Think the sports world is crazy now?

Wait till we start to feel the real impact of the millions of dollars in NIL and college funds that are starting to be. Given to football and basketball players.

Instead of a scholarship and meal money, college athletes are going to be given thousands of dollars to play. Some college players will make more than professionals.

This new “pot of gold” will attract more to high school basketball and football teams because the value of a scholarship has now been significantly increased.

Anonymous wrote:

"Right now, GP has a transfer problem because the admin has fallen back into the trap of athletic glory will lead to donations. It doesn't."

Know several area high schools and colleges that would argue successfully against this point.

Let me guess. SJC - they are almost completely dependent on the generosity of Plank. He rebuilt the school and placed his old employees at the school. They are still a comparatively lower academic school without a real endowment. They might've closed without him.
DeMatha - they've been following this model for 50 years. No one confuses them with a top academic school. It also took them 45 years to build a gym.
Sidwell Friends and a number of other similar schools have chosen to bring in basketball players to entertain the students.
Paul VI - on serious athletic decline from the campus move.
Gonzaga - great school but supported by 1100 students. It took them forever to raise enough money to rehab.
Montrose Christian, Flint Hill, or anywhere else Stu Vetter coached failed.

Colleges - apples and oranges.

There so much incorrect with this post, it’s hard to even know where to begin.

The SJC recovery was well underway before Plank started helping. It started with the admission of girls. The new buildings and fields bear the names of other donors. It’s ridiculous to say that SJC would be closed without Plank’s contributions.

Isn’t PVI currently #1 in boy’s basketball? I don’t remember anything like that when the school was in Fairfax.

Crazy stuff.

STA has not de-emphasized sports in any way. That was ten years ago.
In the last five years, they have about the same number of IAC titles as Prep and Landon.
STA does not recruit like prep and bullis and they rarely take transfers, so maybe that's what the pp means about de-emphasizing.

"Right now, GP has a transfer problem because the admin has fallen back into the trap of athletic glory will lead to donations. It doesn't."

Know several area high schools and colleges that would argue successfully against this point.

Let me guess. SJC - they are almost completely dependent on the generosity of Plank. He rebuilt the school and placed his old employees at the school. They are still a comparatively lower academic school without a real endowment. They might've closed without him.
DeMatha - they've been following this model for 50 years. No one confuses them with a top academic school. It also took them 45 years to build a gym.
Sidwell Friends and a number of other similar schools have chosen to bring in basketball players to entertain the students.
Paul VI - on serious athletic decline from the campus move.
Gonzaga - great school but supported by 1100 students. It took them forever to raise enough money to rehab.
Montrose Christian, Flint Hill, or anywhere else Stu Vetter coached failed.

Colleges - apples and oranges.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lack of government sponsored recreational sports has led to the single sport club athlete. This in turn has led to a bunch of schools with too many varsity level sports and not enough players to play. Even mighty GP had to give into eliminating the 3rd football team. SSSAS, Bullis, EP can't field independent varsity and jv teams in a number of sports. Landon and a bunch of other schools have 2-3 member sports like air rifle, squash, water polo. The IAC is essentially an independent conference.

Let’s say what you say is true.

How does any of that lead to a realignment of conferences in the DMV?

What you seem to be suggesting is a bunch of different Conference alignments in the various sports.

How could that be managed and who would do it?

What I’ve seen is schools actually adding sports. Hockey and rugby didn’t exist in the IAC that many years ago. Now there seems to a high interest and participation in them.

Prep fielded freshman, JV and varsity football teams when they had 400 boys. Now they have 500 - 550 and don’t have enough players? That doesn’t seem right?

It just seems kind of silly to be awarding IAC title flags in several of the IAC sports. The IAC is already so small and non competitive for most schools, the Title flag seems a little silly. SSSAS and EP aren't even trying. STA had a nice year in football because of literally 2 players but they have de-emphasized sports to a large degree. You are left with 3 schools, with one of them mortgaging themselves to death, who put any effort into sports.

GP got rid of their 3rd football team. They highly encourage freshman to join the team to create a bonding experience in their first semester of the school. This year's freshman/jv team had 5 sophomores. Any other kid who was any good was moved to varsity. This means kids aren't continuing to play after their first year. GP has gone heavily back to recruiting AA players and this forced the traditional full or mostly full pay student to the back of the roster and, subsequently, off the program for lack of playing time. Combine that with the nanny state of suburban moms and kids don't play. Right now, GP has a transfer problem because the admin has fallen back into the trap of athletic glory will lead to donations. It doesn't.

"Right now, GP has a transfer problem because the admin has fallen back into the trap of athletic glory will lead to donations. It doesn't."

Know several area high schools and colleges that would argue successfully against this point.

So the total number of kids playing football is similar to what it was when there were three teams?

There was always a drop-off of boys playing football after freshman year. You correctly point out the Prep treated freshman football as a class-building thing.

The level of competition in the major sports has ratcheted up in the IAC led by Prep, Landon and Bullis. If I were at either of the other three schools I’d be unhappy. Their choice is to join the madness or to battle it out for fourth place.

The direction on this has to come from the top of the school. The football-centric AD couldn’t do this on his own.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lack of government sponsored recreational sports has led to the single sport club athlete. This in turn has led to a bunch of schools with too many varsity level sports and not enough players to play. Even mighty GP had to give into eliminating the 3rd football team. SSSAS, Bullis, EP can't field independent varsity and jv teams in a number of sports. Landon and a bunch of other schools have 2-3 member sports like air rifle, squash, water polo. The IAC is essentially an independent conference.

Let’s say what you say is true.

How does any of that lead to a realignment of conferences in the DMV?

What you seem to be suggesting is a bunch of different Conference alignments in the various sports.

How could that be managed and who would do it?

What I’ve seen is schools actually adding sports. Hockey and rugby didn’t exist in the IAC that many years ago. Now there seems to a high interest and participation in them.

Prep fielded freshman, JV and varsity football teams when they had 400 boys. Now they have 500 - 550 and don’t have enough players? That doesn’t seem right?

It just seems kind of silly to be awarding IAC title flags in several of the IAC sports. The IAC is already so small and non competitive for most schools, the Title flag seems a little silly. SSSAS and EP aren't even trying. STA had a nice year in football because of literally 2 players but they have de-emphasized sports to a large degree. You are left with 3 schools, with one of them mortgaging themselves to death, who put any effort into sports.

GP got rid of their 3rd football team. They highly encourage freshman to join the team to create a bonding experience in their first semester of the school. This year's freshman/jv team had 5 sophomores. Any other kid who was any good was moved to varsity. This means kids aren't continuing to play after their first year. GP has gone heavily back to recruiting AA players and this forced the traditional full or mostly full pay student to the back of the roster and, subsequently, off the program for lack of playing time. Combine that with the nanny state of suburban moms and kids don't play. Right now, GP has a transfer problem because the admin has fallen back into the trap of athletic glory will lead to donations. It doesn't.

Prep is looking less and less of a Catholic school these days.

The admin continues to chase full pay Chinese, Korean and South American families who will pay 2 - 3x the tuition.

Save me the men for others' rhetoric.

Anonymous wrote:The lack of government sponsored recreational sports has led to the single sport club athlete. This in turn has led to a bunch of schools with too many varsity level sports and not enough players to play. Even mighty GP had to give into eliminating the 3rd football team. SSSAS, Bullis, EP can't field independent varsity and jv teams in a number of sports. Landon and a bunch of other schools have 2-3 member sports like air rifle, squash, water polo. The IAC is essentially an independent conference.

Let’s say what you say is true.

How does any of that lead to a realignment of conferences in the DMV?

What you seem to be suggesting is a bunch of different Conference alignments in the various sports.

How could that be managed and who would do it?

What I’ve seen is schools actually adding sports. Hockey and rugby didn’t exist in the IAC that many years ago. Now there seems to a high interest and participation in them.

Prep fielded freshman, JV and varsity football teams when they had 400 boys. Now they have 500 - 550 and don’t have enough players? That doesn’t seem right?

The lack of government sponsored recreational sports has led to the single sport club athlete. This in turn has led to a bunch of schools with too many varsity level sports and not enough players to play. Even mighty GP had to give into eliminating the 3rd football team. SSSAS, Bullis, EP can't field independent varsity and jv teams in a number of sports. Landon and a bunch of other schools have 2-3 member sports like air rifle, squash, water polo. The IAC is essentially an independent conference.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ADs at 90% of these schools are rather incompetent.

None of them are visionary enough to execute on this and generally are very risk adverse.

I don’t any type of formal merger between the leagues happening given it would require a ton of “extra” work for these ADs and out of standard scope of work.

Not gonna argue the additional work aversion, but doesn't this really all boil down to money. None of these schools tuitions are going down and neither are their fixed costs, like staff, so isn't the easiest solution for schools to either a) drop sports that have little of any participation at some schools or b) merge with other area conferences that might be more competitive for them to be in and reduce their travel costs. If this is the case or some blend of it, doesn't this mean EHS and Saints go to the MAC with Potomac and Flint Hill - at least for sports like football, lacrosse and baseball?

So the idea is what?

At least for me, this is very hard to follow especially when it comes to the financial impact.

You're suggesting that the solution to low participation sports is to merge with other conferences? Are there in fact "lower participation sports" that are lower participation because the teams aren't competitive in their current conference? And how does boosting participation in those sports have any kind of financial impact on the school? Sounds like you are imagining this to bolster some sort of argument for shuffling conferences.

You talked about saving transportation costs? Aren't almost all the costs associated with transportation "fixed" costs? (The bus and the driver?) They aren't sending the teams via Uber or Delta Airlines like the colleges)

Making the case to the schools for this to the school heads given all the disruption, displeased alumni, upset coaches, etc. would seem to be a difficult task.

Almost every conference in every sport has teams that are at the top and those who cluster at the bottom.

Anonymous wrote:The ADs at 90% of these schools are rather incompetent.

None of them are visionary enough to execute on this and generally are very risk adverse.

I don’t any type of formal merger between the leagues happening given it would require a ton of “extra” work for these ADs and out of standard scope of work.

Not gonna argue the additional work aversion, but doesn't this really all boil down to money. None of these schools tuitions are going down and neither are their fixed costs, like staff, so isn't the easiest solution for schools to either a) drop sports that have little of any participation at some schools or b) merge with other area conferences that might be more competitive for them to be in and reduce their travel costs. If this is the case or some blend of it, doesn't this mean EHS and Saints go to the MAC with Potomac and Flint Hill - at least for sports like football, lacrosse and baseball?

The ADs at 90% of these schools are rather incompetent.

None of them are visionary enough to execute on this and generally are very risk adverse.

I don’t any type of formal merger between the leagues happening given it would require a ton of “extra” work for these ADs and out of standard scope of work.

What PP says above is a correct picture of the private school world.

Plus, any change --- let alone a big change --- generates lots of work and potential for criticism for a group that really, really doesn't like either.

Anonymous wrote:ISL has A and AA in all sports other than track, cross-country, field hockey and swim/dive. There is elevation and relegation with the top team in the lower (A) division swapping divisions with the bottom team in the higher (AA) division. I've seen my daughters compete in the ISL over the past 8 years and the system generally works pretty well.

On the other hand, I competed in the IAC and will be damned if my school agrees to a merger with the MAC or WCAC.

What many not realize --- especially current parents --- is that there is a pecking order here. The school doesn't react to all the groups equally.

The key on this discussion is whose opinions really matter. Which groups and individuals would have the power to make significant changes.

I'm reminded of something I was told by a school higher-up a number of years ago. He said, "Parents come and parents go. But the Alumni are here forever."

It takes a parent a year or two to figure things out. When the senior year rolls around they start dialing out. The schools have seen this every four years for many decades. It never changes. The unhappy, noisy sports parents are here for a while and then graduate when their kids do. Because they feel they are "paying the bills" that they ought to be listened to. And they are, but it's well practiced listening and not doing.

The opinions of Alumni matter and those of certain alumni matter a lot. And this group may be more concerned about country club grill banter than they are "the experience of current student athletes".

There's also the opinions of the people in the Athletic Director's world that includes the coaches. The coaches want to win games and conference championships. Playing stronger teams isn't going to help them do either.

Then there's the Admissions Office who is concerned about selling perspective parents that they ought to compare their school to the really expensive ones and not the cheaper ones that are very good at athletics.