Almost There

[playedalittle]

Bisonguy06 please explain your exemption of Williston Trinity?

[heimer]

Nice Milnor reference. For every Milnor, I'll show you 10 Richlands who fight for one spot in regionals every year because of Central Cass, Oak Grove, and Kindred.

Ooh, I forgot, we don't care about regionals. Just the koom-bye-yah at the end.

And your latest spin: West Fargo and Trinity Christian play for separate and the same trophies. as I clearly explained, each division has its own champion. They do play for class title. If you think that's not good enough, tell Alsen their Class C titles were worthless.

But I'm not above compromise. Should the Board of Directors determine that a school of no boundaries does not have sufficient enrollment to compete, the Board may vote to move that school to the B division in favor if the next highest enrolled school.

We will let numbers and humans make the call together. Can't beat that system.

[heimer]

At work, so kinda working between things here, but here's more on this plan:

Top division regions are as listed on the football plan.

Bottom division regions:

East: Wahpeton, Valley City, Shanley, Grafton, Central Cass, Kindred, Oak Grove, Turtle Mountain

West: St. Marys, Beulah, Watford City, Trinity, Minot Ryan, Trinity Christian, Minot Our Redeemers, Standing Rock.

If you get rid of Trinity Christian and Our Redeemers, Hillsboro-Central Valley and Des Lacs-Burlington, take their place. Des Lacs-Burlington joins the west, Belcourt moves west, and Hillsboro-Central Valley go into the east, and both schools are temporary. Once West Fargo and Bismarck's new schools come on line. Then, H-CV and DL-B are out, the new West Fargo school and the new Bismarck school join the top division, and Devils Lake and Jamestown join the lower division. Devils Lake joins the east, Jamestown the west.

[Run4Fun2009]

Stanley has roughly 205 students in grades 9-12...Des Lacs-Burlington has roughly 167 in 9-12.

Bottineau, Hazen & Carrington have larger enrollment numbers also then DL-B...so IF this was considered I would think that one of those 4 would be bumped up before DL-B.

Honestly...I don't disagree much with your plan though; it would be interesting...but I just don't see the NDHSAA moving in this direction.

[Bisonguy06]

Bisonguy06 please explain your exemption of Williston Trinity?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Williston Trinity Christian's high school enrollment is around 60 students in grades 9-12 or roughly 15 students per grade. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they are struggling to keep their doors open and struggling to find the numbers to sustain their athletic programs. They are among the smallest of the small class B schools, and they would not be competitive at a higher level.

[Bisonguy06]

Nice Milnor reference. For every Milnor, I'll show you 10 Richlands who fight for one spot in regionals every year because of Central Cass, Oak Grove, and Kindred.

Ooh, I forgot, we don't care about regionals. Just the koom-bye-yah at the end.

And your latest spin: West Fargo and Trinity Christian play for separate and the same trophies. as I clearly explained, each division has its own champion. They do play for class title. If you think that's not good enough, tell Alsen their Class C titles were worthless.

But I'm not above compromise. Should the Board of Directors determine that a school of no boundaries does not have sufficient enrollment to compete, the Board may vote to move that school to the B division in favor if the next highest enrolled school.

We will let numbers and humans make the call together. Can't beat that system.

I'll show you a state tournament final four of Milnor, Four Winds, LaMoure, and Trenton. Koom bye yah, my Lord... Koom bye yah!

[heimer]

Your four teams to the countless teams kept out on both the boys and girls and boys side of the ball by bigs and parochials. How many teams did that Minot Ryan team eliminate in the district and regionals? Central Cass? Grafton?

A lot of schools paying the price in February for your koom-bye-yah in March. That may have been your weakest argument to date.

[Bisonguy06]

Milnor got past Central Cass, Oak Grove and Kindred to get to state.
Trenton's region includes Watford, Stanley and New Town.
The smalls can compete with the bigs.

[heimer]

So youre saying Milnor beat three bigs that overwhelmed Richland, FSHP, Northern Cass, and Enderlin to advance to regionals.

ooh dang it, I forgot, getting to regionals doesn't count. Koom-bye-yah.

[wolves65]

This is a never ending and old argument. Explain why it would then make sense for Jamestown and Kindred to be in the same division? It makes sense because it gets valley city out of class A. It has nothing to do with whether Richland has a chance at getting to the regions. Why don't we just have the shanley, oak grove type teams play with 4 and play 11 man football with 9 players to level the playing field. Lets use girls basketball for example maple Valley beat Valley City this season. What division do you move Maple Valley to so the playing field is even every year?

[balla45]

@Heimer, I could go on and on and on using logical arguments to defend and advance my position. However, I do feel that it is fairly futile. You haven't watched a lot of hoops this year, and with what you have seen, what you are saying makes sense in your mind, so I will not continue to argue my position.

[Bisonguy06]

Four teams get to play on TV on Friday and Saturday night at state. On the boys side, those four teams were Milnor, Four Winds, LaMoure, and Trenton.

Every big class B school was watching at the Dome or watching on TV.
Every parochial school was watching at the Dome or watching on TV.

How can you throw a pity party for Enderlin and FSHP while they are watching schools of their exact same size playing on TV for a state championship? How can a small Region 1 school claim that the system is unfair in the same year that another small Region 1 school won the state championship?

[cometdad]

Bison Guy/Run - not sure I buy into the Super 2 (huge adjustments and we all know the NDHSAA makes glaciers seem fast) but just because there wasn't a school from a city playing the final night of boys doesn't mitigate the fact that there are some distinct advantages for city kids. Wonder if anyone has ever compiled a list of state tourney berths and looked at percentages - if you have 150 teams in B and two of the teams (average ?) each year of the final eight are from Bismarck, Minot, Dickinson, etc. that would definitely be a skewed percentage. What would be your thoughts on a sports co-op situation for the Shiloh/St Marys example? I'm sure the parochial schools wouldn't be for it but I sure think it would help cure the BS transfers that always crop up (please note I didn't say recruiting - I've never bought that recruiting happens and think it's just some athletes crazy parents that cause this problem).

Quick addition - not a forced co-op. School's choice is play "A" as is or co-op to be able to compete (which is what is happening to smaller schools in football).

[Bisonguy06]

I have never denied that parochial schools have some built-in advantages, but I think you're smart to avoid the 'r' word. It's not automatically "recruiting" when a family makes a move and transfers into any school system, whether its private or public.

The decision to co-op should be purely a local decision made by the two school boards. I'd say that whether we're talking about private or public schools. It can't be mandated.

[thundarsdaddy]

Someone had asked in an earlier post, about "why did the girls basketball move to the winter season". I was on our local school board in the late 90's when this became an issue, and the biggest reason we were told was because of a few Volleyball parents in the state who felt their daughters were getting shortchanged on potential college scholarship opportunities as compared to the other states.
These parents threatened to sue the NDHSAA and certain Schools if the season was NOT changed to make a fair playing field when it came to these scholarships.
Personally I felt, let these folks sue and see how far they get? But the people in charge caved in, and in the meantime we literally have what we have now, as pointed out in all the posts here!
To me the worst thing thats happened is having the class B girls, not just in Fargo(The Dome is not a good place for this particular Tourney), but its having the Class B girls come AFTER the Boys!! I am not discriminating but many fans across the State of ND, simply quit following H.S. B-Ball once the Class B boys is over!! Its similar to when a school schedules a girls game on the same date as a boy game against the same opponents school. If you play the girls game last, many fans get up and leave once the boys game is over! I find that to be totally distasteful, but yet its reality!! All of this because a few parents threatened to sue???

[The Schwab]

When we are talking about enrollment at the state class B, for all three days (not just the championship night) I would say the 2 schools with the largest fan followings were Napoleon and Benson County, two small schools, and what I noticed was that about half of the Central Cass and Bishop Ryan fan following wasn't there for the 3rd place game, however if you had 8 small schools there I would guarantee the place would have been packed (especially in all 4 teams who were playing in the evening session on Saturday).

Someone asked the question "How is it fair for Kindred (maybe it was a different team) to be in the same class with West Fargo (maybe a different team)"? I would answer as being more fair then it is for lets say New England, Mott-Regent or any of the other small schools in Region 7 to compete Beulah, Trinity and Hazen year in and year out.

And I pose the question- How fair is it to expect a school with 50 kids in the high school to play a school with 200 kids in the high school, in a regional semi-final, on the bigger schools home floor (where this team has practiced on countless times and played a ton of games on)? How about if we throw in the fact that the people working the game have ties to the bigger school?

Do small schools have a shot to make it to the class B state tournament in the current format? Absolutely they do. Can a small school compete year in and year out with one of the "big B's"? Absolutely not. Is our system completely broken? No it isn't. Does our system need to be adjusted? Yes! Is Heimers idea a plan that could work? I would love to be a fly on the wall if it ever got brought up at an NDHSAA meeting.

[Flip]

MN is switching boys and girls seasons the next 3 years. it will be interesting to see if this changes anything.

[classB4ever]

Personally, I like Heimer's plan. Of all the plans that have been brought up in the past on this site, I think his has the most merit.
One of the few arguments I have heard so far is that attendance might go down. I disagree. I copied this quote from another thread in class b boys.

Indy5 wrote in regards to Dickinson Trinity: "student body isn't that big. It's a medium sized school AT BEST. I don't think the size of the town has merit either. Most of the town is DHS supporters, or they don't care about high school sports at all. With private schools, the school's fan base is it's fan base. There aren't outside supporters from the town."
I believe this to be true and also believe that a lot of teams that have not been to state for a while would "lock up the town" to support their teams at the tourney.

[classB4ever]

Wonder if anyone has ever compiled a list of state tourney berths and looked at percentages - if you have 150 teams in B and two of the teams (average ?) each year of the final eight are from Bismarck, Minot, Dickinson, etc. that would definitely be a skewed percentage.

cometdad, I have ran those numbers. I believe since 1996 with a 150 cutoff the percentages are roughly:
Small schools: 46%
Big Schools: 28%
Parochial/Private: 26%

[NDplayin]

I, for one, can not philosophically agree with the idea of a "Super2" for one very simple reason. If schools within a certain enrollment range belong together at the state tournament level, they belong together at the regional tournament level, district tournament level (if their is one) and the entire regular season. If they are separated at all those other levels, then they should be separated at the state tournament level as well.

I love a David vs. Goliath, love it. It's the most exciting moments in sports... WHEN it naturally occurs. What is being discussed here is a manufactured David vs. Goliath. You're putting a group of schools in a different league, division, conference, whatever you want to call it based on their enrollment bracket... and then after you find out which are most successful from that league, removing them and throwing them in another enrollment bracket just for a week.

Even worse, you are intentionally putting those schools on separate sides of the bracket in that tournament so that you can save your manufactured David vs. Goliath match-ups for one grand Koom-Bye-Yah on that Saturday night (yes, I borrowed that language because it applies much more accurately to this plan than anything it was originally applied to).

I hate to break the news to some of you. High School Sports is not about your entertainment level, and the systems by which High School Sports are controlled should not be about making guarantees that we get a certain sized school vs. a certain different sized school just so we can sell more tickets, get our favorite type of fan-base in the seats, and give all the neutral fans an easily defined underdog to cheer for. It should be about which plan would be most right and most fair for the high school participants who dedicate themselves to the season and nothing else. If all we want to do is manufacture a David vs Goliath by keeping enrollment brackets separate in one tournament and then putting them together in the next tournament but making sure to keep them in separate brackets, then we might as well call ourselves Professional Wrestling and invite Vince McMahon to replace Lee Timmerman for the broadcast.

For the record, I do not support our current system 100%. If you follow the thread I started on here a month or so ago, you know that very well. However, at least our current system clearly states that schools in this certain enrollment bracket belong together and schools in a different enrollment bracket belong together. Agreeing or disagreeing with the numbers that define those brackets is one thing... saying that we set up some different brackets but then suddenly jam a couple of them together the final week of the year just so we can come together on some Saturday night and sing Koom-Bye-Yah for three unearned, manufactured David vs. Goliath match-ups is totally disregarding what is right and fair for the student athletes of the state in favor of what has the most potential to entertain you the last three games of the year.

[cometdad]

cometdad, I have ran those numbers. I believe since 1996 with a 150 cutoff the percentages are roughly:
Small schools: 46%
Big Schools: 28%
Parochial/Private: 26%[/quote]

Thanks NDplayin - roughly kind of what I was getting at (historical chance of making it to the state tourney in class B). These numbers are rough guestimates based on your percentages

Small schools: 1 in 20
Big schools: 1 in 10
Parochial/Private: 1 in 5

Think this is what NDHSAA needs to see to push for implementing a change - instead I'm afraid all they ever hear is the same tired arguments about "recruiting/big school transfers/blah-blah-blah". If the disparity is proven to be as big as it looks, maybe they'll at least consider ideas instead of just voting on the three class system every four years.

[B-oldtimer]

The cutoff for small class b school should be around 100 not 150 i looked couple of years ago and schools under 100 were nearly 50% of the schools. Also this should be 9 through 12 enrollement alot of figures you see are based on 7 through 12 enrollment. Heimer plan has some merit and we need to do something with basketball and doing nothing will just weakent class b tournament and intersest in class b basketball. The administrators, coaches, and activitiers association are so afraid of changing anything that they might kill golden goose that it dying slow death until it becomes a crisis. The politics is that large schools have had way to much influence in the activities association because they don't want any change. These large class b schools majority of them were once small class a schools where it once in generation they made it to state tournament just like it is now for the small class b schools but now under b they make it quite regularily and they don't want to see that changed. If you look back to 70's we had that happening in region 2 where we had some largest class b schools and they did dominate at state level for number of years. Also parochials schools need a different level of competition becasue there defacto spinoff of large class a schools towns where the abundance of talented players seek playing time where ever. The swab had it right small class b schools if they make it are ones that bring vibrant and big crowds to the tournaments becasue its something special. If you look at class b tournaments now attendance is down from 15 years ago and doesn't garner attention it once did and reason for that i beleive these small town teams and rural area's have gotten tired of seeing large schools and parochials at state tournament. A friend of mine said couple years ago it was like watching small class a or old northstar tournament.

[classB4ever]

cometdad, I have ran those numbers. I believe since 1996 with a 150 cutoff the percentages are roughly:
Small schools: 46%
Big Schools: 28%
Parochial/Private: 26%

Small schools: 1 in 20
Big schools: 1 in 10
Parochial/Private: 1 in 5
[/quote]

I did this a while back and was based on approximately 110 schools. The break down was 25 schools over 150. 6 parochial/private. 79 below 150. Went back and added up all state appearances. So if you look at it this way, it breaks down as follows:
Small schools => 79/110 = 71.8% and attend at around 46%
Bigger schools => 25/110 = 22.7% and attend at around 28%
Parochial/private schools => 6/110 = 5.45% and attend around 26%
FYI

[ndlionsfan]

Hard to justify 3 class or super 2 idea if your numbers are correct. Big schools account for 23% of the teams and make 28% of the state appearances is a good balance. People may not agree that 150 is a big school, but if you look at the two ideas I don't think an enrollment of 150 would put you in the middle "area" of either. Kind of crazy that the private schools are only 5% of the teams but make up 26% of the state appearances.

[classB4ever]

Big schools account for 23% of the teams and make 28% of the state appearances is a good balance.

That number surprised me as well.