Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington made the rare move of hiring a woman, Natalie Randolph, to coach its football team.

Given that it’s perfectly acceptable for men to coach women’s volleyball and softball, we should be seeing a lot more female coaches in charge of men’s teams.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported that Leach locked sophomore receiver Adam James in a closet because he thought the player was faking a concussion.

I’m really having problems envisioning the scene.  Not the getting the kid into the closet part but what the other adults at the scene were doing. Did anyone suggest that this might not be the best way to handle the situation or were they all thinking, “damn, I’m going to use this technique once I’m head coach.” Or maybe they were the sergeant in Hogan’s Heroes “I see nothing!” More likely, it was “the idiot did it this time, that’s Craig James’ son, hmmm, maybe I’ll have a shot at his job.” Regardless of which thoughts were actually present at the time, I think this shows that Leach has some serious management issues.

Still, while the vote is a merely a first step, it is a significant first step, one that could have ramifications beyond the football field.

Academics represent the foundation of a university, but athletic programs add prestige, and prestige, in turn, enhances academics, creating a positive, vibrant cycle.

Football programs also help attract students from beyond the area, a phenomenon that could help UTSA grow from a commuter school to a higher tier university.

Yup, all those kids want to get into Rice because of its football team. And everyone knows what the football team has done for Harvard’s prestige and it’s ability to attract students from across the country.

Certainly a football team can help strengthen the sense of community among the student body. That, in of itself, is a good thing. But as far as growing into a “higher tier university,” the students could have taken the same money and spent it on National Merit Scholars and really reached a higher tier in the ways that matter.

But no one pays to watch National Merit Scholars work, do they? If a school wants a football team, fine. Just spare us the academic justifications for the program. Oh wait, I forget, we’re in Texas. Never mind.

Technorati Tags: UTSA, football, athletic fee, University of Texas at San Antonio

It’s not that he would have a chance to learn to play baseball, it’s that he is already good enough to play–the high school isn’t going to waste it’s time teaching kids a sport when they need their team to win.

And this is the only reason people can come up with for him to go to high school. So what does that mean?

Texas District Tournament Schedules

2007 City Championship Tournaments

The results so far are:

• 10 and Under: McAllister Park National
• 12 and Under: McAllister Park National
• Little League: McAllister Park National
• Juniors: McAllister Park National
• Seniors: Alamo Heights
• Softball Minors: McAllister Park American
• Little League Softball: Northside Suburban
• Softball Juniors: McAllister Park

Notice a pattern here? McAllister Park is so big, even split into American and Nationals, it still dominates everyone else. And just to make sure that McAllister has every chance possible to make it into the tournament, teams from their two leagues do not play each other at the bottom of the brackets. This courtesy certainly didn’t extend to other districts last year with two teams in the tournament.

Now this situation, McAllister being at least twice the size of a good many other leagues in the district, has been going on for some time. Even if officials higher up in the Little League organization actually believe the population numbers coming out District 19*, surely they might suspect something is not quite right?

Apparently, it’s more important to some people that McAllister shows up in the state tournaments than providing the optimal playing experience for as many Little Leaguers in San Antonio as possible. Never mind that McAllister has been known to turn away people because they reached their “limit” and deny them the chance to play in another league. What seems to guide the district policy is to ensure that McAllister Park has the best all-star team possible.

This seems to be at odds with the Little League policy of encouraging leagues to have as many players as possible making the all-stars. According to what we have been told, Little League will allow an all-star team to have three coaches in the dugout only if there are 13 or more players on the team. Otherwise, they can only have two which would require a player as one of the base coaches. This is supposedly to encourage leagues to put more kids on the teams. If McAllister park was split up, it would at least double the number of all-star positions available.

But then they might not be assured of dominating tournaments in the district. This is causing problems beyond their league since other leagues are considering merging so that they’re better able to compete with McAllister Park. So instead of having three all-star teams, they will be consolidated into one all-star team that can compete against McAllister.

Ultimately, this focus on having a “quality” all-star team from San Antonio is hurting the district as whole. Yet nothing is being done. I guess we know what’s important in District 19.

*Once an area reaches a certain population level, leagues are supposed to be broken up. Despite the fact that McAllister covers the fastestgrowing area of San Antonio, it somehow reports that it remains under this limit. However, in order to make it believable, the district hasto make sure the population being reported for other leagues “correlates”with McAllister’s. That means smaller leagues are reporting smaller populations than what actually exists. It would be interesting to see the reported base populations by the various leagues and see just how closely they reflect the city’s actual population.

Technorati Tags: Little League, San Antonio, Texas District 19, Baseball, McAllister Park, McAllister Park Little League

Our manager kept stats on playing time and made it available to the parents. Even though the difference between the player with the lowest percentage of playing time, 69%, and the highest 78% (excluding pitchers and catchers) would be only ten innings over 100 innings played, parents were still not happy. One parent, whose son was at the low end complained about how playing time was allocated at the end of the season and during the tournament. Our last three games ended up being only four innings. With substitution rules, that means kids who sat the bench had to sit the “half” the game which wouldn’t be the case if they had played six or seven innings. Never mind the fact that their kids would have had even less playing time on the other team, the parents were still not happy.

These are the same parents that don’t bother to help out with the required team concession stand duties. On the day of the last game, they needed help from 6:00 to 8:00 in the concession stand and our game started at 8:15. I was the only person from our team in the concession stand and at 7:00 our parents started showing up. Of course, after the first one bought something from the concession stand, for some reason no one else seemed interested in buying until after I left.

I really don’t expect a lot of help from the parents but this was pathetic. I understand that when both parents work and are trying to manage the various activities for two or three kids, they don’t have a lot of time. But I’m talking about parents that only have one at home and just can’t seem to find the time to make it out to the ball park. I would probably feel differently if I knew they were Girl Scout leaders or working with the PTA or something. But I’ve sat with these parents all season and I’ll I’ve heard them talk about are what tv shows they’re missing.

I really do think coaches need to spread out the playing time among all the players and that too many coaches are focused only on winning. However, when only eight people (all league board members) show up to help maintain the fields out of a league of over 400 kids and when parents hide in the stand rather than spend 30 minutes helping in the concession stand, it starts getting hard to feel sorry for the parents.

So do you think that the advanced placement teachers have a spring camp for those planning on taking ap classes in the fall? I know band is pretty involved, do they have spring practices for the football marching season? How about the debate team?

My contact with high school athletics is only tangential in that I see it effecting everything else in the community that has to do with sports. Do high school athletics truly develop the athletic potential of students? No. What they do is generate businesses for various private athletic training programs. You want your daughter to make the volleyball team, better have her do some strength training at one of these private businesses. Your son wants to play baseball? Better get him some hitting lessons because everyone else who wants to make the team does.

High school athletics is in no way a level playing field with everyone having a shot at the team. How can it be when not only does it cost money to play on the team, it costs money to prepare to even have the chance to play on the team?

Nor is this about having “well rounded” student-athletes. How many 5a football players are involved in any other extracurricular activities? How does demanding total time commitment to one activity better prepare our students? Ultimately, high school athletics is about exclusivity and it’s affects reach far beyond the school walls.

Texas is one of only three states with separate athletic championships for public and private schools. TAPPS has about 250 member schools. The UIL has about 1,300.

Public school officials and state lawmakers have long fought to keep private schools out of the UIL, fearing the private schools could recruit athletes and bend other rules.

Now I know that Texas has a long and proud tradition of doing things it’s own way but would it be too much to ask how it is that 47 other states are able to manage combining public and private school championships? Probably. You may as well ask Texans to evaluate the actual benefits of high school athletics to the public systems while you’re at it.

Although the standard requires students to earn at least a 70 in every subject to participate in extracurricular events, lawmakers authorized school principals to exempt students in honors and advanced placement courses so they wouldn’t be discouraged from taking tougher classes.

When the rule was revised in 1995, the Legislature opened a loophole in the law that gave school districts wide latitude in deciding what courses could be exempted from no-pass, no-play. That led to exemptions for classes such as jewelry-making, photography, professional baking, choir and theater production.

“It turned out that school districts were exempting courses that aren’t tough but are called honors classes so they don’t count against the no-pass, no-play statute,” said Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, author of the bill and vice chairman of the education committee.

The Austin school district, for example, exempts 166 courses, including auto repair, cooking and hospitality.

Hmmm, do you think this is because students are abusing their eligibility for debate by getting exempt from classes?

The classification system that long has arranged Texas high school football programs by enrollment size for the purpose of competitive parity may be on the verge of its most radical alteration ever.

University Interscholastic League athletic director Dr. Charles Breithaupt said his organization’s legislative council will be presented in June with a formal proposal that would carve all UIL classifications into two divisions for football competition only.

The proposal, Breithaupt said, would achieve an even higher degree of competitive balance by grouping more school of similar size together.

Frontpage, above the fold news for the San Antonio Express News.