Mister B wrote:The gate at an away came means nothing to the visiting team. It is the gate when the other team comes to your place that matters.
School budgets are stretched. ADs are scrambling to cut their costs. Some schools have gone to a pay to participate to help fund athletics and other programs outside the regular school day i.e. band. It is only a matter of time before you see the price of a ticket going up again. I remember when the price to a varsity contest was $2 for adults and $1 for students. Our school is at $5 and $3. Others are at $5 for all. I have ran across a couple that are $6 at the gate, presale is cheaper.
Cutting costs, mainly for transportation, is high on the list. Some districts bill their athletic departments for the transportation for contests. Add in the fact that today's student needs more credits to graduate than they did 30 years ago and that the state department of education requires every student to pass classes like algebra, (which they didn't 5 years ago and chemistry will be the next class all will have to pass) causes many students to need more study time. Because of this, travel time needs to be reduced for the student athlete.
The one down side to most conferences is that they want all schools to play each other from 7th grade up. I think it is ok to transport 9-12 graders a 100 miles for a game but not 7th and 8th graders. Junior high games should be closer, especially in southeastern Ohio where larger schools are spread out. A few of the larger schools will have 2 junior highs so this reduces the talent pool enough that they could play closer, smaller schools to reduce cost and travel. Even larger schools will have split junior high teams, which I think Marietta does. Split your talent evenly between the 2 teams and play smaller schools that are closer. Also, parents of these students like to see the children play the games, something you can't do when you get off work at 5pm and the game starts at 5:30 and you have to travel nearly 2 hours for a game.
Schools have to start thinking outside the box to provide better chances for the students. Schools in S.E. Ohio (especially the larger ones) are at a disadvantage compared to the schools around Columbus, Cincinnati and other larger Ohio towns that have multipule large schools to compete against.
Marietta, like Athens, made the right choice for their student/athletes by going to another conference that limits their travel to a maximum of 90 miles. Plus, the ECOL is basically an interstate travel league. Will they get beat badly in some sports? Yes, but they will compete well in others. You can't be the top dog in every sport.
Great post!
I agree with what you said there.
I think it is insane to think that every time a school makes a decision about changing leagues or adding and dropping teams from there schedule it's always about wins and losses. It is true that in most cases football carries the athletic departments at most schools, but to say that Marietta is leaving the league just because of football is crazy. They are doing what a lot of schools all over the country are doing and that is trying to cut costs. With the cost of everything going up and education dollars shrinking it is hard to justify going to Chilli for Basketball and football, and whatever other sport you can think of. Now I don't want to get into the old debate about how these schools knew before hand they would have to travel because that has been beaten to death. Bottom line is they are doing whats best for there kids. I wish them a lot of luck in the future.
