I've never seen so much complaining regarding the PCL schools.
http://www.pennlive.com/forums/hsfootballe/
http://www.pennlive.com/forums/hsfootballe/
The Pennlive board has been very entertaining lately
- Thread starter Relayer
- Start date
Wow ... besides a ton of sore losers, or simply losers, there are a ton of people with time on their hands. Ironically, last I looked, every kid in a public school is on a full scholarship !!
I'm a proponent of opening up all the boundaries for pub, pri, par etc. Also, let your school tax dollars flow with your child to whatever school they want while they are in school. The competition would be healthy, although, I suspect the teachers union would frown upon such an idea?
Amen on that 'tho I think many are opposed to opening things up, letting me go wherever I want to go.
About the PL board, they have a few excellent posters and a HUGE number of kiddies, some that are a lot of fun and pure entertainment. Good place to go for a laugh.
About the PL board, they have a few excellent posters and a HUGE number of kiddies, some that are a lot of fun and pure entertainment. Good place to go for a laugh.
Would have nothing to do with the teachers unions. Where would you put all the kids. Take for example Strath Haven, if you opened it up quite a few interested parties would be knocking on their doors. But where do you put the kids from Chester and surrounding neighborhoods? Do you build bigger facilities? Hire more teachers? Don't think the tax payers would like that. Open enrollment is a pipe dream that has no basis in reality in my opinion.
Obviously, there would need to be reasonable parameters. Transportation in addition to occupancy limitations are at the forefront. However, it is managed in a number of other states in varying processes. And, I also think that you would need to be the actual tax payer to take advantage of that option, similar to a homestead type of scenario. Possibly, limit it on a county by county basis with the student responsible for their own transportation? I'm just hoping the thought starts somewhere?! The dream is too good, I can't put the pipe down 
That board is a disaster and has been for years. At one points in time you could get decent information there, but most of the posters who know what they're talking about have migrated away. You also have a ton of small school posters who really don't like the private/open boundary element, which drives a lot of the talk. At this points, the threads on that board are "RECRUITING!!!" and "FIRE STEVE SHIFFERT!!!" neither of which are particularly interesting subjects.
Here's what I'll say on the PCL that I hope is a more reasoned take than my Lehigh Valley brethren are giving on pennlive. It's ridiculous to want them out of state competition. Your high school state championship should be a championship of the high schools in the state. Now, I root against the PCL every week. I leave PCL quarterbacks off of my message board all state teams to be spiteful. But I want my alma mater and conference brethren to beat them, not banish them off to their own island. That's stupid.
Private/open boundaries schools definitely have a built in advantage: it's a self selected population. All of the kids are there because that's where they want to go to school. I don't care who you are, if you're an 8th grader picking your high school, and you play football, part of your decision is "this is the place I want to play high school football." The PCL schools are particularly suited to exploiting this advantage because they're located in a place with a metro area of six million people where Catholic school is a huge cultural norm. Not hard to find a pretty darn good group of football players in that pool. Public schools may get a couple of those kids who are moving into the area and hand pick the school (I'm sure when the Yeboah's moved to the Lehigh Valley, Parkland's football/basketball programs were a significant part of the decision), but that's never an entire team who has made that "this is where I want to play" selection.
(Side note: Don't underestimate the cultural norm part. Up here, you sure get looked at cross eyed in the neighborhood if you leave your hometown to go play at one of the few private schools in the Lehigh Valley. I'm not sure how often LaSalle kids get "You're a Sellout" chanted at them by their hometown student sections).
Public schools, even the huge ones, still need the right alchemy of the population to walk through the door in a given year. But there are public schools in the state with that "special year" kind of team every season. To win a state title, you need the right team and the right luck. This year, we saw two public schools play Prep that may have had the right team, but a bounce or two didn't go their way and the lost a coin flip game. Well guess what, it's really darn hard to win a title in this state. It's silly to say that public schools can't compete with the PCL a the 4A level.
The difference isn't the ability to win a title, it's being immune to cycles. The private schools with established programs should be able to compete for a title year in and year out. The rosters they assemble are much more suited to be a complete football team versus trying to mix and match whatever kids happen to between the ages of 14-18 in whatever your geographic boundaries are. In a big school like Easton, we make pretty athletic, 6'0 190 pound kids on an assembly line. That's all well and good for being competitive in the area year in and year out. But on a state level, it takes those years where you get a couple athletic big kids bunched together plus one or two legitimate college caliber skill guys to have a shot at competing for the whole thing. There are always going to be good public schools who can go toe to toe with Prep and LaSalle. But who those schools are is going to change much more frequently year to year, where Prep and LaSalle should be constants for the foreseeable future barring something bizarre happening to either program.
Here's what I'll say on the PCL that I hope is a more reasoned take than my Lehigh Valley brethren are giving on pennlive. It's ridiculous to want them out of state competition. Your high school state championship should be a championship of the high schools in the state. Now, I root against the PCL every week. I leave PCL quarterbacks off of my message board all state teams to be spiteful. But I want my alma mater and conference brethren to beat them, not banish them off to their own island. That's stupid.
Private/open boundaries schools definitely have a built in advantage: it's a self selected population. All of the kids are there because that's where they want to go to school. I don't care who you are, if you're an 8th grader picking your high school, and you play football, part of your decision is "this is the place I want to play high school football." The PCL schools are particularly suited to exploiting this advantage because they're located in a place with a metro area of six million people where Catholic school is a huge cultural norm. Not hard to find a pretty darn good group of football players in that pool. Public schools may get a couple of those kids who are moving into the area and hand pick the school (I'm sure when the Yeboah's moved to the Lehigh Valley, Parkland's football/basketball programs were a significant part of the decision), but that's never an entire team who has made that "this is where I want to play" selection.
(Side note: Don't underestimate the cultural norm part. Up here, you sure get looked at cross eyed in the neighborhood if you leave your hometown to go play at one of the few private schools in the Lehigh Valley. I'm not sure how often LaSalle kids get "You're a Sellout" chanted at them by their hometown student sections).
Public schools, even the huge ones, still need the right alchemy of the population to walk through the door in a given year. But there are public schools in the state with that "special year" kind of team every season. To win a state title, you need the right team and the right luck. This year, we saw two public schools play Prep that may have had the right team, but a bounce or two didn't go their way and the lost a coin flip game. Well guess what, it's really darn hard to win a title in this state. It's silly to say that public schools can't compete with the PCL a the 4A level.
The difference isn't the ability to win a title, it's being immune to cycles. The private schools with established programs should be able to compete for a title year in and year out. The rosters they assemble are much more suited to be a complete football team versus trying to mix and match whatever kids happen to between the ages of 14-18 in whatever your geographic boundaries are. In a big school like Easton, we make pretty athletic, 6'0 190 pound kids on an assembly line. That's all well and good for being competitive in the area year in and year out. But on a state level, it takes those years where you get a couple athletic big kids bunched together plus one or two legitimate college caliber skill guys to have a shot at competing for the whole thing. There are always going to be good public schools who can go toe to toe with Prep and LaSalle. But who those schools are is going to change much more frequently year to year, where Prep and LaSalle should be constants for the foreseeable future barring something bizarre happening to either program.
Cultural norm is the part that a lot of people out of the philly metro area have trouble relating to. Well stated...good phrase.
Nobody tells any kids going to any PCL schools they are a sellout. It is the cultural norm to attend Archdiocesan or Private Catholic high school in that area. LaSalle in particular draws a lot from North Penn, Wissahickon, Upper Dublin, etc. No sellout chants there.
Nobody tells any kids going to any PCL schools they are a sellout. It is the cultural norm to attend Archdiocesan or Private Catholic high school in that area. LaSalle in particular draws a lot from North Penn, Wissahickon, Upper Dublin, etc. No sellout chants there.
