St.Paul's Sues AHSAA over Discriminatory Rule.

TomFromBama · May 25, 2018

Saw this on the TV last night:

http://www.wkrg.com/news/mobile-county/mobile-private-school-sues-ahsaa-over-competitive-balance-rule/1197201243
Mobile private school sues AHSAA over competitive balance rule
By: WKRG Staff

https://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2018/05/st_pauls_files_federal_suit_ag.html
Alabama private school sues to abolish competitive balance rule
Updated May 24, 5:14 PM; Posted May 24, 2:05 PM

Have to say I'm 100% in favor of St. Paul's on this. AND I completely agree that Safety IS a real issue.

It seems to me the new "Competitive Balance" rule is solely motivated by Prejudice and JEALOUSY - designed to PUNISH private schools that excel in sports. Isn't the POINT of sports to try to win? But now they punish you for it?

The multiplier, likewise, is a petty and vindictive rule designed to punish private schools for "recruiting" - a cherished tradition that's UNIVERSALLY practiced by every major PUBLIC HS "football power" in this State. But somehow, if a tiny private school does it, suddenly it's "Evil" and "Unfair"?????

Full Disclosure - My kids all went to St.Paul's (though none of them played football). By actual enrollment, St. Paul's is Borderline 4A - Literally only FIVE (5) STUDENTS from being in 3A. - but thanks to the "Multiplier" they play in 5A. NOW, thanks to being successful against larger 5A schools, the AHSAA has decided that St. Paul's (with a barely 4A enrollment) must compete in class 6A. So in effect, SPS will be playing almost THREE Classifications Above their actual enrollment.

IS Safety really a factor? I think its a legitimate concern.

When my kids were in school I watched St. Paul's squads line up against schools (some of whom are now 6A, like Vigor, Saraland and Spanish Fort) - and in a LOT of those games they looked like a JV team lining up against Seniors. Sometimes almost every kid on an opponent's OL And DL were half-a-head (or more) taller than the SPS kid they were lining up against.

I can well remember a game St. Paul's played at Spanish Fort about 4-5 years ago. At the time, Sp. Fort had more kids in their BAND than SPS had in their 10th -12th grade classes Combined. Honestly, the game looked like a re-enactment of "The Longest Yard" - by the second half, SPS kids were being injured to the point of needing assistance to get off the field, it seemed like every 5-10 minutes.

It just doesn't seem fair to me. IMAGINE if Alabama was penalized for being "Too Good" - and we had to play one game every season against an NFL team, and that game counted in our standings for the SEC Title and for the P_ayoffs.
Would anyone think that was fair to UA??

81usaf92 · May 25, 2018

I think teams like St Paul’s and Briarwood can all cry me a river. They get what they deserve when they basically can pick and choose players and wave tuition to do it. It’s basically recruiting.

St Paul’s wasn’t crying this song when they owned the Mobile area to include Spanish Fort. It wasn’t until Spanish Fort was thumping them that those obnoxious brats started crying foul. St Paul’s crying about competition is utterly ridiculous especially coming from them. They have no problem blasting small teams like Sylacauga in 5A but are scared of playing mid size to big 5A teams.

FWIW St Paul’s is 6-4 against Spanish Fort in the past 11 years. So you tell me if they aren’t more than capable of beating a Mobile public school.

TomFromBama · May 25, 2018

81usaf92 said:
I think teams like St Paul’s and Briarwood can all cry me a river. They get what they deserve when they basically can pick and choose players and wave tuition to do it. It’s basically recruiting.

St Paul’s wasn’t crying this song when they owned the Mobile area to include Spanish Fort. It wasn’t until Spanish Fort was thumping them that those obnoxious brats started crying foul. St Paul’s crying about competition is utterly ridiculous especially coming from them.

FWIW St Paul’s is 6-4 against Spanish Fort in the past 11 years. So you tell me if they aren’t more than capable of beating a Mobile public school.

Among those 4 losses was the game I attended at Spanish Fort.

I've been to a fair number of HS football games in my life, and I've only ONE TIME attended a HS game (in ANY SPORT) where the home fans did not applaud (even give a mild "gold clap") when an opposing player was seriously hurt during a game. And I'm talking about DEAD SILENCE - NONE - NADA - NO ONE - not even the parents gave a "golf clap" - and I was sitting on the "home" side, even though SPS was the visiting team - so I can say this with absolute certainty.

Give you ONE guess where that was.

So you can spare me the "obnoxious brats" cracks.

How about you answer my question!
Riddle me this, Batman - would you support the same sort of handicap for UA???
After all, the Tide has "owned" the SEC and the NCAA for a DECADE now- and to a MUCH greater extent that SPS has ever "owned" the Mobile area.

Would you support THAT????

We all know the answer there, don't we????

RedBank · May 25, 2018

I think the multiplier is very fair since they have an unfair recruiting advantage. Remove the scholarships then remove the multiplier.

And it's not only in football. The surrounding public schools often loose their best players in all sports to these private schools that offer them scholarships.

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RedBank · May 25, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Among those 4 losses was the game I attended at Spanish Fort.

I've been to a fair number of HS football games in my life, and I've only ONE TIME attended a HS game (in ANY SPORT) where the home fans did not applaud (even give a mild "gold clap") when an opposing player was seriously hurt during a game. And I'm talking about DEAD SILENCE - NONE - NADA - NO ONE - not even the parents gave a "golf clap" - and I was sitting on the "home" side, even though SPS was the visiting team - so I can say this with absolute certainty.

Give you ONE guess where that was.

So you can spare me the "obnoxious brats" cracks.

How about you answer my question!
Riddle me this, Batman - would you support the same sort of handicap for UA???
After all, the Tide has "owned" the SEC and the NCAA for a DECADE now- and to a MUCH greater extent that SPS has ever "owned" the Mobile area.

Would you support THAT????

We all know the answer there, don't we????

Alabama doesn't compete against lower division teams that don't give scholarships.

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mdb-tpet · May 25, 2018

"Rich kid's parents in a private school don't like something so they pull out lawyers and sue the cash-strapped high school athletic system". More information on the 9:00 Newcast...

Not to be too cynical, but certainly there's a better way to fix this "problem" than suing in federal court. Surely you have an axe to grind over the lack of respect of their crowd, and the public school team's crowd certainly has some long term grievances against the private school system.

I'll stay out of this and watch the lawyers win and everyone else lose.

81usaf92 · May 25, 2018

TomFromBama said:
Among those 4 losses was the game I attended at Spanish Fort.

I've been to a fair number of HS football games in my life, and I've only ONE TIME attended a HS game (in ANY SPORT) where the home fans did not applaud (even give a mild "gold clap") when an opposing player was seriously hurt during a game. And I'm talking about DEAD SILENCE - NONE - NADA - NO ONE - not even the parents gave a "golf clap" - and I was sitting on the "home" side, even though SPS was the visiting team - so I can say this with absolute certainty.

Give you ONE guess where that was.

So you can spare me the "obnoxious brats" cracks.

How about you answer my question!
Riddle me this, Batman - would you support the same sort of handicap for UA???
After all, the Tide has "owned" the SEC and the NCAA for a DECADE now- and to a MUCH greater extent that SPS has ever "owned" the Mobile area.

Would you support THAT????

We all know the answer there, don't we????

Whatever dude. St Paul’s has a pretty bad reputation of obnoxious fans and they’ve lived up to that reputation in every game of every sport I’ve seen them in.

Since 06 St Paul’s is 6-4 against Spanish Fort 2-2 in the last 4 meetings so I would say they are plenty good enough to compete with them with their RECRUITED players. So spare me the fairness argument. Truth is St Paul’s wants them to be the Spanish Fort that they owned in the late 2000’s and not the team they are now.

ETA. I’m sorry for the “brat” comment it’s just every baseball and football game at a St Paul’s game I’ve been to has been a bad experience with their fans. Rude and obnoxious. And every time it seems that the AHSAA moves up a border line big school ( like Homewood) or a recruiting private school they all flip out and whine. I’m in favor of the 7A system because it keeps everything more fair instead of the “how to we dodge Hoover” system which put several big metro schools and private schools into regions with vastly smaller and less talented smaller county schools. For example, Sylacauga from 96-00 was a deep playoff team, but then we started getting the Ben Russell’s, the Homewoods, and the Briarwoods of the state trying to get out of 6A to avoid playing Hoover. It was a vastly unfair system and our program suffered from it because any good player we had was in danger of being snagged by Briarwood. I think this new system is the most fair Alabama high school sports has ever been.

bamamick · May 25, 2018

This doesn't surprise me. Tiny Mobile Christian will get bumped up to 4A next year because they won the 3A state title. Now, there's not as much of a gap between 2A and 4A as there is 5A and 7A (I don't think), so maybe it's not that big a deal for them (and their coach said yesterday it wasn't), but it seems unfair to continually penalize a program for being good. Mobile Christian is really a 2A school by size.

I understand the thing about recruiting, and anyone who denies that many of these private schools recruit is kidding themselves, but I just don't like any rule that paints with so wide a brush that you can get a program, like say Leroy, with their dominance in football and baseball over just a short period of three or four years, can be made to play schools with much deeper pockets for facilities and coaches because they had a confluence of great athletes at one time in their history.

I assume that once you start taking it on the chin they will allow you to drop down to where your attendance says you should be?

rtr

RTR91 · May 25, 2018

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but the lawsuit isn't over the multiplier. It's about being pushed up another classification just because you win.

Crimson1967 · May 25, 2018

RedBank said:
Alabama doesn't compete against lower division teams that don't give scholarships.

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Alabama can recruit and sign whoever they want. A better analogy would be if we could only sign players who lived in a certain radius of Tuscaloosa but Vandy could sign whoever they want.

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81usaf92 · May 25, 2018

Crimson1967 said:
Alabama can recruit and sign whoever they want. A better analogy would be if we could only sign players who lived in a certain radius of Tuscaloosa but Vandy could sign whoever they want.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or just point out that IMG dressed like 50 kids went on the road and handled Hoover last year. Or that IMG hasn’t lost in like 5 years against big schools. St Paul’s and Briarwood are IMG to a lesser degree in that they are in a talent rich area and can recruit. I think it’s pretty telling at how much of an advantage both schools have when they can be penciled in for the semi finals every year in football.

So I’m strongly in favor of the British soccer league method for private schools because I think it’s more unfair for public schools to practically playing junior college competition.

81usaf92 · May 25, 2018

RTR91 said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but the lawsuit isn't over the multiplier. It's about being pushed up another classification just because you win.

You are correct

bamamc1 · May 25, 2018

Kerrion Johnson looked pretty large playing 3A ball just a few years ago at Madison Academy. (Recruited there)

rgw · May 25, 2018

I saw Kerryon Johnson against my old HS in his junior year for the state championship in their classification. It wasn't even a fair fight. They could run inside or outside zone for effective to explosive yardage almost every play. It wasn't just because of KJ either. Their second string tailback was just as effective.

Private schools shouldn't even compete against public schools in my humble opinion. If you want to buy kids and their momma and daddies too (lets be real) then go beat up on each other. Everyone else can play the honest game.

RTR91 · May 25, 2018

rgw said:
I saw Kerryon Johnson against my old HS in his junior year for the state championship in their classification. It wasn't even a fair fight. They could run inside or outside zone for effective to explosive yardage almost every play. It wasn't just because of KJ either. Their second string tailback was just as effective.

Private schools shouldn't even compete against public schools in my humble opinion. If you want to buy kids and their momma and daddies too (lets be real) then go beat up on each other. Everyone else can play the honest game.

Who is this "everyone else" you speak of?

Skeeterpop · May 25, 2018

If anyone thinks public schools don't recruit they are kidding themselves.

I have no issue with private schools recruiting. This is BS for making them play this high above their enrollment.

This is only an issue because they are winning against bigger schools and they have their feelings hurt.

A lesser example would be to tell Alabama since you have won 5 of the last 9 Championships. Going forward you must play 12 Power 5 teams in the regular season.

81usaf92 · May 25, 2018

rgw said:
I saw Kerryon Johnson against my old HS in his junior year for the state championship in their classification. It wasn't even a fair fight. They could run inside or outside zone for effective to explosive yardage almost every play. It wasn't just because of KJ either. Their second string tailback was just as effective.

Private schools shouldn't even compete against public schools in my humble opinion. If you want to buy kids and their momma and daddies too (lets be real) then go beat up on each other. Everyone else can play the honest game.

I kinda agree. I wish private schools would do like IMG does or just force all private schools to play in one league. I think the 7A classification made things more fair with preventing teams like Homewood and Ben Russell from running to 5A to avoid Hoover but they needed to solve the private school question. Which I this new rule helps in a big way.

rgw · May 25, 2018

RTR91 said:
Who is this "everyone else" you speak of?

Public schools. I just find it kinda troubling because most these private schools exist in the middle-tier classifications where the majority of the public school members are county high schools that aren't really going to 'croot someone within the frameworks a public school can because they're just about the only school in the county anyway. It simply isn't fair when you have an academy near a major population center than can cull the cream of the crop going against county high schools.

CrimsonProf · May 25, 2018

81usaf92 said:
I think teams like St Paul’s and Briarwood can all cry me a river. They get what they deserve when they basically can pick and choose players and wave tuition to do it. It’s basically recruiting.

St Paul’s wasn’t crying this song when they owned the Mobile area to include Spanish Fort. It wasn’t until Spanish Fort was thumping them that those obnoxious brats started crying foul. St Paul’s crying about competition is utterly ridiculous especially coming from them. They have no problem blasting small teams like Sylacauga in 5A but are scared of playing mid size to big 5A teams.

FWIW St Paul’s is 6-4 against Spanish Fort in the past 11 years. So you tell me if they aren’t more than capable of beating a Mobile public school.

Wasn't Spanish Fort the school that cheered an alleged rapist?

RTR91 · May 25, 2018

rgw said:
Public schools. I just find it kinda troubling because most these private schools exist in the middle-tier classifications where the majority of the public school members are county high schools that aren't really going to 'croot someone within the frameworks a public school can because they're just about the only school in the county anyway. It simply isn't fair when you have an academy near a major population center than can cull the cream of the crop going against county high schools.

You believe this, don't you?

St.Paul's Sues AHSAA over Discriminatory Rule.

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