Reply to Pay-to-Play Sport at Private HS employing club coach

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So I am going to play devil's advocate here. First, let me say I am not in complete agreement with the tactics of the baseball coach. I do know the coaches are under tremendous pressure to produce and win. Year by year the number of national tournaments in which the school participates in increases. Alumni donations soar when a team gets nationally ranked or wins. What is going on at SJC has been going for years for soccer and baseball. Every parent knows when they come to SJC your child can be easily recruited over or better yet cut. The coaches make no guarantees. This happens at IMG, Sienna Canyon and etc. If you don't like it go to GPrep or a school that's outside of the WCAC. [/quote]

I agree with you, that parents should just send their kids to schools other than SJC. But let’s make sure we understand the distinction here-you’re talking about no guarantees from coaches, kids losing their playing time or starting positions or even roster spots to kids who are recruited over them. What is going on in St. John’s baseball is kids who are being kicked out of the program for not paying the coaches private company in the off-season. I’m sure you can see the difference. And since you’re talking about the profile of the school, and the fact that being nationally ranked and winning championships energizes the donor base, take a look at SJC as a case study. Their football and basketball teams (the two highest profile sports in high school and the ones UA cares about) almost never win WCAC championships, but they have nationally ranked players who go to top schools on full scholarships on a regular basis. The baseball team I think is the reverse of that. They win championships every year but don’t typically have superstar players who go on to be stars in college (or even scholarship players) or the pros. So i guess it would be helpful to define “success.” My vote is for the programs that open life changing opportunities up for young men and women, not those that win trophies. Also the thing that cannot be lost here is that the baseball team seems to be successful because they don’t follow the rules. I would think that alumni and other donors would be troubled by that. This issue of practicing regularly outside of the allowed calendar is a big deal. The NCAA has rules to this effect and schools that violate the rules are punished fairly severely. The rules are put in place to foster fair competition and protect student athletes. If your school is winning championships but blatantly violating these rules, I can’t see how this would be a source of pride. Lesson to your students: it’s ok to cheat as long as no one calls you on it and you win. Kinda pathetic. And back to your original point, that parents should just send their kids to other schools. What about baseball players at other schools in the WCAC? Kinda sucks that they’ll probably never have a chance to win a championship because one school cheats and no one cares.[/quote]

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