the D4 private schools up Columbus way, particularly the Catholic schools, are just fighting to stay alive. With uniform requirements, more stringent rules, the stresses of paying tuition, the lack of "new/state-of-the-art" buildings and the fact that private schools oft aren't as high-profile athletically as public schools, one has to wonder why exactly someone would enroll into Little Sisters of the Poor just to play sports.

Why would the private schools need to be in an all-in-one division? Split them up in to 3 or 4 divisions, just like the public.

As for the tuition for the private schools, word on the street is that certain schools have “sponsors” that are paying for certain players tuition. If Portsmouth Norte Dame had that luxury around here, you might get some better talent being recruited in.

Re: all-in-one - that’s what TVC and greygoose proposed on page one of this thread.

I’m not familiar with what you’re describing. That isn’t to necessarily refute it, though. I just know that wasn’t the experience at my school nor the other four Diocese of Columbus schools that are outside of Franklin County. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if it were to happen at a St. Vincent-St. Mary.

[yabbadabbadoo]

When Burg played Columbus Academy it was told the players on there had sponsors covering there tuition.

You are probably coming recruit about ASVSM. I’m sure that a certain someone up that way funnels a little bit money that way. Lol

[formerfcfan]

When Burg played Columbus Academy it was told the players on there had sponsors covering there tuition.

You are probably coming recruit about ASVSM. I’m sure that a certain someone up that way funnels a little bit money that way. Lol

I don’t doubt that there is likely some financial assistance from a third party / sponsor in the case you’re describing. Although, I’m a little skeptical of it simply being that football players get their tuition paid by a sponsor. I somewhat wonder if it’s actually the case that instead of full tuition being covered it is partial tuition, instead; I also wonder if said sponsorship applies to more students than just the football players.

I wouldn’t doubt that some type of “shady” sponsorship happens at Columbus Academy, but I would imagine that it’s different than from what happens at an SVSM. Academy is a very expensive school, as the tuition for 9th grade is $22,000. Everyone attending the school pays something, but maybe not the entirety of the 22 stacks. The school has a considerably large endowment, too. My guess is, at worst, Academy has a handful of football players where the parents are paying only $1,000 or $2,000 and some combination of a sponsor or the endowment picks up the rest. But there’s no way that kids are getting in there without someone paying at least something. And there’s only so many sponsors that are going to burn a hundred thousand by paying for a couple years’ tuition for two or three kids.

[Chieftain2009]

The "paying for tuition" by sponsors might have some realism to it. Like formerfcfan said, it's probably a combination of sponsors and parents paying the tuition. Columbus Academy, as mentioned, is ridiculously expensive. That's how they get the best of the best when it comes to teachers, a lot of those kids are going to Ivy League schools after graduation.

But, back to the paying for tuition thing. A lot of schools these days (public schools) require the "pay to play." And, a lot of those schools have sponsors that supply the school with funds for a lot of those players being able to play. So, I ask you, how is that different than a sponsor paying, partially, for a kid to go to a private school?

[Paladin]

Pay to play is normally a $ 100-300 charge. Tuition at many parochial schools is $5-8k or more. Quite a difference. Boosters often use bake sales, car washes , etc to raise money for pay to play. Schools like Mooney or Ursuline use rich celeb alumni who give millions to fund athletic schollies are legion, , the Stoops brothers, Pelini, former ESPN sportscasters, Hollywood stars , etc.

The difference is stark.

[formerfcfan]

Pay to play is normally a $ 100-300 charge. Tuition at many parochial schools is $5-8k or more. Quite a difference. Boosters often use bake sales, car washes , etc to raise money for pay to play. Schools like Mooney or Ursuline use rich celeb alumni who give millions to fund athletic schollies are legion, , the Stoops brothers, Pelini, former ESPN sportscasters, Hollywood stars , etc.

The difference is stark.

The point is one (Catholic) school does not represent the entirety of (Catholic) all schools. You think kids are enrolling into Bishop Rosecrans with bankrolled tuition on the part of whoever their most famous alum is? If so, they wouldn't be staring down the face of closure.

Doesn't matter the quantitative difference of $ between pay-to-play and tuition: the principle stands.

[Paladin]

In fact, Rosecrans is dirt poor. But they are a polar opposite of the mercenary aspect of parochial school excesses. The list is long,,,,, Iggy, EDs, Benedictine, Moeller, Warren JFK,Alter, ASVSM, Hoban, DeSales, etc. Rosecrans is a pauper who depended on Bingo. Numbers matter, don't kid yourself.

Even the old days of Lancaster St. Mary have changed . Public school boosters having bake sales vs. wealthy alumni of parochials is absolutely valid.

[formerfcfan]

In fact, Rosecrans is dirt poor. But they are a polar opposite of the mercenary aspect of parochial school excesses. The list is long,,,,, Iggy, EDs, Benedictine, Moeller, Warren JFK,Alter, ASVSM, Hoban, DeSales, etc. Rosecrans is a pauper who depended on Bingo. Numbers matter, don't kid yourself.

Even the old days of Lancaster St. Mary have changed . Public school boosters having bake sales vs. wealthy alumni of parochials is absolutely valid.

Funny that you mention bingo, as that went out the window with Bishop Campbell (current Bishop.) That was a pretty kick swift in the balls for us.

I'm glad we agree that there is a continuum of Catholic schools, the "have's" (Ed, Iggy, Alter) and the "have not's" (Rosecrans, LSM/Fisher etc). Unfortunately, due to the 'parochial' label we are raked in with the "super-Catholics" and the Alters/Hartley's when in reality we couldn't be any farther away from them in terms of enrollment and athletics.

[32west]

It’s a complicated issue for the various public and private schools across the state. As fans of SEO basketball, if we are being realistic, it’s hard for our teams to win state titles, across more sports than just basketball. TrojanDave gave some of the state results for basketball in the state tournament thread. I think that this reason is partially behind the excellent support we give our teams when they make a run.
When one of our teams does make a deep tournament run, even if that team has one or two transfers, it’s understandably a tough pill to take when they run into an AAU type juggernaut whether it be in the form of a Deer Park (this year), Harvest Prep or a Cardinal Mooney (more so in football)
It’s hard for the OHSAA to determine a “fair” way to conduct the tournament for all its member schools, both public and private, but I’m glad they’re making an attempt with competitive balance. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing them separate into two selective enrollment divisions and two public school divisions (both large and small).
I don’t think we’ll ever see this happen, and I’m not sure how big of difference this would make for our SEO teams, I think it might be the best alternative to the current alignment. I realize this could be seen as punishing the Portsmouth Notre Dames and Ironton St. Joes of the world, but the case can be made that all their students have the option to attend public school and decide not to, for whatever their personal reason may be.
Not sure if the OHSAA is concerned about this, or even if they should be in the big picture, but the more often the schools that everyone knows are thrown together like a small college team are playing at the final four, the more this issue will be discussed.

[formerfcfan]

It’s a complicated issue for the various public and private schools across the state. As fans of SEO basketball, if we are being realistic, it’s hard for our teams to win state titles, across more sports than just basketball. TrojanDave gave some of the state results for basketball in the state tournament thread. I think that this reason is partially behind the excellent support we give our teams when they make a run.
When one of our teams does make a deep tournament run, even if that team has one or two transfers, it’s understandably a tough pill to take when they run into an AAU type juggernaut whether it be in the form of a Deer Park (this year), Harvest Prep or a Cardinal Mooney (more so in football)
It’s hard for the OHSAA to determine a “fair” way to conduct the tournament for all its member schools, both public and private, but I’m glad they’re making an attempt with competitive balance. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing them separate into two selective enrollment divisions and two public school divisions (both large and small).
I don’t think we’ll ever see this happen, and I’m not sure how big of difference this would make for our SEO teams, I think it might be the best alternative to the current alignment. I realize this could be seen as punishing the Portsmouth Notre Dames and Ironton St. Joes of the world, but the case can be made that all their students have the option to attend public school and decide not to, for whatever their personal reason may be.
Not sure if the OHSAA is concerned about this, or even if they should be in the big picture, but the more often the schools that everyone knows are thrown together like a small college team are playing at the final four, the more this issue will be discussed.

Thanks for sharing this. I think you make some valid points. A question, though: why 2 and 2? I realize that 4 and 4 (four public, four private) would perhaps undermine the 'sanctity' of a state title (although other states like New Jersey and New York, and I believe Indiana, award six or more for basketball) and it may be a bit much... but why not 3 and 3?

I think a secondary issue is the fact there are ~820 high schools in the OHSAA for basketball (or at least 800). There's so much variety across the board among all sorts of strata: public/private; open enrollment/closed enrollment; urban private/rural private; urban public/rural public; big public/small public; denser districts/not dense districts, etc you get the idea. Maybe four, all-inclusive divisions isn't going to self-rectify the competitive balance issue. If we want to crown the best teams fairness be damned, then maybe the status quo works. But if we want to have the most fair field, then maybe we should award six state titles. Three public and three private. IDK... just some late night thoughts. *yawn*

[32west]

It’s a complicated issue for the various public and private schools across the state. As fans of SEO basketball, if we are being realistic, it’s hard for our teams to win state titles, across more sports than just basketball. TrojanDave gave some of the state results for basketball in the state tournament thread. I think that this reason is partially behind the excellent support we give our teams when they make a run.
When one of our teams does make a deep tournament run, even if that team has one or two transfers, it’s understandably a tough pill to take when they run into an AAU type juggernaut whether it be in the form of a Deer Park (this year), Harvest Prep or a Cardinal Mooney (more so in football)
It’s hard for the OHSAA to determine a “fair” way to conduct the tournament for all its member schools, both public and private, but I’m glad they’re making an attempt with competitive balance. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing them separate into two selective enrollment divisions and two public school divisions (both large and small).
I don’t think we’ll ever see this happen, and I’m not sure how big of difference this would make for our SEO teams, I think it might be the best alternative to the current alignment. I realize this could be seen as punishing the Portsmouth Notre Dames and Ironton St. Joes of the world, but the case can be made that all their students have the option to attend public school and decide not to, for whatever their personal reason may be.
Not sure if the OHSAA is concerned about this, or even if they should be in the big picture, but the more often the schools that everyone knows are thrown together like a small college team are playing at the final four, the more this issue will be discussed.

Thanks for sharing this. I think you make some valid points. A question, though: why 2 and 2? I realize that 4 and 4 (four public, four private) would perhaps undermine the 'sanctity' of a state title (although other states like New Jersey and New York, and I believe Indiana, award six or more for basketball) and it may be a bit much... but why not 3 and 3?

I think a secondary issue is the fact there are ~820 high schools in the OHSAA for basketball (or at least 800). There's so much variety across the board among all sorts of strata: public/private; open enrollment/closed enrollment; urban private/rural private; urban public/rural public; big public/small public; denser districts/not dense districts, etc you get the idea. Maybe four, all-inclusive divisions isn't going to self-rectify the competitive balance issue. If we want to crown the best teams fairness be damned, then maybe the status quo works. But if we want to have the most fair field, then maybe we should award six state titles. Three public and three private. IDK... just some late night thoughts. *yawn*

I think these are all valid points as well and probably some of the main issues as to why the structure will remain realitivley the same with a few minor tweaks. Haven’t looked at the number of public vs privates but I’m gonna guess there’s a considerably higher number of public schools. The idea I talked about above is probably skewed by the fact that we come from an area where almost all schools are public.
One problem of adding more divisions is the date format of the state tournament and keeping the games played on OSU’s campus. It could be expanded earlier in the week but that doesn’t come without downfalls either. I think everyone agrees that one of the main reasons for this debate are a handful of “bad apple” teams that don’t pass the smell test.
Maybe that’s just the way the world works today though and the many (myself included) old-school mentality types will just have to get used the mass transfer era.

[FANOSPORTS]

It’s a complicated issue for the various public and private schools across the state. As fans of SEO basketball, if we are being realistic, it’s hard for our teams to win state titles, across more sports than just basketball. TrojanDave gave some of the state results for basketball in the state tournament thread. I think that this reason is partially behind the excellent support we give our teams when they make a run.
When one of our teams does make a deep tournament run, even if that team has one or two transfers, it’s understandably a tough pill to take when they run into an AAU type juggernaut whether it be in the form of a Deer Park (this year), Harvest Prep or a Cardinal Mooney (more so in football)
It’s hard for the OHSAA to determine a “fair” way to conduct the tournament for all its member schools, both public and private, but I’m glad they’re making an attempt with competitive balance. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing them separate into two selective enrollment divisions and two public school divisions (both large and small).
I don’t think we’ll ever see this happen, and I’m not sure how big of difference this would make for our SEO teams, I think it might be the best alternative to the current alignment. I realize this could be seen as punishing the Portsmouth Notre Dames and Ironton St. Joes of the world, but the case can be made that all their students have the option to attend public school and decide not to, for whatever their personal reason may be.
Not sure if the OHSAA is concerned about this, or even if they should be in the big picture, but the more often the schools that everyone knows are thrown together like a small college team are playing at the final four, the more this issue will be discussed.

Thanks for sharing this. I think you make some valid points. A question, though: why 2 and 2? I realize that 4 and 4 (four public, four private) would perhaps undermine the 'sanctity' of a state title (although other states like New Jersey and New York, and I believe Indiana, award six or more for basketball) and it may be a bit much... but why not 3 and 3?

I think a secondary issue is the fact there are ~820 high schools in the OHSAA for basketball (or at least 800). There's so much variety across the board among all sorts of strata: public/private; open enrollment/closed enrollment; urban private/rural private; urban public/rural public; big public/small public; denser districts/not dense districts, etc you get the idea. Maybe four, all-inclusive divisions isn't going to self-rectify the competitive balance issue. If we want to crown the best teams fairness be damned, then maybe the status quo works. But if we want to have the most fair field, then maybe we should award six state titles. Three public and three private. IDK... just some late night thoughts. *yawn*

I think these are all valid points as well and probably some of the main issues as to why the structure will remain realitivley the same with a few minor tweaks. Haven’t looked at the number of public vs privates but I’m gonna guess there’s a considerably higher number of public schools. The idea I talked about above is probably skewed by the fact that we come from an area where almost all schools are public.
One problem of adding more divisions is the date format of the state tournament and keeping the games played on OSU’s campus. It could be expanded earlier in the week but that doesn’t come without downfalls either. I think everyone agrees that one of the main reasons for this debate are a handful of “bad apple” teams that don’t pass the smell test.
Maybe that’s just the way the world works today though and the many (myself included) old-school mentality types will just have to get used the mass transfer era.

YEP, I'M OLD SCHOOL ALSO AND THE MASS TRANSFERS HAVE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME NOW AND IT'S GONNA GET WORSE BEFORE IT GET'S BETTER AND WE WON'T SEE IT STOP IN OUR LIFETIME, SAD TO SAY.

[Chieftain2009]

The state championships went 50/50. Div 1 and 2 went private, D3 and 4 went private.

[TVC]

The state championships went 50/50. Div 1 and 2 went private, D3 and 4 went private.

That’s normal, however only 20% are private yet they consistently win 50% of championships. It’s not hard to see the problem with this yet the private lovers can’t see it.