Post by scobserver on Nov 2, 2016 7:11:46 GMT -5
A couple years back there was big publicity about southern Cal high school girls basketball games that were like 100-2 and athletic directors and coaches were asked why such predictable blow outs were even scheduled, and the answer was always like "we have to, because we're in the same league."
No. Don't have to. Part of the AD job is to know the competitive setting and what is lopsided and what is ridiculously humiliating. Even in basketball, such physically and skilled mismatches can even be dangerous...good players can get hurt by clueless players. In football, it's even worse, but the skilled players can seriously injure the unskilled.
NCS top staff--who are paid obscene amounts of money--in my mind have the most responsibility to step in. School level ADs and principals are worried about status and bad PR and hurting the feelings of their coaches. NCS and league commissioners need to be proactive.
The Analy-Allen disaster for Friday is forseeable. No way is this a "yeah, it's lopsided, but anything can happen, that's why you play the game" type of event. It should never have been scheduled in the first place.
The Marin County league, to their immense credit, figured out how to avoid this. Somehow, they got permission to not have Marin Catholic play San Rafael each year...even though they are in the same league. The parallels with Analy-Allen are obvious (mostly white, affluent, school with attractive program that every outstanding player wants to play for versus mostly low-income, newly arrived Hispanic school population with little cultural interest in playing football and no outstanding players are wanting to attend.)
Not playing allows both teams the chance to schedule a nonleague competitive game appropriate to their programs. Somehow, the league standings all work out.
Anyone in Marin able to shed light on how that arrangement got worked out? And then e mail SCL people and tell them how to make it happen?
SCL also really needs to swallow pride and concede that Analy is hopelessly superior. As I understand (a by product of the De Salle situation) the NCS now allows leagues to declare a sport at a school a "competitive anomaly." The team then is declared an independent and not eligible for a league title--but would be eligible for playoffs. In return, the league must guarantee the anomaly team a schedule with 50 percent of the league games. This means Analy would get three "non league" SCL opponents--Allen obviously would be one of the teams NOT forced to play Analy. Analy then would have three dates to schedule as they desire.
But this would require leadership. The SCL commissioner can't even keep a website updated. The NCS staff has no formal powers, but skilled staff could whisper in the right ears often enough to have this solved by now (by convincing the SCL to do what Marin league is doing, for instance.)
At any rate, this is all for 2017. For Friday night, how should Analy handle the situation? The old-school approach was to have starters play the first half and then the first series of the second half--but it will be 500-0 by then. And how many healthy players does Allen have by now? And how many of those are frosh-soph (remember, no JV team at Allen.)
Everyone on this board knows it is a disaster in the making. Why are the people paid to run this not able to see?
No. Don't have to. Part of the AD job is to know the competitive setting and what is lopsided and what is ridiculously humiliating. Even in basketball, such physically and skilled mismatches can even be dangerous...good players can get hurt by clueless players. In football, it's even worse, but the skilled players can seriously injure the unskilled.
NCS top staff--who are paid obscene amounts of money--in my mind have the most responsibility to step in. School level ADs and principals are worried about status and bad PR and hurting the feelings of their coaches. NCS and league commissioners need to be proactive.
The Analy-Allen disaster for Friday is forseeable. No way is this a "yeah, it's lopsided, but anything can happen, that's why you play the game" type of event. It should never have been scheduled in the first place.
The Marin County league, to their immense credit, figured out how to avoid this. Somehow, they got permission to not have Marin Catholic play San Rafael each year...even though they are in the same league. The parallels with Analy-Allen are obvious (mostly white, affluent, school with attractive program that every outstanding player wants to play for versus mostly low-income, newly arrived Hispanic school population with little cultural interest in playing football and no outstanding players are wanting to attend.)
Not playing allows both teams the chance to schedule a nonleague competitive game appropriate to their programs. Somehow, the league standings all work out.
Anyone in Marin able to shed light on how that arrangement got worked out? And then e mail SCL people and tell them how to make it happen?
SCL also really needs to swallow pride and concede that Analy is hopelessly superior. As I understand (a by product of the De Salle situation) the NCS now allows leagues to declare a sport at a school a "competitive anomaly." The team then is declared an independent and not eligible for a league title--but would be eligible for playoffs. In return, the league must guarantee the anomaly team a schedule with 50 percent of the league games. This means Analy would get three "non league" SCL opponents--Allen obviously would be one of the teams NOT forced to play Analy. Analy then would have three dates to schedule as they desire.
But this would require leadership. The SCL commissioner can't even keep a website updated. The NCS staff has no formal powers, but skilled staff could whisper in the right ears often enough to have this solved by now (by convincing the SCL to do what Marin league is doing, for instance.)
At any rate, this is all for 2017. For Friday night, how should Analy handle the situation? The old-school approach was to have starters play the first half and then the first series of the second half--but it will be 500-0 by then. And how many healthy players does Allen have by now? And how many of those are frosh-soph (remember, no JV team at Allen.)
Everyone on this board knows it is a disaster in the making. Why are the people paid to run this not able to see?
