Sidwell Friends Boys Soccer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow just saw that Sidwell Friends Boys soccer had 5 all-met players in Fall 2008 and 3 all-met players in 2009. That is unbelievably impressive for any school in any sport.

OK. So Sidwell has ONE sport where the students excel, that's great, considering the majority of the rest of their teams are 3rd/4th tier. Seriously if you want to talk high school sports, Sidwell would hardly be the school on the forefront of discussion. Can you imagine if a post like this was started by every Demantha Basketball parent or any private with a strong team? This forum would be clogged with parents bragging about their school's team sports.

Bottom line, Sidwell is an outstanding first tier ACADEMIC community and it sounds like they have a nationally ranked strong Boys soccer team. I'd choose academics over sports any day... Honestly, if I were to highlight sports program at Sidwell, I would focus on the future and that is the state-of-the-art Upper/Middle School Sports facilities which is in-progress and will probably change the school's capacity to compete in sports programs with its peers. The facility is a game changer - it will attract to coaches and academic athletic students a like. The families will no longer by using the "we have less students to compete" excuse as to why the sports program hasn't kept up which is truly lame - especially when you look how few more girls/boys NCS/STA has than Sidwell. Sidwell has a senior class of 120 which is hardly small - there should be strong athletics.


For the record, it is true that Sidwell did not used openly "invest" in contact sports such as football understandably, because of their Quaker heritage. This was made known to me but MANY friends who were students back in the day. It frustrated them that their teams ALWAYS lost (and I'm not just talking about football - I'm talking lacrosse, field hockey, basketball - you name it), and they were told over and over it went against their Quaker heritage to build up a strong contact sports team, no less a sports program. But, it will be exciting to see how Sidwell's atheletic program improves in the next decade with the new facilities. As a Cathedral alum with many Sidwell friends, I look forward to Sidwell improving their athletic program. It is an excellent school and the students deserve to be well-rounded in every way. This is very exciting for the families at the school!

Your grammar is suspect. Also, for the record, St. Albans has more boys than Sidwell does. Sidwell has about 55 per class. StA has 75-80. Same with the girls and NCS.

Yes, Sidwell's soccer program is nationally competitive and is much stronger than its other sports. But that doesn't mean the rest of its sports are "3rd/4th tier". This year, the wrestling team was strong as usual and destroyed schools like St. Albans, Landon, Boys Latin, Mercersburg and Potomac. The boys basketball team got second in the league and has two top-50 recruits (one freshman, one sophomore). The boys lacrosse team ended with a winning record and defeated St. Johns College High School 10-2 in the DC Lacrosse Classic. The baseball team competed well and defeated strong opponents such as Maret, Bullis and Wilson. The Cross Country team is one of the best in the area and has one or two nationally competitive runners. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because one sport at Sidwell stands out, the others suck.

[Anonymous]

PP, I've got to agree with 21:42. It's not that Sidwell sports programs "suck". But as that poster said, generally "3rd or 4th tier" is a pretty accurate way of describing the athletic teams. They may fare well for certain teams on occasion in the MAC, but the reality is that the MAC is a pretty mediocre sports conference overall.

Sidwell does have what seems to be a consistenly excellent soccer team that can compete at a top level. However, other than that, there does not appear to be any consistency of excellence with their other teams that would transcend the MAC. Perhaps this will change with the new facilities but it is much more than that. It takes a concerted objective and initiative for the school, starting at the very top. That is a tangible level of commitment in what the school wants to be and clearly would be a change from their current makeup. This is very similar to my experience at Potomac.

BTW, there is nothing that would prevent them from excelling both academically and athletically. They don't need to be mutually exclusive. There are other examples of this where one doesn't have to compromise the other. Georgetown Prep comes to mind.

[Anonymous]

The soccer team has done well because a group of excellent club soccer players happened to be moving through the school at the same time. Next year, Sidwell will likely win the MAC in soccer but won't be a regional or national power. Those players have moved through the system. I don't get why people think a nice gym will produce better athletes. That gym won't do any thing unless the school does a better job teaching and coaching kids. The Sidwell sports program doesn't suck - with a few exceptions - but it could be much better. OTher schools including Maret are producing more with less. Maret beats Sidwell without a new environmentally friendly gym.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The soccer team has done well because a group of excellent club soccer players happened to be moving through the school at the same time. Next year, Sidwell will likely win the MAC in soccer but won't be a regional or national power. Those players have moved through the system. I don't get why people think a nice gym will produce better athletes. That gym won't do any thing unless the school does a better job teaching and coaching kids. The Sidwell sports program doesn't suck - with a few exceptions - but it could be much better. OTher schools including Maret are producing more with less. Maret beats Sidwell without a new environmentally friendly gym.

The Maret sports program is not really very strong.

[Anonymous]

It beats Sidwell in football and baseball like a gong.

[Anonymous]

The MAC is really weak. Someone is really just using this thread to find another way to brag about Sidwell. A lot of schools in this area with superior academics have better sports programs than Sidwell. It's not either/or.

[Anonymous]

Maret has beaten Sidwell soundly in football for four years in a row now, and its Maret baseball has beaten Sidwell pretty consistently for the last four years as well. But aside from that, Maret gets stomped by Sidwell in sports. It's really not a contest. Maret's a great school, but if you look at the number of MAC banners won by Sidwell this decade, and the number won by Maret, there's really no discussion. And yes, this SHOULD be the case, as Sidwell is bigger and probably cares more about sports in general.

15:47, kindly list "a lot of [the] schools in this area with superior academics" to Sidwell's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The soccer team has done well because a group of excellent club soccer players happened to be moving through the school at the same time. Next year, Sidwell will likely win the MAC in soccer but won't be a regional or national power. Those players have moved through the system. I don't get why people think a nice gym will produce better athletes. That gym won't do any thing unless the school does a better job teaching and coaching kids. The Sidwell sports program doesn't suck - with a few exceptions - but it could be much better. OTher schools including Maret are producing more with less. Maret beats Sidwell without a new environmentally friendly gym.

Maret is producing more with less? Explain to me how Maret is producing more...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

BTW, there is nothing that would prevent them from excelling both academically and athletically. They don't need to be mutually exclusive. There are other examples of this where one doesn't have to compromise the other. Georgetown Prep comes to mind.

I'm not a Sidwell connected person-- ties are to other schools. But I did want to point out the big disparity that MOST in the community see between the academics of Sidwell and Prep. To take one example, Sidwell's percentage of National Merit Semifinalists is significantly higher than for Prep -- 15% to 4%. And while Prep has many strong students it IS perceived that they compromise standards to bring in top athletes in high profile sports (eg in their dorms). It's like comparing Harvard and Notre Dame--two good schools overall but one much more academic in emphasis etc.

[Anonymous]

STA,NCS + Holton-Arms generally have more NMSF than Sidwell and they all have better sports programs.

[Anonymous]

I don;t know how Maret is producing more with less but they are in football and baseball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STA,NCS + Holton-Arms generally have more NMSF than Sidwell and they all have better sports programs.

All great schools but over the past decade Sidwell has more NMSFs ( see chart in FAQ post from SAM2). See also prior post analyzing how the single sex schools all have more athletes in their given gender than co-Ed schools like Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

You all are battling over mutual mediocrity. It's like arguing over who's better, the Orioles or tha Nationals.

[Anonymous]

Paste decade? Why does Sidwell need such a large sample. That's kind of lame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paste decade? Why does Sidwell need such a large sample. That's kind of lame.

Why lame? Classes do vary year to year, so a multi-year sample is statistically more robust than looking at one or two years. You can, of course, also look for trends over the 10 years (e.g., a steady decline) but, barring that, a 10-year sample is an excellent indicator of quality.