Comments about ‘High school sports: Hearing on realignment offers no easy answers’

FatMan86 is on the right track, I have been telling people this for the past few years. If the current 1A schools wanted to move up and play 2A they could and the rest of the 1A schools that play basketball could play 8 man football. I think these schools would love it and it would give kids an opportunity to participate. Is that not what the UHSAA is all about?

The only other question I have is how do you let Judge move to 4A in all other sports and leave them at 3A for football, they should be in the same classification as Juan Diego.

I don't know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone. Keep it simple.

Some of the larger 1A schools that don't play football have a justified fear of losing a winning tradition. Wayne and Panguitch have some real pride in baseball, and they understandably don't want to lose that.

I don't think the top 4 1A teams would mind competing with the smaller 2A teams on a yearly basis, no matter what the classification was called. But there is a huge difference in playing a team that has 350 kids in three grades and puts 40 kids in uniform, versus a school with 275 kids and 65 kids in uniform.

Dividing by numbers and telling folks to deal with it is fine on paper, but without some parity, programs and kids tend to suffer, no one wants to play for a team that has no chance, and when a team with 75 kids plays a team with 25 in uniform, there is a real mismatch there, no matter how big the student body is, or how close that silly ratio is.

As for the travel issue..it is obscene that the large schools cry about traveling 20-40 minutes for a game, when the smaller schools travel 4-5 hours (and more) for half of their season.

Re: Scott C

2011-2013---Manti has won at least 4 State Championships as the largest school in 2A. (football 2x, softball, soccer)

2009-2011---Manti won 0 State Championships as the smallest school in 3A.

If those lessons that come from losing are so wonderful why is it that Manti works so hard to stay in 2A?

Orem schools got the shaft on this one. Way to kill the Provo/Orem rivalries. Pathetic.

@ Me, Myself and I

I'm guessing you've never played 8-man football. I played both 8-man and 11-man in high school and the 8-man game was significantly more fun. Call it pretend football or whatever, each to his own, but it's not all trick plays and it's extremely fun to play the linebacker and safety positions defensively. I once played in a game that ended in a 6-0 score. There is plenty of room for good defense at that level. The main reason most of the 1A non-football schools won't consider playing the game is they don't feel that they can be competitive with Duchesne, Monticello, Rich, etc. If those schools are truly committed to 11-man, then why not allow the rest to form their own 8-man region and at least give them the experience of playing football. You think 8-man is silly, it's nowhere near as silly as playing baseball during football season.

@Me, Myself and I

I think you need to include all schools in order for your breakdown to make sense. I'm not sure who all might be missing, but I do know Richfield would like to continue playing football. Or does that make your bracketing not work out?

I like the way Me Myself and I is thinking his alignment would help 1A a ton.

Unequal representation...

What is not right is the fact that when the first alignment came out and some schools were upset with the format, they were allowed to voice their opinion to the Board of Trustees...meaning they had their voice heard and effectively made changes to help them...so the final format comes out, after their voice, and whomever was happy with the first alignment and unhappy with the final format could not voice their opinion...very, very unfair! It would behoove every school during the next realignment to voice concern so they can be heard...do not be happy with the first proposal because it will change and you will not have a voice in the final format.

The BOT should be ashamed with this oversight and not allowing the playing field to be equal to all.

But then again, the UHSAA almost always listens to a few vocal ones and not the whole...the UHSAA is at times a great organization and at other times you wonder if anyone of them have a IQ over 50.

why play

Sorry for the mistake. I missed Richfield when I typed it up but didn't forget them or leave them out. I had them in the 3A South with Canyon View, Cedar, Hurricane, Desert Hills, Juab and N. Sanpete.

FatMan

I have never played 8-man ball but I am very familiar with it and have first hand experience with it every season. I will concede that it is better than nothing but my point was if smaller 1A schools like Rich can field an 11-man team and compete then bringing 8-man football to Utah for 1A so more schools would participate probably wouldn't help. I think Rural Sports Fan hit on the reason they don't play is because of fall baseball and that is where those school's tradition is.

The number of kids you put in uniform is dependent on schools building their programs from within not being aligned from outside. I've seen 3A teams that can only put 40 kids in uniform out of almost 800 in the student body and 2A schools have close to 100 kids out of 400. Traditions are built and lost from within not given and taken from outside.

@ Serenity Now, if you're going to try to puff out your chest and proclaim the "SL valley and northeastern Utah valley" teams should not have to be in the same region (Even though it geographically makes sense), at least get your facts straight. Your 2012 Champion Beetdiggers played against Region 1 Champ Syracuse, not Fremont. And while Jordan is a great team, don't forget Syracuse lost their starting QB in the Quarters, during their victory over Alta. Not to mention, Syracuse followed that up in the Semi's with a dominant victory over another one of your Region 4 "unbeatable" Bingham Miners, with a back up QB.
In addition, if you're going to try to drive your point home by putting the runner-up in parenthesis when it favors Region 4's case, might I suggest listing the runner-up from other years. It might surprise you, that Region 1 sends its fair share of teams to the title game as well, and their region is set up geographically, and not based off number of talented teams in the same region.

Correction to my previous post: I mean Region 3 not 4. Oops!

Anybody know if East High School's principal held true to his promise of resigning if the board allowed East to play in the playoffs?

Makes no sense that Kanab was moved down but Parowan and Enterprise which are almost the same size stay up. I guess as long as long as the larger classification work out who cares about the lower classes?

Re USC Fan

Of course the East principle backed away from his statement. He ran away from that faster than a 10 legged mongoose. I believe he said after.."it wouldn't be fair to the school to not have his talents". Joke city.

Why is Timpview and Juan Diego not moving up a classification????