That seems like a flawed setup. I have no problem with kids being able to attend school wherever they (or more importantly, their parents) want, but the system certainly shouldn’t be skewed in one direction over the other.
PIAA...Unreal
- Thread starter bkmtnittany1
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That seems like a flawed setup. I have no problem with kids being able to attend school wherever they (or more importantly, their parents) want, but the system certainly shouldn’t be skewed in one direction over the other.
EPC...see my above post on this. If the players family physically moves into the district the kid could be eligible if both school principals sign off on the move. And don't think that principals are in cahoots on some of these....I will sign for your kid if you will sign for mine....
Depends on who you talk to...can't see to many public school coaches who think the system isn't skewed against the public schools.
The whole PIAA is a sham. I go to Whitehall football games because my 88 year old Dad loves high school football. When he's done, so am I.
I agree. But working in the public schools, I know many parents who would love to send their kids to a private school. If the private school makes it feasible for them to do so I can’t really blame anybody for doing it.
Don't want to do anything to hurt the kid...but how freaking hard would it be to have a private/parochial classification? I just can't see this as being a big deal. And if there is a law against it...how about we change the law!
100 percent true ... legislative oversight committee is at fault
No argument here...I remember having my bball squad finish as the #2 team, AAA, in the district playoffs. My team had to travel 125 miles to play the #9 seed from District 3. They had to travel 3 miles. Then, when we get their I find out District 3 refs are doing the game. They shoot 27 free throws to our 12, we lose by 2. After the game I chastised the PIAA( they were currently being investigated by the feds) to the papers. Don't ya know my AD heard about that....to his credit he chewed them out as well...PIAA is a garbage group...
2 of the bench players from State College high school girls team last year went to St Joseph's Academy in Boalsburg (2 miles away) and the team went from like 5-22 last year to 21-4 and into the State tournament. There certainly was no sitting out a year.
It wasn't right away. He sat out at least a few weeks, as CD beat state college with parsons, and then harrisburg came to state high and he almost played again and beat State high again. He was there in street clothes.
While I agree something needs done, here are 3 examples of public school transfers playing immediately. Parson mid season transfer (played against Cumberland Valley 2x in one year). Mike Jones transferred from Bishop Mcdevitt mid season- played against former school in same year. Tim Kater transferred from McD to Steelhigh mid season.
So it does happen both ways. Honestly I think PIAA is so concerned with legal fees brought on by lawsuits from parents that they say the hell with it
Not just the private schools pulling the BS. There is a school near me that has 3 starters from 2-3 other school districts because Their Daddy's bought them apartments to "live in " during the school year.
Berwick's football team when they were winning all the state championships back in the day.....hired guns.
sylvanialion said it best private/Catholic schools have 2 divisions and public schools have 4. It's hard for public schools to compete when you have two sets of rules. Private/Catholic schools it's ok to recruit Public schools big time violation if you do. Or make the private/Catholic compete at the highest division . PIAA is total joke. It's lets play our championship games in Hershey making teams travel from the West travel further when State college is central Pennsylvania. Politics at it's best.
The irony is Runyan only lived 20 minutes from the SJP campus, yet some of the kids in the Philly burbs had a 35-40 minute commute, but that's OK.
The placement of 'neutral' playoff games is such a joke. I realize that you can only play at schools that want to host, but funny how certain teams always have geographic advantages in travel. I also think the time frame of the playoffs is too long. Play more games in a week and get done a week earlier.
Not a fan of every team making it like here in MD, but we have only publics in the 4 classifications (that's too many for only 200 total schools) and playoff basketball games are at the better seed and we play M/W/F with only the one day off in between. You then get a week off until the state semis at UMD on a TH/F and a final on Sat.
Not a fan of every team making it like here in MD, but we have only publics in the 4 classifications (that's too many for only 200 total schools) and playoff basketball games are at the better seed and we play M/W/F with only the one day off in between. You then get a week off until the state semis at UMD on a TH/F and a final on Sat.
What are your specific gripes with locations? The state playoffs have always lasted 2 weeks. That is totally acceptable with 32 teams in every bracket.
She transferred from Phoebus Va, the newspaper there quoted her as saying it was to enhance her basketball skills. The PIAA is worse than the NCAA
High school basketball season is way too long. No other high school sport lasts that long. My son played basketball and baseball and the basketball season always cut into the baseball season.
Well, how is the PIAA run? Who runs it? How are decisions made? Are any decisions ever made at all? Obviously there is a committee that makes changes because they went from 4 to 6 classifications a few years back, so somehow decisions are indeed being made. Hasn't this discussion been a problem for a long time? Why hasn't anything been done about it? No consipiracy theories or tin foil hats, just wondering why hasn't the problem been solved, since practically every other state in the Union has figured it out.
It reminds of the old "State Stores" in Pennsylvania...always the last state to figure out how to solve problems.
It reminds of the old "State Stores" in Pennsylvania...always the last state to figure out how to solve problems.
Even if they create a private school division, you shouldn't be able to transfer in for the playoff run. Just isn't right. Maybe they should consult Emmert.
We have a Christian school here in VA and they sued to be able to play in the VHSL and in doing so agreed to not recruit kids from local public districts and not reclass(this is a BIG problem) to be able to play public schools....they said it was to reduce travel costs and the good old educational values of not having the kids travel so far and miss school time for events. So, now they just bring in kids for their varsity team from out of state or country and reclass kids in middle school before they get to high school.....still same problem just shifted and find it ridiculous. I mean they have a kid who is 15 going on 16 in 8th grade and he transferred from another private school in 7th grade and is a very good student who I know personally, so its purely for athletic reasons. I mean why not have a 16 year old vs 14 yr old....much easier to win at that age. Whatever rules they put in place some of these schools will find ways around them.....and with most of these schools religious based isn't the hypocrisy priceless.
I’ve lived in two other states and both of them have the same problems. Kentucky basketball has figured it out, there is only one state championship for all schools with no divisions.
Kennedy Catholic has 4 starters over 6-5 including a kid from Africa that's 6-10. They're a 1A school. They won their semifinal game by 47 points. If they win the championship that will be 3 in a row. Give me a break. It's just silly that the PIAA has let this happen.
I agree with this idea, but there are still some concerns. When I watched St Joes Prep a few years ago in the state title game, the tv announcer stated where players were from during the broadcast. SJPs players hailed from multiple states. My problem with kids outside PA playing a PIAA sanctioned sport is how can you compete for a PIAA sanctioned school, but not pay taxes in PA? Team sports are one thing, but imagine winning an individual state wresting/track, etc. title and not paying taxes in PA. Seems ridiculous when you really think and analyze it.
I said the same thing before reading your post. How can you compete in a PIAA sanctioned sport and not pay taxes in PA? Imagine winning an individual championship in wrestling/track, etc. and not living in PA/paying taxes in PA...
The locations are rarely neutral, more often than not a team has to travel at least 50 miles farther than another to play. I get that not completely middle sites are possible but a team from Harrisburg should not play a team from Pittsburgh in chambersburg. Move it to Johnstown. Since Kennedy Christian was mentioned, back years ago a team from Allegheny county had to play them at Edinboro.... They made both teams drive north rather than play it somewhere in between.
Also the fact that they start the playoffs on march 9 makes no sense. tell each region they need to be done by Feb 20 and start the playoffs March 1. NO need for 10 days between WPIAL nd PIAA tourney
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I thought the location of the game was determined by points earned to get into playoffs or something like that. For example, if you are the 1 seed in the District you host the game. When you get into playing against teams in other districts I thought it was the higher seed that hosted the game somewhere in their district but not on their home court\field. At least that is the it used to be. Or maybe it alternates from year to year? I was part of a D1 team that usually had to travel to D11 for first round playoff games. We were not the higher seed but we beat the 1 seed then got to host the next game in our district but at a neutral location. The following year, we hosted the first round game but there was a higher seed in another district for the next round and we had to travel 2 hours to a neutral field in their district.
But the two years before that were both public and public schools have won 6 of the last 10.
Don't know if it is the case in Kentucky, but the best public schools in PA recruit also. Winning is the only thing that matters to some schools (public and private) and its coaches. Public coaches who refuse to recruit are viewed as lazy in some neighborhoods when actually it should be called integrity. Priorities are screwed up.
There is the issue of private schools and the issue of public schools who "prioritize" winning. It is really an honor system of ethics. It is really hard to prove that a kid has transferred for athletic reasons . Does the piaa really have the resources and or desire to contest a lot of these transfers. More often than not it is up to the schools to police themselves. I even know of one school years ago that moved numbers around with their area vo tech (didn't report) in order to stay in a lower classification. Look it's the same teams year in and year out . It's either a private school who openly recruits or an ethically challenged public school with transfers, redshirting, etc. The problem that i have with it is that a lot of people see it as victimless , but there are a lot of really good honest programs out there with really good coaches who rarely get the chance for their kids to experience a playoff environment because of the aforementioned programs. In the end , i just don't think the PIAA really cares.
And let’s not forget the kids who are legitimately on the team and get benched for an illegal transfer.
Interesting that Insinger has more basketball wins than anyone in PA history (almost a thousand), yet has never won a state title. It's not like Sock doesn't play anyone. They play (and usually beat) 3-4 6A public teams/year in non-conference. It's the little private schools that usually end their seasons.
After I left my HS post to take a college gig a parent of a player pushed like crazy to get a buddy the job. Well, this guy got the job...his first move...he recruited a kid and played him in front of the parents kid...I laughed my butt off.
While I coached at this place I had 2 people tell me they wanted there kids to play for me...both said they had relatives in the district and they would use their addresses....it goes on all the time. I said no twice...and had to coach against both of these kids for 3 yrs each....
A lot of the top public high school coaches don't have to "recruit" per se. Kids and parents see a coach who wins and gets kids scholarships; they basically recruit themselves. Ambitious mom and dad calls coach, coach has the pull with the school administration to make it happen quickly and easily. He probably can even get the kid set up with a place to live if the parents don't have a way to do it on their own. The coach will swear he never recruited the kid, and in the truest sense of the word, he didn't. He's "giving the young person an opportunity at the request of his parents." So long as mom and dad are on board, whether or not the move is best for the kid beyond the playing field doesn't have to be addressed. If you can get past the layers of misplaced priorities and tough questions that don't get asked, everybody "wins."
PIAA PIAA all you guys are saying. They hold hearings on this every so many years. And the private/non boundary schools cry discrimination from their lawyers it happened last summer.
Get off your asses and start at square one. With your elected reps and get in their offices and in their face. The legislative oversight committee is what is preventing them from acting. Lombardi pays lipservice because their hands are tied. The fact is he hates open enrollment schools/non boundary schools.
Get off your asses and start at square one. With your elected reps and get in their offices and in their face. The legislative oversight committee is what is preventing them from acting. Lombardi pays lipservice because their hands are tied. The fact is he hates open enrollment schools/non boundary schools.
Private schools also can control enrollment. Schools like Bethlehem Catholic and Allentown Central Catholic compete against bigger schools during the regular season, but by cutting off enrollment one or two students below the big-school limit, they can compete against smaller schools in the state tournaments. Public schools can't do that.
Maybe in eastern PA but the WPIAL, City, District 10, etc do not. Games always seem to be at Edinboro or Slippery Rock for whatever reason when you play a District 10 team no matter the two participating teams records. Im sure that the CCBC dome, Geneva, Char Valley etc could be other sites for these games. But you never see a north school come south, its always the other way around.
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